Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

An uninhabited planet, frozen to its core, hung in a wide orbit around the dying sun of a small galaxy Arcee had never heard of and never wanted to return to. In the autobot map database, the planet's registered designation was a long series of numbers. It held no importance or value. The only reason Arcee and her autobot team were there in the first place was bad luck; a space skirmish with a decepticon ship forced the autobots to crash-land onto the nearest hospitable planet. Bumblebee was hardly able to glean any information about the one they chose before the ship's systems shut down and the autobots were forced the evacuate, fleeing a decepticon pursuit. Bee only said that there was an intricately connected series of ice tunnels underneath the planet's surface that would provide "good enough" cover.

There certainly were a lot of tunnels. Arcee and her team had been stuck inside them for scarcely an hour and she hated them already. She hated ice. Her wheels, trustworthy under any other circumstance, were made unsteady by the frozen terrain.

With Hot Rod and Bumblebee at her side, Arcee split off from the main group to scout the area. The slippery ice, the looming threat of decepticons, and the recent crash experience worked together to form one steady processor ache that had her trigger-servo twitchy.

So Arcee did not have her usual professional cool when, behind her, Bumblebee let out a started beep!

Arcee whipped around, gun ready, but there were no decepticons waiting to blow their helms off. There was a sight much more disturbing, instead-- a tall mech frozen deep into a wall of ice, the light in his optics extinguished into empty glass.

"Oh no," Bumblebee vented.

The edges of the silhouette were made blurry by the bubbles in the ice, but Arcee could zoom in her optics and make out the poor mech's grotesque expression. He was caught mid-run and mid-scream. A black faceplate and helm contrasted against the rest of the frame's red, blue, and silver. Triangular wings stretched out from behind the mech's shoulders and a domed cockpit of yellow glass protruded slightly from his chassis. The mech was tall, almost as tall as Optimus, and looked like he could pack a punch, but for all the height he didn't have much mass. He was built with aerodynamics a priority, like a racer. Like Hot Rod or Arcee, except this mech was built for the skies.

"A seeker," Arcee said, letting the barrel of her gun fall. "You don't see many of those anymore."

Hot Rod revved his engines, forcing as much heat as he could radiating off of his frame. "Well, let's help the guy out!"

Arcee pursed her lips, but didn't stop Hot Rod from charging forward. The air erupted with cloudy steam as the ice wall steadily melted away. Hot Rod ran, well, hot to begin with.

Bumblebee said, "Uh, careful you don't melt everything."

Arcee hummed in agreement, but she wanted Hot Rod to finish the job as quickly as possible. It wasn't the healthiest thing for a mech to force heat from their frame, and if Ratchet was here he would've had some choice words about Hot Rod's methods.  "We should call this in," Arcee said.

"What do we even say?"

"I don't know, but comms are down!" Hot Rod called, lost in the steam.

Arcee tried to ping Ironhide and then Optimus without success. "You're right," she sighed. It was that damn ice. "We shouldn't have gone so far from the rest of the group."

"They'll find us," Hot Rod said. "But Primus, do you think this guy will be able to walk right away? He's huge! Me and Arcee could carry him, but we'd have to put our weapons down."

"I don't know if he'll be alive," Arcee said. "He must've been stranded here for a long time."

"But his paint's even better than mine. It's gleaming."

"That's the melted ice, Hot Rod."

"No, I mean there's not a scratch on him. It looks perfect!"

Bumblebee shrugged with a teasing grin. "Then he was either pretty rich or pretty vain, like someone else here."

That didn't sit right with Arcee, but she couldn't quite put a finger on why. It certainly wasn't the teasing she had a problem with. Arcee frowned, blinded by steam, and thought of the frozen mech's cut-off scream. Freezing and starving on an uninhabited and barely charted planet would have taken a long time, and a mech would have deteriorated horribly before the end. The paint would've been first to go. Come to think of it, the seeker had seemed rather whole and healthy before Hot Rod covered everything up with the steam.

"I'm not much for science," Arcee said. "But do you think this mech must have been frozen all at once?"

"We'll have to ask him," Hot Rod said excitedly. He was undoubtedly concerned with the prospect of a living time capsule instead of the horror of being trapped and then displaced in time. "I think I'm almost done-- aaand there!"

The steam started to fizzle out. There was a low creeeeak as struts that hadn't been able to flex for a long, long time were suddenly freed.

"Whoa!" Hot rod cried. "He's falling! Back up! Back up!"

Arcee scooted back on her wheeled pedes instantly, but Bumblebee hesitated as Hot Rod shot out of the dwindling fog and then passed him to join Arcee at a distance.

"We shouldn't just let him fall!" protested Bumblebee, but he was a minibot and Arcee darted forward to pull him away before he could get himself crushed for attempting courtesy.

The frozen mech's knee joints gave a painful-sounding screech. The dead optics were still gray. He tipped forward, emerging from the cloud of steam like a golden age Cybertronian noble until he tipped too far and fell flat on his face, clattering like a suit of abandoned armor.

The three winced in unison. Arcee looked around warily in case the noise had attracted the wrong attention.

"Come on, we can't just go around disrespecting the dead!" Bumblebee complained.

Hot Rod said, "I don't think he's dead!"

"I don't know. . ." Arcee trailed off.

The seeker's arm twitched. The elbows bent, joints creaking. The autobots could only watch in astounded silence as the seeker's servos scrabbled at the slippery ground, but he was able to get his arms underneath him and prop himself up. His wings fluttered and shivered. Laboriously, he rose to his knees and then found his footing, vents wheezing frozen air. He raised his helm.

Shocked, Arcee realized that for someone who had just been melted out of a block of ice and also may or may not have been on the verge of death, the seeker looked great. Arcee's processor finally latched onto a line of logic clarifying that off feeling she had-- someone had probably frozen this mech on purpose, in one fell swoop. Someone had put him here and then left him.

The seeker's dead optics flickered wildly to life, and then with a great amount of effort, settled into a steadily glowing red. All systems were online, even if they ran with a grueling stutter that felt like gears grinding on sand. The seeker was Starscream, an up and coming figure in an up and coming decepticon movement, but at the moment this fact was known only to himself.

Arcee, Bumblebee, and Hot Rod honed in on the matching decepticon sigils adorning Starscream's wings. With no words necessary, there was a shared, chilling realization between the three: We just freed a terrorist.

Starscream's groggy, blurry vision focused on the red autobot badges placed front and center on each chassis before him. His processor wasn't up to full sentences yet, but a reaction to that badge was hardwired into instinct. Police! he thought, and then he raised his arm and took a shot at Hot Rod's head.

It missed. Hot Rod ducked wildly, but it was Bumblebee's quick shove that saved him. Arcee raised her gun at Starscream in retaliation, but he was able to shoot it out of her grasp by pure luck-- he couldn't quite see where he was aiming, and fired a lot of shots to compensate. The rest of them missed.

Arcee shouted wordlessly in anger, scrambling for her weapon and hoping against the odds that it was still usable. 

Starscream made a run for it, as was his way. He threw himself behind a wide pillar of ice, Bumblebee's blaster fire scorching the frozen ground at his heels. Starscream became a little more awake, a little more aware, and a little more angrily terrified with each pounding, skidding step putting distance between him and the three autobots. Ducking and weaving through random tunnels of ice, Starscream ran until the path before him opened up into a huge ice cavern.

The area was swarming with autobots-- where was he?-- and Starscream, hiding, searched desperately for a familiar face. He tugged on the trine bond, but no one tugged back. The connection felt dead.

There! In the distance, Starscream spotted a familiar boxy frame, the red and blue paintjob shining bright against dull, faded glacier.

Primus, that's Megatronus's mech! Starscream thought. Orion Pax was little else-- he wasn't even a decepticon, only some wishy-washy affiliate, and he couldn't fight because he didn't believe in harming so much as a scraplet. What is he doing here?

Pax was not the backup Starscream had hoped for, but a scattering of autobots were making their way towards Pax and Starscream knew better than to simply let him get carried away for empurata. Starscream transformed, jet mode blasting by glacier formations and enemy soldiers alike. With the element of surprise he was faster than the autobots could shoot, but he might as well have stood still and let them light him up because his frame buckled in agony from the transformation.

Starscream transformed back into root-mode midair and tackled Orion Pax, dragging him behind a wall of clouded ice. A narrow tunnel of ice stretched out behind them, empty. Good enough, Starscream thought, bullying Pax inside. The autobots were panicked, shouting and cursing as they rushed towards Starscream and Pax.

"Get behind me!" Starscream shouted. His arm-cannons fired at the ceiling, walls and floor in front of the autobot charge. Huge cracks shot through the ice. Icicles came raining down, followed by chunks of the ceiling. The noise was incredible, but Starscream still heard Pax unsheathe a weapon behind him. 

"Put it away, Pax!" he called over his shoulder.

"I-- what?" Pax shouted.

"Unless you've got a gun, do nothing!"

"You'll bury us!"

I hope not, Starscream thought, but out loud he said, "Of course not!"

With an aching groan, a huge swath of ceiling in the greater cavern collapsed. Tons of ice buried the tunnel entrance, cutting Starscream and Pax off from enemy fire and plunging them into quiet dimness. Starscream's cannons powered off with a low hum, glowing red hot at the tips of the barrels. It was quiet, but not silent. Starscream could hear distant, muffled shouting behind the rubble.

"With our luck, one of those big lugs will have a drill," Starscream said. "We should get going."

"Where?" Pax asked haltingly.

"Anywhere! I don't know. Where are we?"

"It's. . . an uninhabited ice planet a few galaxies away from Earth."

"I've never heard of it."

"This place is also a few galaxies away from Cybertron."

"Hm! You should have just said. This is a long ways to go for a prison planet. They should've just stuck to Trypticon-- ice is no good for prisons, you know. You can break through too easily."

". . . Starscream?"

"What?" Starscream came to the startled realization that he was looking up at Pax, where he very clearly remembered Pax standing somewhere around chin-height. "Did you get a frame change?" he demanded, and then his optics drifted to the autobot insignia on Pax's  pauldron.

"I--"

"Ah. Megatronus won't be happy about that." Starscream squinted up at Pax's faceplate, inspecting the new battle-grade mask that replaced his old gilded and purely ornamental one. "I'm sure you aren't too happy about that, eh? They made you enlist? Well, at least you got some fair upgrades out of it."

"They did not make me enlist."

Starscream jabbed a claw at the autobot insignia. "What is this, then?"

"I-- I'm a prison guard. I chose to be here."

"This is a cover? What about your archives, aren't they missing you in Iacon?"

". . . I won't be going back."

"Oh." Starscream was suddenly extremely uncomfortable (Pax had loved his function), but he couldn't deny the flutter of pride that made his spark spin. Starscream had been deemed important enough to the decepticon cause for a jailbreak, a jailbreak that went so far as to put Megatronus's beloved Orion on the line. "Well, cheer up. You busted me out, so it's not like you have to stay here any longer. We just need to get out of this place and then you'll be with Megatronus again in no time. He'll probably make you take the 'con badge, though."

"It's Megatron now."

"Damn. I thought he wasn't serious about that." Starscream had laughed and said something like, "I'll call myself Starscree," when Thundercracker had passed on the news about Megatron's new designation. He'd been cocky enough to place a bet against the claim's validity with Skywarp.

Thundercracker. Skywarp.

"Pax, have you seen my trine?" Starscream asked urgently.

"No, I have not," Pax said apologetically. His optics darted to the ice rubble at Starscream's back.

Starscream jolted at the low, grinding startup sound of heavy machinery. "Slag, let's go! Go, go, go!"

The tunnel was just barely big enough for Starscream and Pax to walk side-by-side, with Starscream's wingspan and Pax's new shoulder width. Starscream had to goad Pax into picking up the pace: poking his shoulder, putting a hand on his back, and eventually linking arms with Pax to drag him along. This was probably the most strenuous physical activity Pax had ever experienced in his soft life-- the job of an archivist seemed a sedentary one.

"Didn't they send your aft to bootcamp to make the cover story work?" Starscream complained. "Come on, Orion, work with me!"

"No training was necessary. Soundwave forged my documents," Pax said, but he stopped dragging his pedes so much.

"Ah, of course." Starscream gritted his dentae. "About my trine-- you had to see something."

"I'm truly sorry, Starscream, but I was a new guard. They didn't trust me with some of the higher-profile prisoners, and Skywarp and Thundercracker are under greater lock and key."

"Why were they higher-profile prisoners than me? I'm the one on all the wanted posters!"

"Oh, is that what you're concerned with?" Pax asked wryly.

Starscream ignored that. "Skywarp is slippery. He's probably already freed Thundercracker and taken off without us."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

A good question. Starscream wracked his processor, wincing at the error codes that popped up to block his HUD. "My memory files are corrupted. I'll have to sort them out during my next recharge. But the autobots must have nabbed me during a mission."

"Ah, I should've expected some side-effects. You were gone for a long time, Starscream. . . But Shockwave will help you."

"I woke up frozen in ice, can you believe it? Don't answer that-- I'm sure it's old news to you, but I've been unconscious. Frozen! In ice! That's a lot of work to put into holding someone, and it wasn't enough to hold me. I bet the autobots wish they just killed me, hahaha!"

The joke was wasted on Pax, but they usually were. "I'm sorry," he said solemnly.

"You could've been more useful, but you also could've been less useful. So it doesn't matter." Abruptly, Starscream remembered that Pax had probably given up his entire life to follow Starscream's trine to a remote ice prison planet and attempt to free them (even if Pax's execution of said plan was rather mediocre). Starscream faced resolutely ahead, but peeked at Pax's optics out of the corner of his vision. Pax held himself rather stiffly, which was normal, except his optics were a little dim. And he was silent. 

If Pax goes crying to Megatron about his hurt feelings I'll never see the spotlight again, Starscream thought grimly. With a smile that was really more of a grimace, he lightly punched Pax's shoulder with his free arm. Punched him in a comradely way.

"I'll hook you up with Knockout and he could see about making you small again," Starscream said. "And, er, you probably won't be able to go back to the archives, but we can set you up with a new civilian identity if you wanted. A dockworker or something. Honestly, Megatron would be happy to keep you in his habsuite full-time and let you edit his speeches."

"My options are hard labor or being Megatron's prisoner?"

Starscream shrugged. "I was getting at productive member of society or bed slave, but your ambitions are safe with me, Pax. I want to be WingLord."

"It's-- what-- So?" Pax sputtered.

"So we won't get in each other's way!" 

Pax could be so expressive, even with just his optics. Starscream laughed and laughed. When Pax grew a touch distressed, Starscream cycled air through his vents, petted his integrated arm cannons, and tried to move on (but Primus, just looking at Pax's face threatened to send Starscream into another hysterical spiral).

"They were fools not to disarm me, but it's our gain," Starscream said, "You just let me do the shooting. And the talking. And the planning. We'll grab Skywarp, Thundercracker, and a ship to get us out of here."

"And how do you plan on navigating?"

"How hard could it be?" Pax gave him an unimpressed look. "Oh, fine. If my lifetime of flying experience isn't enough for you, we can kidnap a pilot."

"I'd imagine flying yourself through an atmosphere is a different experience than flying a ship through space."

"Oh, rust, are the ships here sentient? If we get into a shuttle, he'll just transform with us inside and that'll be the end of it."

"There are no shuttles here. We aren't nearly important enough." With an amusing hesitance, Pax nudged Starscream's pauldron in a softer imitation of Starscream's comradely punch. "They didn't know a future WingLord would be needing transport."

Starscream grinned, all sharp dentae. "You're funny! I thought you were a piece of slag!"

"Oh. I suppose I'm glad," Pax said, and in spite of his own surprise he seemed to mean every word. "That you think I'm funny, I mean."

"I do not think you are a piece of slag now. But Pax, are you digging for compliments? Megatron will have something to say to me."

Pax coughed static.

"Oh, alright, I'll go easy on you. It's no fun if you don't have anything to say."

"You laugh at me the most when I have nothing to say."

"Hahaha! That doesn't happen so often, you know. You know all these big words."

"Don't be coy. You were raised in almost nobility. You can talk circles around me or anyone."

"And the way I do it is an artform. But, well. . . That polite talk I was raised on was more froth and less substance, I suppose."

"Now who between us is actually digging for compliments?"

"I shouldn't have to dig. Go ahead and just give them to me."

"You are more impossible than I remembered," Pax said, but there was a smile in his optics that his mask couldn't hide.

Pax and Starscream ended up hurrying through the escape route with their arms linked for practically the entire way, even when they both fell silent and contemplative. With the reality of their situation, the banter was a distraction that couldn't last. Pax would tense at every far-off echo, forcing Starscream to stop and wait until the noise faded. Starscream clenched at an empty space in his chassis, searching for the spark-beats of trine mates that had gone deathly silent. He couldn't even comm Thundercracker and Skywarp the usual way because the ice blocked all signal.

Finally, Starscream felt a change in the atmospheric pressure-- open air was nearby. "Pax, we're close!"

Pax's caution tried to slow them both down, but Starscream was sick of the tunnels. His wings fluttered in anticipation. Cautious as Pax was, he wouldn't untangle his arm from Starscream's, so it was easy to drag him along despite the new heft to his frame.

The final stretch of tunnel ended in a small cave nestled at the foot of a tall, snowy hill. Starscream saw a sliver of open sky ahead. It was gray, cloudless and freezing, but his wings twitched and his engines purred in joy.

There were voices ahead. Snow and ice crunched loudly under the careless pedes of bots milling at the top of the hill and not making any effort to hide themselves. Starscream couldn't take a peek at who was there without risking his own cover, but he wasn't worried. He could fight anyone, run anywhere or do anything if it meant he could go for a fly immediately afterwards.

Pax huddled next to him at the lip of the cave. "Starscream, wait."

"Oh, right," Starscream muttered, "You should stay behind for a klik while I take care of who's out there."

"No, wait. You were in the ice a lot longer than I led you to believe. I'm truly sorry for that. You still believe in the decepticons as they were, but their cause has changed. Megatron only lives for violence now."

"What the frag?" Starscream went very still. "If you have a problem with Megatron, you take it up with him. I am not the one."

"I have to tell you now. Things have changed since you've been gone. Please."

"You've been undercover for too long. A lot of mechs just aren't cut out for that kind of work."

"Megatron is different now! I am different. Starscream, it's been three million years since you and your trine disappeared. I haven't been covering as a prison guard at all. I've been fighting on the side of the autobots-- wait!" Starscream had lifted a cannon at Pax's face. "Listen! Cybertron as we knew it has fallen! There's a war. It's destroyed everything and taken us to space and other planets. Megatron has lost his way."

Starscream tried to get his internal clock working again. Every time he tried to access it, it sent a pang of hurt straight into his neural net. Error. Error. Error.

"Pax," Starscream said, very slowly, very sharply. "Where is my trine?"

"I honestly do not know. I'm sorry. You've been kind to me. Go back to the decepticons, find your trine, learn the truth. Just know you don't have to stay there."

With all of Pax's battle-worthy upgrades, Starscream wasn't sure if a single shot to the helm would kill him anymore. A single shot would certainly alert the prison guards at the top of the hill-- except--

"If this isn't a prison, where are we?"

Pax was calm even while facing down the business end of Starscream's cannon. It only made Starscream angrier. "It truly is an uninhabited planet a few galaxies away from Cybertron. Unnoteworthy, or so we thought. I never expected to find you here, or I would have come for you sooner."

"To bring me into the welcoming fold of the autobots, huh?"

"My team and I crash-landed here after a skirmish with the decepticons."

"Are there decepticons here now?"

Pax nodded his helm towards the top of the hill.

Starscream didn't follow Pax's gaze. This was a trap if he had ever heard of one. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you."

"Megatron wouldn't thank you. He wants to do it himself."

Starscream hissed wordless fury, glaring at Pax for one long moment. "Three million years!" he spat, and then he took off up the hill.

Starscream didn't get the courtesy of a warning shot. He knew the instant he was spotted because the hillside in front of him erupted with blaster-fire and even the detonation of a few small grenades. It cleared the snow away, leaving ugly bald patches of frozen dirt.

Starscream ducked, rolled, and pushed off of the ground into a zig-zagging glide, flaring his wings. The proud purple decepticon badges stood out darkly against silver.

"Hey!" he shrieked over the noise. "Friendly fire!"

A little bit of confidence and a lot of volume could get Starscream wherever he wanted, and this was no different. Someone threw their arm out and the gunfire petered to a stop. Zooming in his optics at the handful of bots ahead, Starscream was able to see matching purple sigils, so Pax hadn't lied about one thing.

At least it was easy to figure out what had happened to his trine: the decepticons had excavated Thundercracker and Skywarp from the tunnels in blocks of ice. Thundercracker was caught falling backwards, suspended in his ice block with a blue wing dented and the optics in his stoic face widened. Skywarp snarled viciously and his cannons pointed forward with a promise of hurt, for all the good it did him in the end. Starscream had obviously interrupted nothing important, unless he counted the decepticons standing around, scratching their helms and wondering what to do with the frozen seekers.

Starscream's thrusters carried him to the top of the hill and the decepticons let him approach, shifting and glaring mistrustfully. They bristled with weapons, armor, and sharp edges, not one of them looking to be without a few battle-grade mods. He didn't recognize any of the ugly faceplates. As Starscream's heels touched down in the midst of the small troop, he spared a prayer to every false god that he wouldn't slip. He didn't, a victory sorely needed, and was able to stand strong surrounded by so many glares.

"Why didn't you use your comms, glitch? We should've just blown you out of the sky!" a femme said, leaning against the handle of a spiked war-hammer as tall as she was.

"Look before you aim!" Starscream shouted, "What kind of two-bit professionals are you? Don't you know who I am?"

"We haven't had an introduction yet," a soldier said pointedly, servos resting lightly on the twin swords sheathed at his sides. It was hard to tell because of all the frame changes and armor mods layered on top of his original frame, but he looked like a racer. Racers tended to be on the slender side, but this bot had put a lot of time, money, and effort into building himself up bigger, with stark black and white colors to paint him like a warning sign. Starscream couldn't be certain of anything anymore, but it all looked like Knockout's handiwork.

"Well, who are you?" Starscream snapped.

"Deadlock."

"Hello, Deadlock. I am Starscream." The name gave no reaction. Starscream pinched the bridge of his nose. "You've got my colleagues in ice over there, but I suppose we're all colleagues so why don't we get started on setting them free?"

Deadlock's red gaze narrowed. "I've never heard of a Starscream and I've definitely never seen you. Where did you crawl out from?"

"From a block of ice, apparently! Imagine my surprise when one moment I'm on Cybertron, and the next I'm waking up to some autobot goons waving blasters in my faceplate. What's the date?"

Deadlock told him. Starscream gritted his dentae hard enough to make his jaw creak. There was a three million year difference between that time and Starscream's frozen internal clock.

The decepticons looked at each other, most likely exchanging private comms. It was to Starscream's advantage that just by appearances, he looked like he belonged in a set with Thundercracker and Skywarp. The three of them looked practically the same, except Thundercracker was blue, Skywarp was purple, and Thundercracker's faceplate didn't move much even when it wasn't literally frozen.

Even through the silence, Starscream could tell from the other bots' irritated fields that the back-and forth over comms was heating up.

"This is another autobot scheme!" one of the decepticons snapped out loud.

Deadlock turned to Starscream. "How were you able to get out by yourself?"

"The autobots melted me out. Someone heated up their engine."

"He's taking us for fools!" someone else muttered, a mouthful of misaligned fangs slurring his speech.

"Wait," Deadlock said, "We don't have time for this. Starscream, you're with us or you're not. We need to focus on finding those autobots. The prime's here!"

Somewhere behind the crest of the next hill, the unmistakable startup noise of ship engines blasted through any protests that might have been made next. The decepticons watched as a silver cruiser with a huge, frowning autobot badge plastered underneath took to the sky and left the atmosphere. In the span of a vent, it became a dot on the horizon and then disappeared entirely.

"Ah," Starscream said. "There they go."

From the way the mood darkened, Starscream could have been reading the auras of corpses.

Deadlock's red stare was sullen. "Did you see the prime?"

"No. Why would he be slumming it with his soldiers out here when he's got a temple to sit in?"

Deadlock turned away. "You must've been frozen for a long time."

"So I've gathered. I must speak with Megatron!"

"Of course. You'll be the one to tell him why the hunt failed."

Chapter Text

The femme with the war hammer chipped Starscream's trine-mates out of the ice with heavy, smashing blows. Starscream braced himself the entire time, snapping at her to slow down, but the other decepticons didn't care if Skywarp and Thundercracker were hacked into parts if it meant they could get back to base sooner. Quickly, Starscream insisted he wield the hammer instead, but they all either laughed or ignored him. The femme told him to rust off and die, but when it came to threats Starscream gave as good as he got. Deadlock had to shut their squabbling up to get focus back on the task at hand.

Home base certainly wasn't what Starscream remembered, and he had yet to even see it. He needled the coordinates off of Deadlock, trying to distract himself from imagining Thundercracker getting his spark gutted because of the stupid carelessness of half-rate cannon-fodder decepticon goons. When Starscream got what he asked for, he almost told Deadlock the coordinates were a mistake. The new decepticon base wasn't on Cybertron at all, but in the depths of some far-off gutter galaxy. In Deadlock's words, "It looks like it came out of Unicron's exhaust pipe and you're not going to like it."

In the meantime, Starscream looked back at the cave opening only once. There was no hint of red or blue to be seen at a casual glance. Starscream did not check further, nor did he invite anyone else to. Pax could spend three million years frozen and see where that got him.

Thundercracker didn't come out of the ice awake or aware at all. He crumpled to the ground with his joints screeching horribly, armor scuffing on impact, but Starscream shoved the others aside and swept him up. Starscream felt over Thundercracker's chassis, his own vocalizer mute with furious loss, but underneath his servos there was a crackle of electricity. Thundercracker's spark spun on.

Skywarp came out of the ice swinging, expression contorted in single-minded savagery, beautiful because he was alive and still fighting. Starscream laughed, high and bright with joy, as Skywarp lunged at the femme holding the hammer. The other bots scattered backwards to get out of range, but Starscream was content to stand still and hold Thundercracker up, enjoying the chords of the trine bond alive with his brothers' spark-beats once more. Starscream let Skywarp terrorize the others just a little bit more before intervening. He pinged Skywarp over comms and tossed Thundercracker's limp frame into Skywarp's head-on charge. Skywarp caught Thundercracker on instinct, recognizing Starscream in the same moment. He stopped short, tilting his black helm with an expression that made Starscream laugh more.

"Where the frag are we?" Skywarp demanded, unused vocalizer crackling with static. His vents coughed to clear it. "And who the frag are the rest of you?"

"Later!" Deadlock barked. "We've wasted enough time as is."

So Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp were freed. As the decepticon troop finally piled onto their small, battered ship with three more passengers than they arrived with, the trine was decidedly not popular. Starscream couldn't bring himself to care.

Skywarp and Starscream stuck to a corner with a portside window, watching unfamiliar stars go by. It was the first space voyage either of them could consciously remember-- Skywarp's memory banks were flooded with corrupted files, just like Starscream's. For Starscream at least, the novelty of his first spaceflight experience was spoiled by the the dead look in Thundercracker's optics and the grim look Deadlock spared the trine before disappearing into the bowels of the ship.

Skywarp and Starscream spoke to no one and no one spoke to them, but their shared comm link was alive with questions and complaints until Thundercracker came to. The blue seeker, laid out on the floor, shuddered once and sat up so abruptly he knocked his helm painfully against Starscream's.

"What the frag is this?" Thundercracker wheezed hoarsely, his optics offlined against the pain, but faceplate otherwise devoid of expression.

"Hmm," Starscream said, grimacing. "We're not too certain."

"Thundercracker," Skywarp said urgently. "We're old now."

Starscream flicked Skywarp's wing. "Oh, shut up! We are not!"

"Starscream's upset about it because it's interrupted his planned timeline of success."

"We're not old!"

With a heavy vent, Thundercracker went limp again and let his optics stay dark. "Let me go back. You should've just let me recharge."

Thundercracker did, eventually, consent to listen to his brothers' haphazard speculation about their shared situation. Starscream did not tell Thundercracker or Skywarp about Orion Pax. Not yet-- he wanted a closed door for that.

The ship made fast time. Granted, the pilot pulled them through a few haphazardly executed space-jumps that rocked the ship with turbulence worse than a thunderstorm and made Starscream loudly question both the pilot's qualifications and will to live-- but the passengers made it within sight of their destination alive and in one piece. 

The deception base looked like it came out of Unicron's exhaust pipe and Starscream didn't like it.

A hulking, grey slab of a space station was moored to the orbit of a small, scarred moon, circling it with the gravity and self-importance of a Prime's crystal palace. The station orbited in such slow increments, the movement was unnoticeable to the naked optic. As the ship descended from above, the blur of dead-looking grey pixelated into detail-- uneven panels of mismatched metal were artlessly welded together to form the outer surface of the station. Whatever the original structure looked like, it was lost within sections upon sections of built-on additions sprouting up like crystal and layering organically on top of each other over time. Blinking lights lit up here and there, as ugly as a warning on an HUD. Other ships darted to and fro outside the huge station, nothing more than tiny dots whizzing by against the background of empty space. When the other ships docked, to Starscream it looked like scraplets latching onto protoflesh.

There was hardly any time for that last thought before the other ships were passing by closely enough for Starscream to make out battle damage and decepticon branding. The distance to home base was shrinking rather quickly.

"It's Kaon away from Kaon," Skywarp said dryly.

[Hush,] Thundercracker said over a private comm line between the trine. [I don't think anyone could call this home sweet home, but we've come so far and it would be a shame to be thrown out of an airlock now.]

"Forget that! Why aren't we slowing down?" Starscream demanded.

The pilot brought the ship hurtling so fast towards the station dock, Starscream braced himself, claws scrabbling uselessly against the smooth wall. Skywarp hogged what purchase could be found clinging to the small ledge of the windowsill, but Skywarp and Starscream both sacrificed some of what little stability they had to latch onto a still-woozy Thundercracker. 

The ship ate up the distance with all the speed, force, and intention of a missile. The dock grew bigger and bigger, closer and closer through the window's view, and Starscream was shouting some truly heinous wishes upon the pilot-- until all at once, with a guttered shriek from abused and neglected hydraulics, the ship jerked to a complete stop. The lights flicked off. In darkness, everything not bolted down was sent flying against the opposite wall.

As this happened, a cacophony of audial-wrenching noise sounded a chorus all over the ship: A janitor's closet burst open. A table crushed someone against the wall, nonfatally judging by the mech's loud, wordless protests. What sounded like a gun rack and a crate of loose tools banged and clattered to the floor in the next room. A few people also banged and clattered to the floor, Skywarp included, and if not for his wings, momentum would have kept him rolling to hit the opposite wall. Starscream shrieked. Skywarp made a guttural oomph against the hard floor and activated his anomaly on instinct, teleporting himself to his original spot by the window only to reappear a few feet above the floor and fall again.

"Stop fragging doing that! Are you stupid?" Starscream shrieked, casting wild glances at the empty doorways.

"Shut up, Starscream!" Skywarp hissed quietly. "You're only drawing more--"

"Shut! Up! Starscream!" Deadlock hollered, muffled, from somewhere below.

Starscream replied, "Shove it up your exhaust pipe, you piece of slag!"

He could have said more, but Thundercracker groaned, curling up on the floor and pressing his servos over his audial speakers.

To put icing on the oil cake, an intercom system crackled to life with an irritating whine. "This is your pilot speaking!" said a tinny voice through overhead speakers.

There was a chorus of boos, shouts, and hateful wishes.

"Oh, you rusty glitches will complain about anything. You complain about leaving, you complain about arriving, you complain about the destination. Well, this time you can't complain about taking too long! We've made record time!"

Starscream dug his claws into the windowsill and pulled himself up, glaring out of the window at constructed ground that looked solid enough. The ship was docked.

"The ride is over!" the pilot shouted over the booing, "Get off!"

Starscream was set on figuring out the identity of the pilot as he exited that wretched ship, but it was Deadlock who ended up stealing his focus. Deadlock pushed against the flow of disgruntled bots making their way inside the space station, waving impatiently at Starscream's trine to catch their attention. Starscream had a mind to ignore him, uninterested with what he assumed to be a petty challenge, but Skywarp grabbed Starscream and Thundercracker by the pauldrons and unrelentingly steered them forwards to meet Deadlock halfway. Deadlock, his twin swords sheathed, was by the trine's side when the first set of airlocks hissed shut behind them, gravity and atmosphere stabilizing as the decepticon troops waited to step foot inside the station.

"We've got to go report to Lord Megatron," Deadlock said over the muttering of the crowd.

"Lord?" Starscream repeated dubiously. "Take it from me, flattery isn't the way into his good graces."

"Take it from me, he insists on the title. He is Lord Megatron. Who did you guys say you were, again?"

Starscream vented a sigh, but Thundercracker and Skywarp pretended not to hear the slight and introduced Starscream anew as they offered Deadlock their own designations. It wasn't like the two seekers to be so polite, but, as Thundercracker reminded Starscream in a sneaky comm, the entire trine's sense of ground-level navigation was terrible even in places they visited often. They needed a guide.

Trying to hide it but not quite able to, Deadlock studied the three seekers with a new, skeptical curiosity as the second set of airlocks opened into the depths of the station. The trine, with Deadlock tagging along as a willing-enough tour guide, was swept inside by the rest of the crowd.

"Take a right here," Deadlock said, as at ease as a turbofox finding its way home. "Left. Right. Now we go straight for a while."

The interior was all dark metal hallways, featureless and maze-like except for many interesting stains, dents, and scratches marring the walls, floors, and even ceiling. Basic maintenance didn't seem to be a priority; half of the lighting seemed to be smashed or broken, characterizing the dimness as sad neglect instead of a more purposefully ominous moodiness. Curling his lip in irritation, Starscream activated the night-vision mods Knockout had installed long ago, on a sidewalk below a bridge in a shady pocket of Helex.

(Starscream couldn't help but wonder where Knockout was and what he was doing now. The only two paths Starscream could imagine the red racer to have taken were either glorious success or total failure. Knockout's desire to break into the medical profession was an admirable dream, if only for the audacity, but there were certain pitfalls to operating as a self-taught and unlicensed amateur doctor. Starscream hoped Knockout could call himself a self-taught professional by now, because otherwise Knockout might have put the wrong mech's T-cog in backwards and wound up dead for the trouble.)

As the group of four made their way into the dark heart of home base, Starscream stared straight ahead, shoulders back and wings held high. Thundercracker mostly watched his pedes, single-mindedly focused on taking one step after another. Deadlock continued to stare at the trine, unabashed, and out of challenge or misplaced humor Skywarp seemed to genuinely try pulling Deadlock into a staring contest. Deadlock didn't bite and he didn't share a single word. He just stared. Starscream simmered in bubbling irritation until the crowd started to disperse. Whipping around towards Deadlock, he snapped, "What's the problem?"

"Who in the pits are you three, really?" Deadlock asked. "I've run your faceplates through all of my memory banks, but I'm not getting any good matches. Were you three models or something back on Cybertron?"

"No," Thundercracker said, very slowly and emotionlessly, but Starscream read the wry amusement in his EM field loud and clear.

"Models?" Skywarp laughed. "Ohhhhh, I see what this is about, now!"

"We look like every other damn seeker in Vos," Starscream said. "Beautiful, yes. Especially beautiful? Sure. But if we look familiar and you don't know us, Deadlock, it's not a big mystery why."

Deadlock muttered something that, from the tone, he was very lucky Starscream didn't hear. Then, he asked, "How'd you join up with the 'cons?"

Starscream came alive, ready to construct a tale highlighting an interesting and very important place in history for the trine, but bumbling Skywarp wheezed a laugh and cut Starscream off. "First thing," Skywarp said, "Thundercracker joins a book club. It's Kaon, so me and Star figure it's a front for some kind of horrible part-selling operation, but it turns out to be a totally real and legitimate thing!"

"It was real, but not legitimate at all," Thundercracker said absently, preoccupied with staring at the dark, dried stains passing by underfoot. Thundercracker and his brothers knew well what the muddy purple was, but it was almost comical just how much energon must have been spilled to stain such wide, splattered puddles in the halls. There must have been a recent battle here, an enemy attack fended off successfully enough, for the station to still exist as a decepticon base at all. To have such an attack happen at the heart of Megatron's operations didn't speak well for its security, though.

"Right, it was an illegal bookclub. Anyway, me and Star have to scope it out to make sure these bots aren't going to disassemble our brother, right? We meet the guy in charge, Megatronus, and he's living outside his caste, just like us! Granted, we were all living in squalor, but Megatronus was as comfortable with himself as a living prime--"

"Megatron, now," Starscream said.

"--Megatron, now," Skywarp, rolling his red optics in Deadlock's gaping face. "Anyway, it wasn't a book club for long. Next thing we know, the council puts us on the planet-wide terrorist group watchlist, but Megatron's pleased. He writes some more poetry about it, and he says we might as well go all the way with the terrorist stuff, but he phrased it more nicely than that. 'Liberation!' So we as a trine started flying for him."

"And. . .?" Deadlock asked. When the seekers weren't forthcoming, he gestured impatiently. ". . . And then you were all frozen on some far-off planet?"

Skywarp shrugged. "Yeah. Beats me. Did you ever hear anything about us going missing?"

"No. Never."

"If you suspect we're autobot spies, that's not our problem," Starscream said. "Just take us to Megatron either way."

"Did Cybertron get liberated?" Skywarp asked.

"I. . . don't know." Deadlock's vocalizer got much quieter at the end, so much so that Starscream could hardly understand him. Louder, Deadlock said, "Hardly anyone lives there anymore. The autobots are still around, but the council doesn't have the power they did and they mostly let their prime run wild. Mechs can be pretty much whatever they want now, if they have good reason for it. The war's still on. Take a right here."

"What are you, then?" Starscream asked, letting some of his venom fall away.

"A decepticon. Come on, the reception hall is just up ahead."

Compared to the surroundings Starscream had been subjected to so far, their esteemed Lord seemed to have taken more care with the reception hall. The hall reeked with what must have been Megatron's new personal touch, developed into a taste Starscream would have never guessed for the younger version of Megatron in his own very recent memory. Starscream could say one thing about Megatron's sense of interior design: he understood grandeur. It was a dark, wretched, and energon-stained understanding, but Starscream was awed by it nonetheless.

There was a throne, for one thing. Starscream noticed it, hewn out of alien rock and raised on a high platform, before he noticed the silver mech resting on it like a predator lounging between meals. Starscream's second thought was relief-- Megatron looked the exact same as Starscream remembered, except he had scrubbed his frame of the black and yellow warning strips leftover from his time as a miner. Megatron was all bare metal and sharp edges, a mountain of a mech. Starscream used to purposefully nag him about getting a fresh coat of color ("You're not a cement block! You're not a stray bolt!"), and had only further cemented Megatron's insistence on dull, utilitarian silver ("I'm not a strutting fool, either!").

Megatron had always moved with a certain fire and urgency, so Starscream did not recognize the disdainful flatness he looked over his current audience with now. Starscream's trine and Deadlock seemed to be stragglers-- the hall was already filled to bursting with kneeling mechs, warriors all, many of whom Starscream recognized from the team he had just flown in with. The foremost bot unhappily droned on a list of designations before Megatron. Probably casualties.

The metal floor was scratched and gouged with the scars of conflict, but for a change there wasn't a spot of grime or purple stain to be seen. Deadlock knelt the instant Megatron's red gaze moved their way, but Starscream paid no mind to either Deadlock or Megatron. He recognized another, different faceplate.

Across the long, gray hall, Starscream spotted Vortex. Vortex, looking over his shoulder, spotted Starscream. 

"Rust! How is he alive?" Starscream blurted.

If Vortex said anything, Starscream didn't know. With the echoing murmurs reverberating throughout the hall, Starscream was too far away to hear anything softer than a shout and Vortex's face was entirely obscured by a visor and mask so there were no lips to read.

Vortex stood up.

"He's going for his gun!" Skywarp muttered hastily. 

There was a low murmur of metallic skittering as every mech in the hall scrabbled for their weapons-- Starscream's trine particularly fast on the draw-- and then, senselessly, they all froze with sword-points and gun-barrels brandished, waiting for someone to make the first move.

Vortex had his blaster aimed at Starscream's face. Starscream returned the favor with Thundercracker and Skywarp behind him for extra measure, but he withheld a wince. I try to do the world a service and look at where it gets me, he thought sullenly.

Starscream was no stranger to Vortex because he was no stranger to the process of getting arrested, being imprisoned, and subsequently breaking out of said prison. This was how Starscream met Vortex; they were bunkmates at the same labor camp owned and operated by the city of Helex. This stint in Helex's prison was before the authorities stopped making the mistake of sending Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp into the same prisons at the same time, so Thundercracker and Skywarp were in on the escape, too.

The escape plan was (needlessly) complex and the details of it didn't matter anymore, but at the time Starscream did get a lot of satisfaction in seeing it play out. With some crafty planning and coordinated violence, the prison erupted into a riot that gave the trine plus Vortex the distraction they needed for an escape. Vortex broke their chains. Skywarp, with a flimsy medical know-how that was entirely self-taught, broke the tracking chips off of the backs of their helms and managed not to short-circuit anyone in the process. Starscream broke the locks on their integrated weapons. Thundercracker broke down a wall. They ran for it.

The group rode away, free mechs, on top of a train headed towards Stanix. The train tracks, built up on high stilts over the Rust Sea, were obscured by a cloudy chemical fog that would wreak havoc on a mech's paintjob but hide him from from sky patrols.

Skywarp and Thundercracker chittered excitedly, looking upwards for the occasional patch of sky and counting down the kliks until they could take flight again in relative safety. Starscream, with his beautiful paint in a bad state that was only about to get worse, was desperate enough for distraction that he wandered over to Vortex and sat next to him.

"How's freedom taste?" Starscream asked.

Vortex shook his helm. "It'll taste better when I get something to eat."

"They say Stanix is good for crystal energon. Say, I've been wondering. What did they get you in for?"

"Eating people."

". . . Ah." Starscream had heard of siphoning, but only as a scary rumor Vosnian sparklings whispered to each other when they swapped scary stories about the dark, ruined grounder slums. According to the rumors, siphoning was what the poorest and most battered bots resorted to as a last-ditch means of survival. It was the act of drinking the energon from another mech's veins-- and, apparently, it was real.

Starscream reeled at the revelation, but smoothly recovered. "That must have been difficult."

"No, not at all."

"What do you mean?"

"It was easy. I made a choice."

Starscream went still for a long moment, but eventually conceded with a nod. "You had to survive, no matter the cost. I understand."

"It wasn't about survival! It was for me. It was for. . . for fun. For flavor."

"What? Siphoning?"

"Oh, it started with siphoning. I was curious. I tried it and it got me thinking. You said you were on your way to being a scientist, right?"

"I was a scientist."

"Well, there have to be alternatives to energon."

Starscream narrowed his red gaze. ". . . Yes. Or at least we hope, because when I was in the field there hadn't been any new findings in ten million years and I doubt there have been any since I left. You haven't made any discoveries that generations of scientists haven't been able to find, you madmech! Siphoning is still taking energon, and you are far from the first person to do it."

Excitedly, Vortex said, "What about eating protoflesh?"

Starscream stared.

"You should just try it, Starscream," Vortex urged, all gentle earnestness. "I have a personal preference for racecars, but I find minibots to be the best targets. They're small, easy to store, and if we target the low-class working ones, no one misses them."

Starscream stood up and shoved Vortex right off the edge of that train. Starscream shot him in the face for good measure, interrupting a flight transformation that would have saved him. Vortex fell like a stone two-thousand feet into the Rust Sea below, too quickly to scream for long.

Time since then had treated Vortex well; in Megatron's hall, Vortex looked just as he had before his ill-fated dip in the Rust Sea. Helicopter blades sprouted from his wide back like sharp wings, frame painted in dark strokes of gray and deep blue that blended well with the shadows. Vortex was rendered into a dark silhouette except for a ruby flash of visor. He had always reminded Starscream of a worse Soundwave.

Megatron laughed, carelessly piercing the stillness. Starscream relaxed in small increments, though he didn't lower his weapon.

"Thundercracker!" Megatron called, rough voice silencing all else. "Skywarp! Starscream. What a surprise! My elite trine lives on, and here I spent so many decacycles believing them gone back to the Well. You look . . . unchanged."

"And you, the same," Starscream said. "Though that is more impressive, since my brothers and I have been frozen in stasis since we saw each other last, and you were not."

"For all this time?"

"I believe so."

"What a story that must be. Decepticons, stand down."

And here, Starscream got nervous. What in the pits was he meant to do, when he didn't have the whole truth and what little he did know sounded like a bold, stupid lie?

The other decepticons sheathed their weapons. Vortex's servos trembled around the trigger of his blaster, lingering with promise, but he lowered his weapon without trying to nail Starscream between the eyes-- good for Deadlock, because Starscream had been poised to hoist him up by the pauldron and use him as a shield if necessary. Integrated blasters powered down with low, discordantly layered hums. After some hesitation under Megatron's continued silence, the others kneeled before their leader once more. Starscream and his trine stood alone.

Starscream asked, "Have you changed your comm link in the last three million years or so?"

"Anything you can say to me can be said in front of my soldiers," Megatron rumbled. "After all, they have stayed loyally by my side."

The polite smile stuck on Starscream's face twitched from the conscious effort it took not to roll his optics. "Of course," he said. "But image captures can be so much more efficient." The comm link Starscream had saved under 'Megatronus' was still good-- he was able to send Megatron a screenshot of his frozen internal clock. "Here is proof of when I was last online. My trine brothers and I have no memory of what passed between then and now, except for when we were finally freed by your new decepticons and then brought here. I expected to be in Iacon on a mission right now, breaking and entering! You sent us out to investigate more boldly than we usually dared. Soundwave had a list of mechs potentially responsible for Shockwave's. . . new look."

"Yes," Megatron smiled, as if pleasantly surprised by a fond memory. "And it was a difficult mission to continue after you three disappeared. Soundwave had to send his cassettes to finish the job and the distance from them distressed him greatly. What led you astray?"

Skywarp scoffed, "Autobots. Who else?"

"I must say that we don't know the designations of the mechs that did this to us," Starscream said smoothly. "The cowards were too ashamed to face us, but foolish enough to keep us alive. I suppose they must have wanted to keep trophies."

Megatron stood up from his rugged throne. Starscream, interested, thought he was going to descend the steps and approach Starscream's trine on even ground. He would have a grim, off-putting joke and a gruff, 'I suppose you're not dead' that meant as much as an effusive 'Welcome back!' in Megatron's own way. Like the way Starscream remembered Megatronus greeting the seekers back from missions on Cybertron, during what might as well have been yesterday.

Megatron stood tall and went no further except to raise his fist. "Pledge yourselves to me again," he said grandly. The gravelly tones of his vocalizer echoed. "Swear fealty to me as your lord, and you will fly as my elite trine once more! You will have your revenge!"

Fine. Starscream could adapt. He inclined his helm. "I swear to serve--" Oh, Slag "--My Lord."

Starscream sent an urgent ping to Thundercracker and Skywarp, but they were already following his lead. They echoed their allegiances behind him, even Skywarp managing something close to solemness. The performance all came together, in sync, perfect, Starscream thought.

Megatron didn't reply so much as a thank-you. The entire room stared. Confused, Starscream started to raise his helm.

[Kneel!] Thundercracker commed. [He wants us to kneel!]

Starscream almost didn't. He almost spat something foul. A long, furious moment dragged out with Starscream standing proud, but he saw the long shadows of his brothers start to sink behind him. They were a trine. They moved as three. Resignation layering over bubbling rage, Starscream took a knee as well. 'Almost' meant nothing in the end.

Megatron wasn't stupid. He noticed the hesitation. 

Starscream raised his helm and grinned widely, sharply, something like a weapon and hopefully something like what Megatron wanted. "Our functions are yours to command, Lord Megatron," he said. "In glory and in strength."

Thundercracker called, "All hail Lord Megatron."

If Thundercracker lacked energy, Skywarp did not. ". . .Yeah!" Skywarp shouted, making up for his ineloquence with volume, eagerness, and both fists in the air.

Megatron gestured towards the trine across the room, but his gaze swept over the rest of the decepticons with a calculating edge. "Some of my oldest allies have returned to me, loyal and true. But while I did not plan for this gift, I did plan for the capture of Optimus Prime. I don't see him. Where is he, Slipshod?"

The crowd leaned away from the gnarly yellow mech Megatron settled his optics on. Starscream hadn't seen this mech Slipshod before in his long life, and irritably Starscream wished to have had exchanged commlinks with Deadlock sometime earlier so he could have made some discreet questions. Especially about the new prime!

Slipshod's voice was piercing and guttural. He spoke so quickly Starscream had to focus intently to understand him. "The autobots escaped, Lord Megatron, but we did find Optimus Prime! The next time we find him, they won't see us coming!"

"Do you know where they went, Slipshod? Do you know where they are going now?"

"No, but we know the most likely places!"

Megatron rolled his neck. "What you must understand is that the autobots are as capable of learning as you are. Perhaps more. They will know what to expect now, and will change their movements to avoid patterns in the future!"

"I only need more time, my Lord."

"I gave you lead of some of my best warriors. I took them away from important posts to assist you. Shall I do so again, even if you have nothing to show for it all?"

"But, as you said, we did not plan for the distraction of these. . . seekers. They stopped us from hunting down the Prime just when we had him in his clutches!"

"Absolute slag!" Starscream called. "I received no information about a 'Prime hunt' until the autobots had fled the planet, and even that was hardly anything at all! I didn't see an ounce of leadership from this mech!"

"If I hadn't been told Slipshod was commander, I wouldn't have known," Deadlock offered solemnly, not raising his optics from the floor. "He stayed behind in the ship and we barely received comms from him."

Megatron said, "Well, then. Slipshod, you are demoted." He descended the steps at last, his long stride quick, but not hurried, unrelenting. The other decepticons found their footing just long enough to scatter away. Slipshod stood up just as Megatron neared, but it was too late. Megatron grabbed the mech by the upper arm and slammed him down onto the floor with the squeal and crunch of living metal. He stomped down, hard, again and again. The decepticons kept their helms and knees bent.

Starscream, labeled by the autobot council as a murderer and disturber of the peace, wholeheartedly believed in violence for purposes for conflict resolution. However. . .

"You'll stain the floors," Starscream said.

Megatron grinned. His dentae were jagged. "You and I will speak later. We have much to catch up on, old friends, but there are other duties I must attend to. Vortex!"

Vortex's helicopter blades made an aborted spin. "Yes, Lord Megatron?"

"General Aceshot is dead, yes?"

"Yes, Lord Megatron. The autobots crushed him and his trine completely."

"Then their habsuites will be empty. Our newly returned seekers can have them. Now-- onto other matters. Slipshod, see yourself out."

Slipshod could not. He lay there like garbage.

Baffled, but having a keen enough sense of self preservation to shrink his EM field small to hide it, Starscream just stood there and watched. Skywarp and Thundercracker were similarly disturbed, but Starscream only knew in hindsight because they both shut up and let him do the talking from then on. Starscream was the best liar when he didn't get too ahead of himself.

No one stepped forward as volunteer to show Starscream's trine their newly assigned rooms, and Megatron didn't give anyone the order. The conversation, tension locked under the surface, moved onto a different report. The seekers ducked out the moment they thought they could get away with it, and it was Deadlock who ended up following them and enacting himself as their guide once more.

"I guess you weren't lying," Deadlock told Starscream after some distance.

"No," Starscream said pointedly.

No one had much to say after that. 

The group went up two levels and traversed a dizzying number of twists and turns through the shadowy hallways, until Deadlock stopped and gestured halfheartedly at three doors lined up in a row. "I think these belonged to Aceshot's trine," Deadlock said. "And I think they were cleared out, but you'll know for certain when you go in."

"Give me your comm link," Starscream said, just remembering.

"I feel like you're more trouble than you're worth," Deadlock replied, close to humor without quite reaching it. Still, Deadlock gave his comm link up to the three seekers readily enough.

"Goodbye," Starscream said as soon as the transmission was received, and then he ducked into the nearest door.

Thundercracker lingered behind for a moment. "If you get any weird messages from unknown numbers," he told Deadlock matter-of-factly, "It's Skywarp. He has a few different lines. Don't entertain him." He swept into the habsuite after Starscream.

"Thundercracker's not going to comm you at all," Skywarp chuckled, "But Starscream's going to give you silence and then, out of the blue, spam upon spam as soon as he needs something. Bye!"

After the habsuite door slammed shut for the final time, Skywarp locked the door behind him. In the resulting quiet, Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp simply stood around, looking at each other.

[Bugs,] Starscream commed, and at once the three of them found separate corners of the room to investigate.

Their careful search, repeated thrice over to suit Starscream's paranoia, revealed no hidden recorders, wiretaps, bugs, cameras, or peepholes. Starscream hovered by the habsuite door, searching for the sound of movement or the stretched fields of any eavesdroppers. When it was clear there was no other productive action left to take, Skywarp leaned against the wall and Thundercracker stumbled over to flop onto the berth and sink into the thin foam pad. 

Starscream, pacing restless circles, paused long enough to say, "Ew, Thundercracker, don't put your face in that. Primus knows what's touched it."

"We used to live in an alley," Thundercracker said, but he did roll onto his back.

There wasn't nearly enough room in that closet of a habsuite for Starscream to really get into his pacing. He clenched his dentae and both fists, turning sharply on the thruster of his heel.

"Here we go," said Skywarp.

"Lord? Megatron?" Starscream shrilled. With rather dismal expectations of the room's sound-proofing, Starscream couldn't reach the volume he wanted, but even restrained, the pitches of his vocalizer could make any mech want to cover their audial recorders. Not Skywarp and Thundercracker, who, for once, had good incentive to join in on Starscream's stress-rant.

"He has mechs say it like it's one word," Thundercracker said. "LordMegatron. What was the point of shortening his designation if he was going to make it longer than it was to begin with?"

"This is what we get? That pompous bucket of rust wouldn't know greatness if it crawled up his exhaust! Pits, we should've taken that gladiator business as a sign!"

"He had no choice but to do that," Skywarp said desperately.

"He loved it!"

"He was still supposed to be above it!"

"He's not, apparently! Megatron's bought into his own bloody hype!"

"And that Vortex guy," Thundercracker said wearily. "That's some bad luck."

"Frag!" Starscream spat.

"And Slipshod," Thundercracker said.

They lapsed into a long silence.

Starscream paced circles. He fumed. He vented. He got it out of his system, or so he told himself.

Eventually, he said, "So Megatron is a fool. We can work with this."

"What? We should leave!" Thundercracker said. "The sooner the better. Now, actually. Hardly anyone knows who we are, and Megatron said he was going to be busy for a while."

"Not possible," Starscream said. "We've just got here, and we don't know everything that's changed since we've been in stasis."

"We can find that out later, once we disappear! I think we should cut our losses and get out of here before Megatron sends us out into real battle and we still don't know what we're fighting for. Deadlock said it's become war."

"It's not so easy as that. Before, we were always running to something. We were always running back to the decepticons, or before that, back to some safe haunt we had scouted out. If something didn't work, we had contingencies. Now we have nothing. We have to wait."

Skywarp added, "And we might as well make use of having a doctor around while we can. Oh, it makes me all jittery to think of ice in my circuits."

Thundercracker vented. "Fine. But eventually, I think we should leave."

"We should always have an escape plan," Starscream said. "But I think there could be an advantage to sticking around, even if you two don't believe in the cause anymore."

"I do believe in the cause," Thundercracker said darkly. "I just think it has changed."

Skywarp said, "I think it's too early to tell."

"We'll speak with Megatron," Starscream said. "But we seem to have his favor so there shouldn't be anything to fear. Megatron's idea of empire could certainly use some improvement, but he has built something substantial. With him in charge for now, we can rise in the ranks and see about changing things our own way."

Thundercracker shook his helm. "Megatron's behavior is more than just strange. He's a different mech entirely. When Megatron used to go up against gladiators like that, we would get worried."

"I'm not exactly happy, either," Skywarp said, "But where else can we go? The autobots?"

"There are never just two sides," Thundercracker said. "Who are the neutrals? Who's still living on Cybertron, anyway? Oh, we need Pax to get us a few fragging maps so we can get a hold on who everyone is and where everyone is. . . "

"Oh. I should tell you about Orion Pax," Starscream said with a sheepish jolt.

Trine deliberations were as much gossip sessions as useful discussion, but Orion's change of spark and change of frame had the ring of a particularly far-fetched, if juicy, tall tale. Starscream wasted a ridiculous amount of time convincing Skywarp and Thundercracker to believe him, and then convincing Skywarp to stop shouting and laughing, before he could even finish recounting his tale.

"I can't believe this," Starscream complained. "My own trine brothers, made by choice, won't take my word as truth. I suppose I chose fragging wrong!"

Skywarp shouted, "That's your own damn fault for lying to us for fun so often! I just can't believe you didn't notice anything a little off about Pax getting retrofitted into a tank!"

"I am positive he is still a truck!"

"Orion Pax-- an autobot," Skywarp muttered wonderingly. "I thought he was Megatronus's mech!"

Starscream shrugged. "The breakup must have been a sight to behold. I'm not sure whether to be disappointed or glad we missed it."

"It's like one of your plays, isn't it, Thundercracker?"

Thundercracker said nothing. He held his helm in his hands.

Starscream flapped a hand at Skywarp. "So, as I was saying, we'll have to see who's replaced Pax as the in-house archivist."

Thundercracker vented. "We'll still have to see what neutral Cybertronian parties even exist now that Cybertron's apparently fallen. Oh, rust. We'll have to do our own investigations. Discreetly."

"Of course," Starscream replied. "We'll stick with the decepticons for now, see about climbing the ranks. . . and if it all goes to slag, we can make a break for. . ."

Starscream trailed off as three heavy knocks sounded against the habsuite door. Starscream looked at Skywarp and Skywarp looked at Thundercracker and Thundercracker looked at Starscream.

[Were we too loud?] Skywarp commed.

Starscream grimaced. Thundercracker glared at him.

The three knocks repeated, polite and unhurried, but unmistakably firm.

Well, if Megatron was going to gun them down now, Starscream had a few choice words he wanted to say faceplate to faceplate. Starscream crossed the room to unlock the habsuite door. The mech on the other side was tall, grim, and solid, but he was not Megatron.

"Greetings: Elite Trine," Soundwave said. The original tone of his voicebox was changed by a vocal modulator turning his every word into a droning hum. Somehow, it still managed to be musical.

Skywarp laughed, relief blurring the edges of his field. "Soundwave! Hello!"

"Get in here, you lumbering fool!" Starscream hissed at the blue mech.

Soundwave allowed himself to be yanked into the habsuite. It reminded Starscream uncomfortably of what it was like to tug Orion Pax around-- entirely possible and honestly quite easy, but only because the mass-heavy mech consented to it.

Chapter Text

During the Golden Age of Cybertron, theatre was the pastime of the high-ranking castes. It was for mechs with shanix and free time to kill. Thundercracker had no shanix, but he did have plenty of free time before he got caught up in all the decepticon business. He liked to visit one particular theatre in Helex because, down on its luck and slowly sinking into disrepair, it was easy to break into.

Thundercracker never entered through the front door and never sat in a seat, but he watched the productions from a shadowed corner in the rafters. A stolen visor dimmed the light from his optics, and if he ignored the stiffness in his joints to crouch small and still, he could stay a whole cycle with the rest of the audience none the wiser. This hobby wasn't uniquely his; Skywarp and Starscream tended to invite themselves along. Their squabbling, squirming, and screechy whispers threatened to get them caught every time, but if the whole trine could stick to speaking through comms, Skywarp and Starscream's commentary made watching the bad plays fun.

Starscream liked the musicals no matter what. Skywarp hated the musicals no matter what. Thundercracker had a more discerning taste, but he had a soft spot for tragedies that neither Starscream nor Skywarp could wrap their tiny processors around. Still, the arguments about the productions were often as fun as the productions themselves.

Thundercracker, Starscream, and Skywarp met Buzzsaw in these theatre rafters on one such night out, an unhappy surprise for both parties when they both tried to use the same secret perch at the same time. The resulting havoc was the closest any of them would come to being caught by security; Buzzsaw snapped angrily at Starscream's wrist, and the push Buzzsaw received for the trouble would have knocked the cassette unmistakably into the middle of the audience. On fast instinct, Thundercracker snatched Buzzsaw around the neck and heaved him back onto the ledge, white-hot panic shooting through his field.

Thundercracker gritted his dentae, pointed teeth on full display and aimed at everyone equally. "Shut up, Shut up, Shut up!" he whispered as the star of the show launched into a soliloquy below. "Do not ruin this."

Only then did he release Buzzsaw's neck.

Buzzsaw and the seekers relented into a steady, if sullen, peace. They shared the secret perch. As Thundercracker would later find out, Buzzsaw was breaking into theaters and watching plays for the benefit of him and all of his fellow cassettes, broadcasting the footage live to Soundwave from whatever street hideouts Soundwave and the others were left behind in.

The day Buzzsaw finally spoke to Thundercracker, his brothers were off trudging through the muck and grime of lower Tarn, searching for a rumored underground flight ring for winged frames that couldn't legally take to the skies for one reason or another. Thundercracker was alone except for the quiet and steady presence of Buzzsaw.

"You like musicals?" Buzzsaw said.

Immediately, Thundercracker's helm swiveled to look at Buzzsaw, but Buzzsaw's yellow optics were glued to the stage.

"Yeah," Thundercracker replied, trying for casual. "You?"

"Yeah."

They watched the play in silence until the next musical number.

"You write anything?" Buzzsaw asked.

". . . Yeah."

"It's not poetry, is it?"

Thundercracker cracked a grin, back when he was still able to. "It's plays."

Buzzsaw quietly clacked his beak a few times. "There's this. . . book club I'm part of. It's a small thing, everyone knows each other, mainly low-caste mechs. You can write about anything. It's sort of illegal."

Scratched and dull, Thundercracker's paintjob had seen better days. Unlike Starscream, he had long stopped bothering to clean the dirt and dried energon from under his claws. He might have been sparked for the high, gleaming towers of Vos, but he had obviously fallen far from them, which is why mechs up to sort-of-illegal activity invited him into their schemes sometimes. This "book club" was a first, though.

Thundercracker hummed. "If it's a sex thing, I'm sorry, but I'm not interested."

"It's not a sex thing, you glitch! It's a real book club! The main mech running it does poetry, and it's good, but I'm tired of only poetry, you get me?"

"Sure."

"You want in?"

"What kind of poetry are we talking?"

Buzzsaw sent him one massive file. In it there was poetry as promised, but at the very end there was what Thundercracker could only describe as a manifesto, all of it under the pen name Megatronus. Skimming it for the first time in the theater rafters, song echoing around him, Thundercracker was suddenly and incredulously aware that possession of such a file was grounds for Empurata or worse. 

"You guys will take anything," he said. "Sure."

Three million years later, the door slammed shut behind Soundwave. He asked, "Was Starscream: expecting someone else?"

"No."

Thundercracker sat up on the berth. He didn't so much as smile, but his field reached out towards Soundwave in warm greeting. "Nobody important," he said. "Hello, Soundwave."

"Greetings: Thundercracker. Greetings: Skywarp."

Skywarp saluted playfully. "Long time no see!"

"And what am I?" Starscream complained. "A speck of dust? A light breeze? I suppose I'd be nothing worth acknowledging, then."

"Soundwave: greeted Elite Trine."

"Megatron started using that name as a damned joke and we both know it. I don't know why he's bringing it up again in front of all of his new lackeys, like it has any pomp or circumstance. I don't know why you bring it up except to be sly-- oh, I know that's the exact reason."

"Lord Megatron: enjoys pomp and circumstance. So does: Starscream," Soundwave intoned. "Lord Megatron: referred to by title."

"Oh, whatever. He's not here."

"Sorry," Skywarp told Soundwave, pretending to whisper. "Starscream's got his wires in a twist because we just talked to Megatron. Uh, Lord Megatron, hehehe."

"Acknowledged."

"Relax, Soundwave," Starscream said. "What's said in this room can stay between us. Who's going to snitch?"

"Soundwave: Communications Expert. Also: Decepticon Second in Command."

Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker froze like they were back in the ice.

Hm, Starscream thought in blank resignation, I guess Megatron's going to pay us a rude visit after all.

Soundwave did not fidget or even seem to vent. He just stood there like a concrete wall, blocking a straight path to the habsuite's only entrance and exit.

". . . Lord Megatron: not in this room," Soundwave said.

Starscream gave Soundwave's pauldron a comradely punch. "Spoken like a true member of command!"

Soundwave totally hid his expressions with a mask and visor. He was uniquely skilled at keeping his EM field similarly unreadable, but just by looking at him Starscream got the impression of rolled optics. "Some allowance: paid to Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker. For now. Long absence: results in ignorance."

"Oh, please."

"Three million years: is three million years."

"Fine, then. What would a modern-day decepticon need to know to survive, SIC Soundwave?"

"Lord Megatron: Leader of the decepticons. Owed: ultimate loyalty. Referred to: by title."

"I will make sure to treat our Lord will all due respect," Starscream said in his most polite and innocent tone.

Soundwave's memory banks were reliable enough not to fall for that, but he only said, "Acknowledged."

Skywarp pushed off of the wall and came to stand in front of Soundwave. "Forget about Screamer's complaining! What have we missed?"

"Megatron: celebrated Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker as martyrs."

"Who would've thought dying was the way to get any appreciation around here?" Starscream said dryly.

Thundercracker said, "It was a long time ago, Star. They probably only remember us as bots that got ourselves killed."

"Hmm. . ." Starscream made a face. "Hate to say you've got a point. We can't let that stand!"

Soundwave's visor flashed.

"What?" Starscream asked. 

Soundwave hesitated, drawing his field in close.

"What? What is it? Tell us!"

"Seekers: remembered for propaganda."

Starscream grinned sharply. "Oooh! Like posters?"

"Affirmative."

Skywarp perked up. "All of us?"

"Affirmative: all of you." 

"Alright, Soundwave," Thundercracker sighed and beckoned a servo. "Send us a file so we can see how bad it is."

Soundwave's chassis popped open and a cassette ejected, flipping into a transformation and landing in root mode at Soundwave's feet. Starscream recognized the purple paintjob of Rumble-- but he supposed it just as easily could have been Frenzy. They liked to switch colors to cause confusion.

"Soundwave: did not call for backup," Soundwave said, somehow managing to put an edge on that monotone.

Rumble-Probably-Not-Frenzy cackled. "Here's your file!"

There was a blip on Starscream's HUD: a file requesting to be shared. Soundwave picked Rumble up by the back of the neck, shook him once, and Rumble transformed back into a cassette.

"I let him do that!" Rumble insisted as Soundwave pushed him back into his chassis, gently but firmly.

Nothing so much as a hello or a goodbye, Starscream thought. He said out loud, "If this is a virus I'm letting Skywarp punt you across the room, Rumble."

"Negative," Soundwave said simply.

Starscream opened the file. It was a set of recruitment posters featuring all three seekers separately.

"Oh!" Skywarp gasped, his own copies pulled up on his HUD. "I remember this! This was a fragging joke! We said 'Let's take a silly one!'"

'Join the Decepticons!' The posters read. 'You are being deceived!'

Behind the bold messaging on each poster was a pinup of a seeker. In Thundercracker's pinup he stood strong and tall, tough as titanium, but it was taken at a low angle that emphasized his long legs and featured his panel front and center in the middle of the photo. Skywarp was crouched on his heels, a hand on his knee and a hand on his neck, face frozen in a genuine laugh ("Balance!" Starscream had shrieked at him, adjusting the angle, "Primus, how can you expect to sneak up on autobots if this is the steadiness you're working with?").

Starscream's pinup was taken from above (for which Skywarp had to balance precariously on someone's grimy windowsill). He laid back on a broken, abandoned desk, one arm stretched out behind his helm and the other saucily beckoning the camera. The desk had been on the verge of collapsing from his weight, but Starscream's expression was nothing but brazen confidence. Looking back, he distinctly remembered the capture taken in a dirty alley with the lighting of a shattered streetlamp, but for the poster someone had skillfully color-corrected and edited the background out.

"I'm not mad at it," Starscream said eventually.

Skywarp laughed and laughed, doubling over, stumbling into Thundercracker, and clutching the blue shoulder to steady himself. Thundercracker's stoic face didn't change, but his fists clenched so hard the finger-joints started to creak.

"You fraggers made me make all these gun poses in front of a sunset," Thundercracker said slowly, "I ripped off an officer's arm and someone caught a capture of me hitting him with it. Why didn't they use any of that?"

"Thundercracker!" Starscream said, trying for reassurance but unable to stop half of a chuckle from bubbling out. "Thundercracker, it's nothing undignified. Come on. It was for, uh, what did Shockwave say? Optics."

Skywarp wheezed and coughed, which didn't help. Thundercracker's field bubbled with fury. The photoshoots had taken a long time, sending the seekers all across Kaon looking for usable backdrops in a city that was entirely dark, wet, and rusting apart at the seams. Out of everything they shot, the pinups were taken as a quick afterthought ("Let's take a silly one," Skywarp had said, "Starscream, get on top of that garbage pile.").

Starscream said, "Oh, I'll tell you what. Next time we're on the field, we'll rip some autobot's faceplate off, you can wear it, and then we can make sure some journalist sees it."

"Cybertron: fallen. Journalists: rare," Soundwave said. "For autobots and decepticons: news equals intelligence."

Starscream shrugged. "We'll fly Thundercracker in a loop around the next battlefield, then. Bots will see."

"I can't believe bots think of our panels when they think of us," Thundercracker hissed.

Skywarp howled with laughter.

"We have nice panels. They're jealous. Fine things are hard to come by," Starscream said resolutely. "Skywarp, shut up!" He meant it, but Starscream knew well by now that telling Skywarp to stop laughing was only bound to make it worse.

Lo and behold, Skywarp could hardly speak through his giggles. "Everything interesting only started happening without us! Do you--hahahaha--"

"Vent, Skywarp, you idiot."

"Do you think that's why Pax defected?"

"Maybe. He probably saw what we had to offer and knew he couldn't compete."

Soundwave didn't say things like "Oh," but he made a long and especially stiff pause that seemed to carry the same meaning.

Thundercracker said, "They are joking, Soundwave," though he turned his nose up at both of his brothers.

"Orion Pax: designation changed. New designation: Optimus Prime."

"Wait," Starscream said.

Skywarp made a face. "That's weird. Even Megatron didn't put the 'Prime' at the end."

"Optimus Prime: leader of the autobots. Bearer of: the Matrix of Leadership. Lord Megatron's: worst enemy. Said to be: last of the primes."

"Oh! Oh!"

Starscream made one long, venomous hiss that amounted to, "What?"

"Optimus Prime: leader of the autobots. Bearer of: the Matrix of Leadership. Lord Megatron's: worst enemy. Said to be: last of the primes."

Starscream shuttered his optics, splayed his hands, and did not start punching the walls. Skywarp, caught somewhere in the middle of a smile and a grimace, turned to pin Starscream with a stare that threatened to burn holes in his plating. "Orion Pax?" Skywarp repeated.

Thundercracker groaned, the sound warped with static. "I have the worst processor ache. Why couldn't those two just break up like normal people? Why did they have to get the rest of us involved? Starscrrrrrr--ee-- what-t? That's odd-d-d-d--" The sentence, cut with static, trailed off into abrupt nonsense. Something popped and sparked behind Thundercracker's left optic. "Wh-h-h-t--" Thundercracker slumped over on the berth, quiet. The gleaming red light of his optics went dim and then black.

Starscream and Skywarp stood in horror.

Skywarp gaped. "Oh, damn?"

"Primus!" Starscream shrieked. "Did his spark fragging stop?"

"Hey, Thundercracker, you klutz, wake up--"

"Say something!"

Thundercracker did not. He lay there like a metal husk.

"Thundercracker: online," Soundwave said. It was a stated fact instead of an order, but Starscream and Skywarp ignored him.

"It wasn't that shocking!" Starscream cried. "You didn't even like Pax all that much!"

Skywarp whirled on Starscream. "You're shocked and you were the one running around arm in arm with Pax as soon as you woke up!"

Soundwave's visor flashed. "Query--"

Starscream whirled on Soundwave. "That is not what happened," he said. Fast, he turned back to Skywarp. "And you weren't making any important discoveries while I was fighting for my life, either!"

"You're right! I was unconscious! You're dense as a brick, Screamer!"

Again, Soundwave said, "Thundercracker: online. Systems: disrupted."

"You know what? It is shocking! It is shocking that the limp spinal struts on that glass-framed Iaconian didn't immediately snap under the matrix when those rusting, rotting fools on the council decided to give him the primacy! Thundercracker's shorted out over it!"

"Causation: unlikely."

"We need a doctor!" Skywarp shouted.

"Primus, I know that!" Starscream shouted back. He put his hands on his hips and looked at Soundwave expectantly.

". . . Soundwave: will assist."

"That's why they made you second. You're not totally useless."

Soundwave did not do things like sigh, but his short pause was as good as one. "Chief Medical Officer: Knockout does not make house-calls. He will: make an exception for this patient's identity."

"Chief Medic!" Starscream smirked, relieved. "I suppose he actually might know what he's doing, then."

"Knockout: only decepticon medic on base. Chief Medic: by default."

"Oh. Well, bring him anyway."

Soundwave sent for Knockout with a comm and tried to make his polite leave, but Starscream and Skywarp didn't let him go so easily.

Starscream said, "We're not just going go brush over Optimus Prime."

Soundwave made one of his world-weary sigh-pauses. "Soundwave: acknowledges debriefing necessary. However: uninterested in idle gossip."

"Get on with it!"

Soundwave was one of the worst storytellers Starscream ever had the misfortune of gossiping with. It wasn't a lack of information Soundwave suffered from, but an unwillingness to part with it out of some blockheaded sense of "efficient reporting". The details were important, Starscream said! He wanted to know it all and he wanted to know it all as it had exactly happened!

In broad strokes, Soundwave laid out a rough timeline: Three million years ago on Cybertron, just when the decepticon movement began to slink out of the shadows and into the public eye, Starscream's trine vanished on a mission. In their absence, the decepticons continued to grow from small, secret gatherings to a real political movement. Membership was mostly low-caste, from laborers and disposables to criminals and outcasts, but the numbers were on their side-- such mechs outnumbered the upper classes ten to one, and they realized it.

Still, sympathy towards the movement had a way of leeching upwards to take root even in mechs at the top of the ladder. That's how the decepticons got former senator Shockwave-- Shockwave's openly anti-functionist ideas got him sacked early and made him pay dearly. It was the circumstances around Shockwave's empurata that the trine had been sent to investigate on that misbegotten mission. In the trine's resulting absence, Soundwave and his cassettes finished the investigation themselves, deemed Zeta Prime one of those guilty, and assassinated him in his berth. It was as good as a declaration of war against the council, but Soundwave did good work. For such a high-profile assassination, there was no real evidence left behind except for the fact that the most valuable leadership role on Cybertron was suddenly empty.

Megatron wanted it. With the primacy in his grasp, the change he could enact on Cybertron would save the lives of millions-- he could do away with functionism, if not all at once, in huge stages. The council could not openly act against the word of a living prime, and even if someone tried to remove a prime by way of assassination, Megatron surrounded himself with an inner circle of decepticons as paranoid and sharp-edged as he was himself. All Megatron had to do was somehow get his servos on the Matrix of Leadership, the old holy relic pried out of Zeta Prime's dead chassis and kept locked away in the temple of primes.

Starscream snorted.

"Megatron's grand ambition: distant," Soundwave admitted. "Decepticons faced: other, immediate problems"

Mass deactivation was a tried and true method of squashing rebellion, but the council began to realize that out of necessity, decepticons had a way of hiding in plain sight. After massacres and lockdowns and enforcer searches, they had a way of popping out of hidden cracks and seams like scraplets, alive to see another cycle. The council stayed their hand from their most extreme measures far longer than Megatron, Soundwave, or Shockwave thought possible, but they were relentless. Megatron evaded capture by constantly moving, disappearing into the bowels of Lower Kaon, hosting hasty rallies, and then fleeing the scene before the enforcers arrived. 

Meanwhile, with Starscream gone, Soundwave and Orion Pax moved closer to Megatron as his right and left hands. While Soundwave preferred to assist from the shadows, Pax was content to share the spotlight with Megatron. It was Pax who went with Megatron when the autobot council granted the decepticons an audience in their gleaming temple.

"Okay, but how did you get in?" Starscream asked.

"Soundwave: did not go."

"It was a fragging trap, though. Anyone could tell."

"Megatron: forbid interference."

"Which one of the cassettes did you send after them?"

". . . Lazerbeak and Buzzsaw: apprehended by security. Escaped and retreated. Ravage: unable to find entry point."

"Happens to the best of us. Your little rebellious secret's safe with us. Right, Skywarp?"

"Sure, sure," Skywarp hummed absently, "Shame I wasn't there, you know. I would've loved breaking into the Prime's palace!"

"No one: broke into the Prime's palace," Soundwave said grimly. "Mechs came and went: by leave of the council. Megatron and Orion Pax: entered alone. Orion Pax: accepted the Matrix of Leadership. Became: Prime. Betrayed: decepticons. Optimus Prime's council: enacted mass deactivation protocols. Megatron: declared civil war."

Starscream crossed his arms and let it all sink in for a moment. Soundwave inched towards the door. "Well, there has to be more than that!" Starscream blurted.

"Facts: provided. Idle gossip: not tolerated."

"Why did they give Pax the primacy?"

"Easily controlled. More palatable. Reasoning: no longer matters. Optimus Prime: dedicated leader of the autobots."

"Insane."

That was the extent of Soundwave's social meter for that day, and the seekers could get nothing more out of him. Grumbling, Starscream dismissed him and turned back to Thundercracker. When Soundwave finally did slip out like a ghost, Starscream didn't even notice him gone until Knockout arrived, too busy repeatedly tapping a single claw between Thundercracker's optics as if he could irritate his brother back online.

Chief Medic Knockout made good time-- either the medical ward was close by, or Knockout had transformed and burned rubber through the halls. There was a prim knock on the door to announce his arrival, but Knockout didn't bother waiting on Starscream or Skywarp for admittance. He barged in like he owned the place, frame gleaming ruby and white-silver under the lights.

"Oh, no need to get up. Medical-class overrides work like a charm," Knockout announced. His crooning voice was the most welcome one Starscream had heard since the trine's return, even if he was being unmannerly. "I hear someone's come in from the cold?"

"You've had work done," Starscream said snidely. He couldn't decry the quality of the frame changes, though-- Knockout had simultaneously widened his chassis and slimmed down his waist above the hips, exaggerating his proportions for the aesthetic and managing not to lean too far and look crazy.

"You haven't."

Starscream broke into a grin. "I'm not the patient, fool!"

Knockout rolled his optics and started pulling loose tools out of his subspace, but his faceplate was softer than his usual smug smirk. "And it is good to see you, too, Starscream. Skywarp, hello!"

Skywarp flicked one of Knockout's tires. "Yes, yes, you look very bright and flashy. I'll send all my friends over to you for retrofitting. Now go see Thundercracker!"

"I certainly see him already," Knockout hummed. He was already striding towards the berth, where Thundercracker was laid back, limbs akimbo because the joints had started to screech and grind worryingly when Starscream tried to arrange them. "Looks like he needs some oil and polish, but all of you do."

Starscream grunted.

"Thundercracker isn't dead. For a more official diagnosis, I'm going to check him over," Knockout said. "So. . . ice? Frozen in ice?"

"For the millionth time, yes," Skywarp groaned.

"You three been gone so long we gave you up for dead! What the frag happened?"

"Memory files are corrupted," Starscream said. "We were going to ask Shockwave for some help sorting them out."

Knockout paused, then shook his helm. "Don't go to Shockwave. He's not someone you want poking around up there."

"Why not?"

"Because he's as likely to take you apart then put you back together. He's changed."

As Knockout threw himself into his work, scanning and prodding Thundercracker, Starscream pinched the bridge of his nose and hissed a vent in. "Pits. What is it this time?"

"Haha!-- But in all seriousness, Shockwave doesn't feel much of anything anymore except curiosity. He's Megatron's favorite scientist and engineer, so Megatron lets him do whatever he wants. Shockwave's had an interest in making weapons out of people."

Skywarp crossed his arms, perched on the desk and fidgeting with the effort of not hovering over Knockout's shoulder. "Shockwave gave up everything for the decepticons," he said defensively.

"Yes, but that was a long time ago. I'm not saying this right. What I mean is that when mechs go into Shockwave's lab, they usually don't go out. Shockwave cuts people up and melts them down or just keeps them and does who-knows-what. He's different now. We used to wonder about it, back when it first happened, and the main theory is that the empurata took away the emotion center in his processor."

Starscream threw his hands up. "That's-- well, what in the pits are we meant to do about our memory files, then?"

"I suppose I can help. . . Eventually. I'd have to do some research first-- don't look at me like that, Starscream, you ungrateful glitch. I'm no mind doctor! Would you have me poke around in your processor without knowing what I'm doing?"

"You had no such worries before."

Knockout laughed. "Well, even I knew to stay out of processors back then. They're too complicated to learn about just by prying them open to look at."

Starscream scoffed. Knockout used to poke around in mechs' frames with only vague ideas of what he was doing or where he was cutting. Ostensibly, it was all for the medical care of bots desperate enough to seek back-alley treatment, but in actuality it was more of a hands-on, learn-as-you-go educational experience for Knockout, with less regard for the patient's well-being in the end. Still, though Starscream grumbled now, he could recognize Knockout's new appreciation for prior knowledge as the better thing.

"Actually, this might be a problem that'll solve itself," Knockout continued, crouched over Thundercracker's chassis. "Processors use recharge for data organization. After a few cycles, your long-term memory files might unconsciously unlock all on their own."

"Even I know that! You're telling us to wait it out and hope for the best?" 

"I am your doctor. I am diagnosing you with tired and prescribing you with recharge. My model patient Thundercracker is already one step ahead."

Starscream looked at Skywarp. Skywarp shrugged and said, "We'll do it anyway, Screamer."

"Fine!" Starscream complained. "But I expect some patient confidentiality. I can't have mechs thinking we're scrambled."

"Not a problem. Speaking of which, word of the elite trine's return is spreading fast. Popular opinion of you three has been mostly formed by these posters--"

"--We saw." Starscream said dryly.

Knockout grinned. "Megatron released them just after your 'deaths'! Oh, Soundwave felt bad about it, but I said that it's what you would have wanted."

"Don't say that to Thundercracker. He'll short out on us again."

According to Knockout, Thundercracker's collapse was a result of the extended stasis in ice-- the energon in Thundercracker's tanks, frozen for so many years, had gone sour and was now unfit to power even a drone. His tanks needed to purge and there was probably grit in his joints, water under his plating, and scratches on his optic lenses-- Knockout rattled off a long list of unpleasant-sounding problems that had Starscream covering his own intake, and then Knockout finished it off to say that Skywarp and Starscream were likely to be in the same state as their poor brother.

"Wait," Knockout said. "When was the last time any of you have eaten?"

Skywarp said, "Uh."

"We haven't," said Starscream, only realizing the fact at that moment. He had forcibly turned off all of the warnings and error messages pinging his system since he first came online again, because otherwise his HUD would be too crowded to even see.

Knockout cussed them out for the neglect (as if it was their fault), and Starscream only allowed it because he was too busy making a long and painfully exact list of the energon mixes he wanted. There surely had to be at least one capable chef on base, and Starscream wanted a feast fit for a Lord.

Knockout vetoed such plans. "You'll only purge it back up and we certainly don't need that. Everyone gets janitor duty, but nobody does it. You-- all of you-- are coming back with me to the med bay and eating only what I give you. You are going to sit down, let me do all the checks to make sure you'll stay alive, and then I will talk to you about paint retouches."

The urge to argue on principle tickled Starscream's vocalizer, but. . . this was acceptable, he supposed. "As long as you clear out the med bay," he said. "I'm not sharing it."

"I don't mind kicking Astrotrain out, but I'm not going to be the one to tell him."

They made their way to the med bay eventually, Thundercracker slung over Skywarp's shoulder, but progress was delayed somewhat by snide comments that devolved into name-calling and meaningless squabbling. It was nice to have some things stay the same.

Chapter Text

The decepticon chain of command was a nebulous thing once a mech got past the top two rungs. Megatron ruled in no uncertain terms at the top. By his side, SIC Soundwave's unshakeable calm kept day-to-day operations running. Shockwave seemed to rank third in command, but beyond that, Megatron gained and lost commanding officers by the cycle. Failure could mean as much as a death sentence, but demotion was not necessarily the same because Megatron was known for impatience, replacing officers on a whim and usually choosing to boot them down to the inglorious lower ranks instead of outright murdering them. In-fighting was more dangerous to the ambitious decepticon than autobots on the field-- Megatron encouraged cut-throat competition with the caveat that disruptions and distractions were unacceptable. While Starscream had been prepared to murder bots in recharge in order to climb his way up to the top, it was more unnerving when everyone else was willing to do the same.

However long the decepticons had stood against the autobots, they were no well-oiled machine, and Starscream hadn't realized that the freedom Megatron had championed would come with such. . . chaos. No matter. He could adapt.

Skywarp seemed to thrive, at least when it came to useless pranks. So many new mechs unfamiliar with Skywarp's brand of trickery were nothing but sitting targets, and none of the bots that did know him were inclined to give warnings. Once, when Starscream turned his back to fetch their share of energon in the mess hall, Skywarp spilled oil across the grandly sweeping staircase, shoved someone at the top, and managed to escape the immediate aftermath mostly unseen. Mechs crashed down the stairs in one big wave, toppling one after another like a twenty-car pileup, scrabbling for purchase against oiled railings and finding none. Starscream, abandoned with two cubes of energon in his hands and a sudden roomful of gun barrels pointed his way, lied his aft off to save his ungrateful brother, and by extension himself, from the blame. Someone named Crankshaft was made scapegoat for the simple fact that he stood, unluckily, in convenient pointing distance from Starscream. Starscream slipped out when the mob started to disassemble the other mech, making his exit just in time to avoid Megatron's arrival and subsequent spill down the oiled stairs. Megatron landed the killing blow on Crankshaft himself. The only reason Starscream didn't end Skywarp's miserable existence in retaliation was because Vortex had been swept up in the initial fall, cracking helicopter blades painfully against every step and almost beheading several poor fools on his way down.

Thundercracker kept to himself, mostly. After he woke and there was another trine deliberation to fill him in on what he had missed, he was full of nothing but questions about the cassettes-- especially Buzzsaw, who he used to chat with about literary themes and art made in times of civil unrest and things like that.

"Haven't seen him," Starscream said. "Maybe he was sent off to assassinate the prime again."

What a mad world.

On Thundercracker's behalf Starscream was delighted to blow up Soundwave's comm line with questions inquiring after Buzzsaw's whereabouts. The most information Soundwave would pass on was that the cassette was gone on a mission: No, Soundwave couldn't say what it was, no, he couldn't say who went with, and no, he couldn't say when Buzzsaw would return.

Bluntly, Soundwave did say, [Buzzsaw: will not return soon.]  It was the last comm Starscream received before Soundwave made a truly serious threat towards the future integrity of Starscream's comm system if Starscream did not cease and desist. Starscream ceased and desisted.

The news hung a dark cloud over a recovering Thundercracker, so Starscream chose to gossip with Skywarp over private, two-way comms for subtlety. [Do you think it's a suicide mission?] Starscream asked.

Skywarp vented in a gasp out loud. "A suicide mission?"

Thundercracker's field roiled with grief. Starscream grabbed the nearest thing at hand-- a severed fuel pump sitting in a basin on a surgical tool cart-- and flung it at Skywarp. He ducked.

"Stop!" Knockout shouted. "What's wrong with you? I have to put that back onto Swindle and its got enough holes in it as it is! Get out! Out!"

So the three seekers were ejected out of the med bay. After the medical discharge, Starscream watched Thundercracker's public behavior closely with a warning about appearances and reputations ready at the tip of his glossa, but he never had to give it. Thundercracker kept his head up and his field close. That was the area of strength in Thundercracker's acting: quiet stoicism. Though the act tended to fall apart as soon as someone actually spoke to Thundercracker so Starscream was content to draw attention away from his brother as much as necessary.

Thundercracker's quiet moping made Starscream uncomfortable, but Starscream supposed he had his own connections to have emotions over. Namely, Shockwave, who had not visited or so much as commed. Shockwave, who once had a long conversation over energon in which Starscream had said something like, "Even if the council does manage to put you on trial for something, they can't actually touch you. Worst case scenario, they'll try to stick you with prison time, but that's easy! I get out all the time!"

Shockwave's lab in the new home base took up a huge swathe of basement area, but Starscream had to go out of his way to even reach its general vicinity. Every aspect of the search was a struggle from the beginning because any questions pertaining to Shockwave or the lab were met with judgement if not outright fear. Starscream dialed up the charm and even tried flirtation, but none of the random mechs he pulled aside had anything remotely helpful to say. At last, Starscream gritted his dentae and spammed Deadlock's comm line.

[You are insane,] Deadlock said. [Ask someone else! I haven't had any reason to go bothering Shockwave and I want to keep it that way!]

[Tell me!] Starscream commed twenty times. [Tell me where it is!]

Deadlock relented, but he didn't give Starscream exact or even estimated coordinates. Over comms, Deadlock wrote out a long and overly convoluted step-by-step list of barely understandable directions and then deactivated his comms entirely for the next forty-eight hours. 

[Step 15: turn right at old energon puddle #47 (from the left).]

[Step 16: Continue down scratched hallway with GRAY ceiling.]

[Step 17: Turn left at crossroads, down scratched hallway with BLACK ceiling.]

Starscream wanted to melt Deadlock down into scrap metal and use it to make bolts, but it was no use trying to find him in person-- Deadlock gave even Ravage a run for her money when it came to stealth, and he was fast to make himself scarce. Starscream didn't want Thundercracker and Skywarp along for this. Did Starscream want to get Soundwave involved? No. Was Starscream going to run to Megatron about this? No.

So with that, Deadlock's comms were the only lead Starscream had. With much grumbling, they were the lead he followed. The stupid, petty directions got Starscream turned around six times and left him in a mood nothing short of murderous, but eventually he did find himself in front of Shockwave's lab. It was unmistakable. There was only one entrance and exit, two huge blast doors locked down like a dungeon. Starscream spent longer than he would have liked to admit, standing before them on the precipice of knocking. 

(The doors were overkill, Starscream thought. He could fire his cannons at them for an hour and do nothing but blacken the metal-- but it also didn't matter if the doors were missile proof. Starscream was loud. If he knocked and demanded, Shockwave would hear him and open up.)

Starscream didn't move. He wasn't shy, but he supposed he had a certain level of pride that sometimes overtook his impulsiveness. Shockwave had never come to see him.

Shockwave was probably still mad about the empurata.

Starscream's processor drifted in his procrastination. It was so damn quiet down there. The upper levels alternated between desertion and bustling overcrowding, but even then it was never so quiet. The space station always seemed to shift, groan, and hum around them like a living thing, though logically Starscream suspected that the ramshackle structural integrity was to blame, slowly giving way. It would be just his luck for the decepticons to lose the war only because Megatron was used to running operations out of ruins.

Abruptly, Starscream remembered where he was and what he was there for. He also remembered well what Knockout had said about Shockwave. Even if he scoffed out loud in disbelief (Rumors, he thought derisively), in the end he turned on his heel and got out of there without a word spoken.

Shockwave spent all of his time cooped up in the lab, exempt from fighting on the front lines and uninterested in anything outside of his work-- all according to hearsay, but Starscream was inclined to believe it. His own fears of running into Shockwave in passing were proven misplaced because no one even saw him leave for meals.

So Starscream and his trine never had the pleasure of Shockwave's company after their return. They did have the misfortune of having to read Shockwave's reports-- if Soundwave spared too few details, Shockwave's love for charts, graphs, numbers, and the fullest degree of documentation finally convinced Starscream that there was such thing as sparing too many. The trine wasn't privy to any of Shockwave's weapons projects, which would have been a far more interesting use of time, but instead were forced to trudge through files upon files of mission debriefs hardly a cycle after their medical discharge. Megatron kept the trine busy reading, reading, and reading: there was history gone by, news reports new and old, mission intel and a file database of known autobot soldiers. The only thing Megatron didn't push onto them was new poetry and Thundercracker was silently put out because of it.

The first big mission Starscream was made to participate in was a battle over a distant rock planet that by all appearances lay barren. Shockwave guessed at hidden fossil fuel reservoirs underneath the surface, suitable for energon refinement, but his full analysis of the planet had been interrupted by a swarm of autobot troops. Megatron took the autobots' interest as confirmation that the planet had something of value to take, but Starscream figured that the autobots only saw the planet as the perfect uninhabited battlefield and didn't want to waste an opportunity to kick decepticon aft. Starscream resented being shipped off over an uncertainty, but when Megatron gave the order to join the reinforcements, Starscream went, taking his brothers with him.

Starscream was used to scuffles here and there, but those were against enforcers on city streets and petty criminals in small alleys. The battlefield was open war, different entirely. Starscream's jet-mode dipped, spun, and twisted madly around wave after wave of erratic blaster-fire from below. Thundercracker and Skywarp flew in tandem beside him, the three jets holding air superiority with no autobot fliers to challenge them.

The planet was ugly, made uglier by the heat of battle trampling its surface and blowing everything to bits. A huge, narrow trench split the rocky ground in half from horizon to horizon, a wound so invasive Starscream wondered how closely it reached to the planet's core.

[Prime's here!] Skywarp commed. [Megatron's going to beat someone down about missing it, later.]

Yes, Optimus Prime cut an unmistakable figure from above, cornered at a cliff's edge by a dozen decepticons and managing them all with an ease that did not seem self-aware. With an enormous axe, he cut down his attackers one after the other, battle mask up and optics squinted against sparks flying and energon spraying. In Optimus's place, Megatron would have recited a pre-victory speech, or at least given his unlucky opponents a mocking laugh, but Optimus only looked for the next target in focused quiet. Swing, kill, and then on to the next one.

Pacifist, indeed.

Starscream zipped by at full speed, not keen on being spotted by the autobot leader in turn, but he caught the movement of a few stray rocks beneath Optimus's pedes, breaking off of the cliff's edge and tumbling down into the trench behind him. Starscream sent a ping to Thundercracker and Skywarp, splitting off from the trine to double back and fly over Optimus again. He risked a slower speed this time to watch. The next wave of decepticon cannon-fodder rushed Optimus, with only a handful of Optimus's own autobots at his side to support him. Little good they did-- the other autobots stood hip-height to Optimus, and with the press of decepticons so close, they only seemed to get in the way of his wide swings.

The cliff's edge crumbled quickly. Optimus wouldn't push past his own soldiers to save himself. He had just enough time to toss a few lucky autobots onto the other side of the trench before the unstable rock fell out from underneath him completely. Optimus Prime, fifteen tons of metal, was lost in a landslide swallowed up by the trench.

[I'm going after Optimus,] Starscream commed his trine. [Make sure I'm not followed!]

He didn't wait for confirmation before diving into the pitch black. The trench was narrow but very, very deep, and Starscream's wings and cockpit scraped against the stone walls a few times, sparks lighting up the darkness in flashes. Above, the autobots rallied. Blaster-fire sprayed back and forth over the trench. Below, Starscream put all of his night-vision and radar mods to work trying to find Optimus.

He found Optimus's energon-axe first, half-buried in gravel and black dirt at the distant bottom of the trench. In Optimus's grasp earlier, the axeblade glowed a pure blue light that dazzled the optics. Abandoned now, the axe lay dull and gray without even sunlight to give the metal shine. Starscream's servos twitched, his first instinct to seize the famous weapon for himself, but he held back. He didn't even use close-range weaponry.

Farther down the trench, a sloping hill of freshly-fallen rock and dirt stirred. Starscream stepped back as the hill erupted, the missing prime clawing himself up and out, but Starscream put his hands on his hips and didn't ready his cannons. The idea came to mind, though, when a spray of gravel nicked his paint.

Optimus, shaking his helm as loose dirt rained down his visor, noticed Starscream's uncharacteristically quiet presence only after Starscream said, "Disgusting. Organic planets, am I right?"

Optimus stilled. His fans kicked into overdrive, ready for action. Starscream could practically see the processor calculations rapid-firing behind the glass in his optics-- battle protocols, noting the amount of precious time it would take for Optimus to reclaim his weapon and close the distance between him and Starscream.

"Relax. Megatron's not here," Starscream said. "I was just curious about something."

"Oh. Hello, then," Optimus said carefully. There was enough wariness still to suit Starscream's pride, but Optimus's fans cooled as battle protocols were dismissed. He rose, ankle-deep in loose dirt with more of the stuff pouring off of his angles with a soft hiss. "Will you leave the decepticons?"

"Absolutely not! I just wanted to know why you went traitor."

"It wasn't a choice."

"There is always a choice! Come on, it's just us. I won't judge. I know where we stand and soon I'm sure we'll get back to killing each other as we should. I just hate putting in all this effort to offline you without knowing all the why."

Optimus didn't hesitate at all. "When Megatron and I challenged the council in person, the matrix chose me. It gave me this frame change you immediately noticed, but it gave me more than that-- leadership over the autobots. I swear it's not something I looked for or wanted, but I realized such a responsibility could be used for the change we wanted on Cybertron. Megatron took it as a betrayal." He spoke smoothly of the memory, like it was turned around and around in his mind often, the hard edges worn away by time.

Privately, Starscream wondered why Megatron was so pissed off about the whole prime thing. Even if Optimus getting his servos on the matrix had been a backhanded grab for power, Megatron could've found a way to spin that to his own advantage somehow. Having an in with Cybertron's foremost leader and holy figure sounded like a good thing-- the early decepticons had an in with Kaon's senator, Ratbat, and though Ratbat was a smarmy, untrustworthy bucket of rust, he had his uses. Megatron could have had Optimus assassinated later if necessary, though Starscream supposed this entire war was in part an attempt to assassinate Optimus.

"I've heard endlessly that there isn't much of a Cybertron left," Starscream pointed out. "It's a poor job you've done."

"There are still neutral parties. If you wanted distance from this war, Cybertronian refugees have spread far and wide. There are neutral colonies that refuse to have anything to do with us, decepticon or autobot, but anyone who relinquishes their faction could find a new place."

Starscream waved a hand. "And any loss to the decepticon air advantage would be a great boon to the autobots, I'm sure."

"It would."

"What do you plan to do with this planet, anyway?"

"Were you not informed within the decepticons?"

"I want to hear it from you."

"To put it simply, we plan on doing nothing. We wished for it to remain completely untouched, but sadly conflict has already reached its surface."

Starscream groaned. "Optimus, this planet is all dust. It's dirt and rock."

"I believe many planets are."

"Oh, spare me. There's nothing else! No one calls this place home. Of course I'm biased from the opposing side, but wouldn't it be easier to just let Megatron have this one?"

"And what does Megatron plan to do with it?"

Starscream hesitated, but he had it on good authority that this particular decepticon scheme was well-used and well-known. "Seed it, let it bake, and in time harvest energon when everything is cooled."

There was a bit more to the process than that (and plenty more decepticon meddling left unsaid), but if Optimus wanted the science broken down for him, he could find one of his own damn scientists.

"As we thought," Optimus said, inclining his helm. "But it doesn't hurt, as you said, to hear it from you. Starscream, look here."

Optimus beckoned Starscream towards him, shuffling further down the ravine and moving with the care someone would take to navigate a minefield. Starscream stayed exactly where he was, watching and half-expecting Optimus to step down on an unlucky spot and explode, but Optimus made his way safely. He knelt in the dirt facing Starscream. His large servos curled into a soft spot in the rock wall, clearing away packed dirt disguising a deep hollow. 

Patiently, Optimus beckoned again. His optics shone a lovely blue-white to light Starscream's way, the same glow conflated by the autobots to be the light of Primus. Starscream, more grounded in reality, could compare it to the same glow as Optimus's energon axe. That wasn't so bad. Starscream appreciated it when mechs put in some effort for presentation-- half of the decepticons looked like walking corpses, and these days bots were comfortable going without even the bare minimum of a matching color scheme.

"What are you thinking about?" Optimus asked.

"Nothing," Starscream snapped, but he vented, stepped over the discarded energon axe, and went to Optimus's side. He stepped in the larger pede-prints Optimus had left behind, ignoring what sounded suspiciously like a cut-off chuckle from the other mech. Starscream, annoyed at himself, even went so far as to kneel in the disgusting organic matter, but only because whatever Optimus wanted to show him had the thrill of a secret.

Optimus spared a glance upward. "I would turn my headlights on, but. . ."

"Absolutely do not," Starscream said. "I have night-sight mods. Just move aside so I can actually see."

The tall cannon running along Starscream's arm bumped Optimus's shoulder, but Optimus didn't outwardly startle. Starscream leaned into him, a little, as he crossed his own arms and peered down into the hollow.

"Ew," Starscream said. Nestled in the dirt was an alien egg the size of a helm, translucent shell acting as a blurry window into the beginnings of a bipedal youngling forming inside. The protoform was a murky pale green, curled around itself and pulsating in time with an organic heartbeat. Starscream, uncomfortably, realized he could crush it in one fist.

"Ew? Is that all?" Optimus said, hopeless disapproval in his deep voice.

"Alright. I did not know about this being here. I imagine there's more? This planet is a hatching ground for alien younglings?"

Optimus hesitated, as if he hadn't already given away the big secret to a pawn of his greatest enemy, but he nodded.

"Where the frag are the parents?"

"They were a nomadic species even before they reached spaceflight, but since then their travels have taken them too far away to return home quickly. My autobots were contacted with a plea for help, to stop the decepticons from destroying their next generation."

"We don't care about the eggs. We just wanted the planet--" Starscream had the sense that Megatron wanted the planet simply because the autobots did, but he was in no position to say so. "-- for energon."

"But you would destroy everything all the same."

"Yes, of course." Shockwave's reports showed loud and clear that the process of seeding a planet for energon harvest did involve a lot of bombing and drilling and overall destruction. 

Optimus let that affirmation hang in the air as the conflict raged on from above. Starscream stared at the gross little alien thing in disgusted fascination. It twitched in its warm and gooey dreams.

"Have you ever seen an organic before?" Optimus asked.

"No." Starscream itched to reach forward and poke at the egg, but it warred with an equally strong instinct to reel back before it started leaking or cracking. At last, he tore his gaze away. "You should get out of here."

"I can't fly."

"I meant off of this planet."

"So should you."

"Hmm. It seems we're at an impasse."

"The fuel reserves on this planet are small, too small to make up for all the resources the decepticons are spending on this battle."

Starscream's plating ruffled. "Tell it to Megatron, not me!"

"How I wish I could."

"Ah. Tough breakup, I heard."

Optimus paused for one long, bizarre moment and then burst out laughing. "You are the same!" he said, in disbelief and hilarity and once. "You seem the same."

Starscream didn't really know how to take that. He fluttered his wings and straightened primly. "The council chose a damn fool! I thought I might understand it if I spoke to you again, but I still don't."

"The matrix chose me, Starscream," Optimus said, mirth from a joke Starscream still wasn't in on melting his gaze.

"The matrix doesn't even have a mind of its own!"

Optimus's servos brushed over his chassis before he seemed to catch himself. "It does. I feel its influence. The past primes live on inside it and I am meant to ask for their guidance."

What a strange approach. The decepticons weren't going to retreat any faster if they thought Optimus Prime had finally fallen off the deep end, and Starscream wasn't one to be moved by woo-woo spiritualism. "Oh, shut up! You autobots and your holy relics-- they're just symbols. The matrix gives only you leadership because it's a stand-in for a crown without being pretty enough to be displayed."

"The matrix is in my spark, which makes any displays a bit. . . impolite. I carry it with me always, and Primus knows Megatron has spent millions of years trying to rip it out."

"You-- you have a dead thing in your chassis?" Mangling your spark, Starscream thought, and was appalled.

Optimus had to be smiling under the mask. His optics shuttered with the curve of it-- sadly. It was strange, how he could be so expressive.

"You don't make any sense. You're doing it on purpose!"

"We do stand on opposite sides, Starscream. Hoping for some weaknesses to report back to Megatron?"

"You've given me absolutely nothing useful, so I suppose he won't be hearing about this exchange."

"Well, enough about me. How are the decepticons?"

Starscream scoffed. "Nice try. Honestly, they just remind me of Kaon."

"You should leave them."

"No."

"It seems we are at an impasse."

"Well, how luxurious is the autobot base?" Starscream purred. "Are there energon fountains? Crystal altars for Primus? Gold and diamonds for the prime's berth? I hear the autobots have been sticking around a particular organic planet. Have you been making good use of imported fabric? Fur, even?"

Optimus shrugged. ". . . Are you tempted?"

Starscream laughed in spite of everything and it was not as mean-spirited as it should have been. "No, you liar!"

"I had to try."

"You aren't a good liar at all. Even now, you let me do all the lying for you and you just nod along and agree with me."

"You're right. It's strange, Starscream. You tend to assume to best of me."

That wiped the stupid grin right off of Starscream's faceplate. A section of craggy wall exploded above Optimus's head.

"I missed," Starscream said, cannon hot on his right arm. "I might not, next time. I'd better hear something worth hearing if we ever cross paths again."

"Will you speak with me like this again?"

"No, deceiver! We have our appearances to keep up, you understand." 

With that, Starscream leapt upwards, kicking off of the stone wall to flip into a jet-mode transformation-- though as he did so, there was a half-klik of serious worry about getting wedged sideways in the trench.

The trench was wide enough to transform, if barely. Starscream shot upwards, twirling into a spiral as soon as he emerged into the light and open air. He was instantly flooded with questioning comms from Thundercracker and Skywarp.

[Found him!] Starscream replied, [Don't get excited, though. He tried to put that axe through my helm and I sensibly retreated.]

[Prime lives?] Skywarp commed.

[What's important is that I live!]

Thundercracker spammed further questions about Starscream's welfare, so he did a triple barrel-roll to show off his good health and dodge some enemy fire all at once. Below, mechs crashed against each other like waves, dying. Somewhere even further below, Optimus Prime stood in the dark and waited for his troops to find the time and resources to retrieve him.

Safe flight demanded his utmost attention, but underneath Starscream's honed focus was a thought that rubbed underneath his plating like sand, threatening to distract him-- the thought that the planet at the center of all this trouble was of no great use and no great beauty. Starscream believed in cutting losses. This was a sunk cost. He thought hard. The galactic council had steered clear of any official allyship with either the autobots or decepticons. When Megatron destroyed inhabited planets with intelligent life, he usually took care to attack alien species without sophisticated spaceflight or far-reaching weaponry, both of which these particular aliens had. If Megatron drove them into allying with the autobots, Starscream would be smashing eggs and clearing organic goo off of his armor after ever battle.

He shuddered midair, the reaction forcing an unplanned zigzag into his flight path.

Into the trine commlink, Starscream asked, [Where's Boltcase?]

[Who's that?] Skywarp commed.

[It's our commander,] said Thundercracker hopelessly, [Who did you think has been giving us orders this entire time?]

[Oh. I must have blocked her line. If there's something actually important, I'm sure you'll tell me.]

[We try. . .]

[Enough! Focus! Enough!] Starscream commed. [Where is Boltcase?]

[I think I saw her near the rear,] Thundercracker replied. 

Indeed, there Boltcase was, a visible beacon of bright blue even from a distance. The bot was a new commander promoted upwards by Megatron for her ruthless efficiency on the battlefield, but her own troops had already learned to give her a wide berth because of her careless attitude towards friendly fire. Commander Boltcase shrugged off the efficiency of long-range guns, fighting instead with a rough, twisted excuse for a sword. She twirled it through the air and living metal alike with the joyful elegance of dance.

Starscream made a decision. I'll encourage a retreat, he thought, but the thought didn't emerge in words so much as pure intent. Starscream's actions seemed to fall out of sync with his conscious processor, battle protocols interrupting critical thinking and latching onto the first chain of action and reaction it could calculate. 

I'll encourage a retreat, Starscream thought, but what he ended up doing was far more hands-on than simple encouragement. He flew low, approaching Commander Boltcase, who was faring well with felled autobots and decepticons alike cluttering the space around her pedes. A single remaining autobot faced off against her with single-minded purpose, a slight pink racer struggling to wield a scavenged sword almost too big to for her to swing.

"Boltcase!" Starscream cried, coming in fast. "Watch out! I'll save you!"

He transformed on the descent and crashed pede-first into Commander Boltcase's side. Boltcase went down, the weight of her reinforced armor and the momentum of Starscream's crash making her hit the ground with the gravity of a mech five times her height. Starscream's knees buckled, his struts straining and sparking with hurt, but he tucked into a roll and was back on his pedes in no time. Starscream saw the yellow glow in Boltcase's optics sputter and die quickly-- she was offline, though whether in death or unconsciousness he did not know.

The pink autobot darted backwards on wheeled pedes, but her red optics widened-- she gave up her two-handed death grip on the sword to point at Starscream in wordless recognition, and hey, Starscream knew her, too! The designation escaped him-- Arson? R-D?

"Hello," Starscream said in wry amazement, and then he picked up someone's severed leg to chuck it at her helm in full-force. The autobot ducked smoothly, but the moment's distraction was all Starscream needed to run away, still remarkably light on his pedes even if he had to say so for himself.

Starscream flung himself onto a jagged pillar of rock, scrambling upwards for a vantage point. He stood tall and shouted at his loudest pitch, "Decepticons! Retreat!"

The order pierced the battle, but the immediate effect was not what Starscream wanted. A ripple of confusion made the decepticons pause, losing momentum, darting their optics around in panicked search. The decepticon forces made no move to retreat and lose ground, but the forward charge stalled. The autobots took notice and took advantage. They rallied.

Primus, Starscream thought. "Boltcase has fallen! I, Starscream, am now your commander! Retreat!"

"Retreat!" Thundercracker repeated, and then he took off in jet mode to lead by example, rushing towards the widely-spaced cluster of decepticon deployment ships.

Skywarp hesitated midair, staring at Starscream, so Starscream flung out an arm to point after Thundercracker. "Go!"

Skywarp transformed, kicked into high gear and sped off as nothing but a black and purple blur. The spell of hesitation was broken. The decepticons fled as fast as they could, shooting blindly behind them as the autobots cheered, whooped, and pursued with renewed vigor.

Starscream took cover in place despite every instinct begging him to join the retreat at once. He gritted his dentae, alive with white-hot panic, witnessing the incoming autobot charge. He reached into his comm contacts, seized the buried line called Orion Pax, and wrenched it open.

[CALL OFF YOUR TROOPS.]

[ORDER THE RETREAT BEFORE I TURN AROUND AND BLOW YOUR HELM OFF.]

[OPTIMUS.]

[I'ILL KILL YOU. RETREAT.]

[DO YOU HAVE SIGNAL DOWN THERE?]

[RUST YOU.]

Starscream leapt into the air. Blaster-fire grazed his left wing and lit the sensors up like painful fireworks, but he transformed and single-mindedly sped towards the trench opening as quickly as his tired engines could power him. The obstacles and solutions his processor hastily calculated were as follows:

Error: Mutual retreat failed > Tell Optimus to call a fragging retreat or else.

Error: No signal in the trench > Fly in, fish Optimus out, and order him to make the retreat dangling five hundred feet in the air.

Starscream did not finish the last step because he hardly got a chance to start trying. The silver gleam of two finials poked out of the trench. A blue helm emerged next. With hands and pedes and unbelievable stubbornness, Optimus Prime had crawled and scraped his way to the top. The tips of his servos were dented and scratched, worn thin to expose the delicate circuitry beneath as they dug into the lip of the cliff's edge. With his optics shuttered, Optimus began to pull himself up into the light.

"Autobots!" Optimus's rich, deep voice rang clear, easier to listen to but not more formidable than Starscream's. He heaved himself safely onto the ledge, struts visibly trembling. "Fall back! Retreat!"

The autobots, abrupt confusion aside, halted in their tracks.

Starscream aborted his dive into the trench, making a wild turn so acute his injured wing scraped the rocky ground. He screamed out loud, but the cry was passable as anger. Ascending rapidly, turning away, he made sure to fire some missiles at the mouth of the trench, but the wounded look Optimus gave him for it was so unnecessary. None of the shots even came close to the prime.

Starscream finally allowed himself to retreat. Arguably, it was what he did best-- the autobots ate his dust. In short order, the airlock of a decepticon ship slammed shut behind him. The ship ascended at once, taking to the atmosphere and beyond, and this time Starscream did not complain when the pilot made a few desperate, hasty space-jumps.

The autobots did not follow.

Chapter Text

Starscream had the good sense to block Optimus's comm line as soon as he could, but still message notifications spammed Starscream's HUD so incessantly his processor ached.

[STARSCREAM,] Skywarp commed. [STARSCREAM, STARSCREAM, STARSCREAM.]

It was the trine-line alive with an overflow of comms. With every bit of persistence and stubbornness harbored in the spin of their bright sparks, Skywarp and Thundercracker demanded answers and Starscream knew there was only so long he could ignore them. With a stubborn streak of his own, he was determined to stretch that time out for as long as he could-- Starscream could hardly rationalize what had happened on that battlefield in his own processor. The prospect of explaining it to his trine-mates loomed as an argument waiting to happen. The prospect of explaining it to Megatron loomed as something much worse.

Not for the first time, Thundercracker asked, [Where are you?]

[WHAT IN THE PITS WAS THAT RETREAT ABOUT?]

[Hello?]

[SCREAMER, ANSWER US NOW.]

[And he always get on our case about not responding to check-ins.]

[RUSTBUCKET!]

[Skywarp and I made it onto separate ships. I think I'm in a baggage compartment at the moment.]

[STARSCREAM, YOU MADE IT ONTO A SHIP, YES?]

[I think he did. I'm sure I saw him crash into an airlock.]

[NO, HE BETTER BE DEAD. HE BETTER NOT BE IGNORING US.]

[He is.]

[HE ACTS LIKE I CAN'T FIND HIM WHENEVER I WANT,] Skywarp commed.

That forced Starscream to perk up, his wings going rigid under the hands of a field medic.

[Wait!] Starscream commed. [Do not teleport in front of Megatron's entire army!]

[Hi!] Skywarp replied, irritation dripping off of every glyph. [Glad you could join us.]

The medic, pressing a patch over the damage to Starscream's left wing, lost his careful hold as Starscream's wings jostled. The loose metal plate slipped painfully over Starscream's wound.

"Watch it!" the medic complained. "This is tricky enough as it is."

"You haven't even started welding yet," Starscream snapped. "I'm done here."

"Die, then."

"It's a surface wound! It's not going to kill me. Is that really your professional diagnosis?"

"No, but self-repair will take cycles to heal that," The medic said. He paid Starscream no further mind. "Next!"

Grumbling, Starscream swept out of the hot, suffocating med bay and flicked his good wing in relief as cool air cycled through his vents. He quickened his pace through the dingy decepticon deployment ship, searching for an empty corner without luck. There were prying eyes everywhere. The halls bustled with weary decepticon soldiers and Starscream earned more than a few looks as he passed. His injured wing tried to droop, but Starscream dismissed the warning pings and raised it evenly with his other.

[I made it onto a ship, but I haven't seen either of you on it,] Starscream commed. [Thundercracker, a baggage compartment, you said?]

[Yes. With the energon stains on the doorframe. In servo prints.]

[I'm coming to find you.]

[Yes, do. Then we must to talk about that move you pulled out on the field. You must WARN US about your crazy, risky, stupid plans before you try them!]

Starscream descended into the belly of the ship and swung into the first open doorway he saw matching that description. The room, rectangular and dark, had no lighting, but it was so small that the murky glow of hallway lights shining behind Starscream did well enough to illuminate it. It wasn't a baggage compartment or even a room at all, but an abandoned janitor's closet.

Starscream shoved himself backwards, battle protocols alert.

Inside the closet, the frame of a mech, limp, gory and stained, was propped upright against the shelving. A broom leaned against her blue pauldron and a bucket of polishing tools spilled at her pede. Above the waist, the mech's side was crumpled inward from the jet-powered impact of two pedes with heel thrusters.

Starscream pinched the bridge of his nose. "Boltcase?" he tried quietly. 

Boltcase was unresponsive, but probably not dead. Starscream doubted anyone would bother saving a corpse-- unless it was for spare parts? Starscream glanced over his pauldrons, down both sides of the narrow hallway, but there was no one else in sight. Begrudgingly, he drew closer to the open doorway, ready to raise an arm and fire a cannon at any moment.

"Boltcase!" he hissed.

In Starscream's (and Boltcase's) brief silence, Thundercracker and Skywarp started demanding attention over comms again. Starscream didn't know what to do except pick up where the conversation left off: [I don't see Thundercracker. All three of us are on different ships.]

[Not for long,] Skywarp commed. [Either of you alone?]

[I am not,] Thundercracker said.

[ME NEITHER,] Starscream commed next, but it was too late. 

In an instant, space and matter displaced itself, plucking Skywarp out of his last position in the universe and flinging him onto the floor beside Starscream instead. Skywarp landed on his pedes with a flourish and a satisfied grin. Starscream turned to him with a dark look.

"Don't look so unhappy to see me," Skywarp told him. "I said I'd go looking."

"Look here, then," Starscream said, pointing into the closet.

Skywarp curled his claws around the doorframe and peered inside, recoiling almost instantly. "Rust! Is that the commander?"

"Knockout said no one really liked Boltcase."

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything! Well. I didn't do anything recently. I certainly didn't stuff her in the closet! I just found her here!"

"I thought they left her behind. Is she dead?"

"I don't think so," Starscream said, but looking at Boltcase again gave him doubts. Boltcase's living metal was already scarred and uneven with the welds of old wounds, but her blue paint was flaking horribly around the jagged edges of new ones. Oil slowly oozed from her seams. Her optics were shuttered, black, lifeless.

"You saved her, Screamer," Skywarp said dryly. "Good job."

"Shut up!"

"She looks like an oil cake."

"Less observation and more suggestion, Skywarp, unless you managed to leave your processor behind once and for all."

"I think we should just kill her."

Starscream vented and crossed his arms. The idea had also occurred to him. It was a sensible move. It was, in a way, merciful. Starscream could not imagine that the plans of whoever stashed away Boltcase were good-- a cleaning closet was no place for the injured or the respected dead. "We need a scapegoat, though," Starscream mused. "For Megatron."

"If Boltcase talks to Megatron, she'll make you her scapegoat."

Yes, but-- Oh, this is going to be messy, but-- "Ah, scrap," Starscream said. "We'd better leave her alive for now. There are things she could tell us."

"Wake her up, then," Skywarp said dubiously. "You get to do the interrogation, but hurry it up, would you?"

"You get to tell Thundercracker."

Skywarp groaned, but Starscream was already well-prepared and well-practiced in ignoring him. He focused instead on approaching Boltcase, stepping partway into the closet and eyeing the purple splatters on the doorframe with disdain.

"Hey. Boltcase," Starscream said. Stiffly, but firmly, he poked her pauldron with a claw. "Your lines are leaking all over the place. Not good. Wake up."

Boltcase's helm lolled, straining the flexible metal supports of her neck. Starscream grabbed both of her pauldrons and shook her harshly.

Boltcase onlined with a sputtering start, fans kicking on high to signify roaring battle protocols, but she was so dazed her processor didn't seem to know which way was up, much less where to aim all her fighting spirit. Starscream promptly unhanded her and angled his frame sideways to let some more light from the hallway spill into the closet.

"I'm glad you're still alive, Commander!" Starscream said. "Who put you in here?"

"You!"

"Oh. I suppose, in a manner of speaking--"

"You spineless, strutless traitor!" Boltcase hissed, flecks of energon escaping between her dentae.

Boltcase lunged at Starscream. He swiftly brought a leg up to kick her away.

Boltcase flew backwards, the resulting impact rattling the shelves and sending metal canisters spilling to the floor, but she recovered with a murderous, single-minded fury and snatched Starscream by the edge of his cockpit to slam him inside.

It knocked the air out of his vents. It also trapped him quite effectively-- the breadth of his wings and the tightness of the space made maneuvering nearly impossible.

They grappled.

It was all Starscream could do to hold Boltcase at bay. Relentlessly, she pressed forward and he pushed back, Starscream's claws digging into Boltcase's arm plating to shave away fine curls of metal. It was a game of keep-away between Starscream's helm and Boltcase's hands. She was itching to dig her servos into his optic sockets and rip away anything she could touch.

Boltcase's field radiated with anger that Starscream could not fault her for and blame Starscream rightly deserved, but his faint sense of justice was trumped by an all-encompassing sense of self-preservation. Starscream was not interested in giving his life for reparations.

Starscream could see no way of stopping Boltcase except killing her.

"Skywarp," he gasped.

Skywarp was there. His claws darted into the junction between Boltcase's neck and shoulder and squeezed a few important-looking lines shut. Skywarp shoved Boltcase against the shelving, pinning her in place. She struggled, unable to throw him off in her weakened state. Skywarp's fist squeezed tighter, blocking lines that Starscream would have cut instead, and slowly the ember of Boltcase's bright-hot fury dimmed as her systems began emergency shut-down. 

A terrible scream, all rage and no fear, gathered in Boltcase's vocalizer-- and it was forcibly cut off before it could truly begin. As soon as Boltcase's sharp jaws had parted, Skywarp dug hard into the soft bundle of wires under her jaw, reaching past to rip out Boltcase's vocalizer entirely.

Boltcase went silent. Her limbs went slack. At last, she stopped.

Starscream and Skywarp gaped at the new hole under Boltcase's jaw. They gaped at the loose part grasped in Skywarp's servos.

"If she was going to end up dead anyway," Starscream said, "Then I could've just done it myself!"

"She's not dead!" Skywarp protested. "Look, her vents are still on. Sure, the energon looks messy, but, uhhhh, it looks like all of her main lines are still good."

"And her voicebox?"

Skywarp shrugged helplessly, gesturing with the small cylinder still clutched in his servos. "Knockout can put it back?"

"Knockout," Starscream said. "Now there's an idea." In fact, the beginnings of several ideas were beginning to form in his processor.

Skywarp scratched his helm, a smear of energon visible against black paint only because of the difference in shine. "If you have a new scheme. . . I guess that's fine. But we have to tell Thundercracker. You get to."

There was not much of a homecoming welcome for the decepticon troops. There was no celebration. There was no cheer.

As the first deployment ships completed their return, docking onto home base and letting loose floods of restless crowds, Starscream, Skywarp, and Commander Boltcase lingered behind in the bowels of the ship they flew in on.

Starscream cursed, crushed down his own trepidation, and opened the long-dormant comm line between him and Shockwave. So far there had been a solid track record of comm lines going unchanged over centuries, so Starscream's primary concern was not whether he would be able to reach Shockwave, but if Shockwave would deign to respond in time or at all. Starscream hesitated over a greeting, typing and re-typing, ("My friend--Long time no see--Hello, fool, you haven't visited me, what happened to those good manners?-- I'm sorry-- You couldn't possibly blame me") but Boltcase twitched and grumbled in recharge and Starscream decided that urgency overtook any need for small talk, anyway.

[Shockwave,] he commed. [This is important. This is for Megatron. Surely you must have finished the broader analysis of that rock planet by now. What have you found? Pertaining to the planet's actual worth, I mean.]

He's not going to answer, Starscream thought. I'm scrap.

[The planet is not a significantly viable source of energon,] Shockwave commed. Nothing else. Starscream read it thrice.

[And a copy of this report?]

[I have not finished compiling the full report.]

[I'm sure you have a chart or a graph.]

There was a pause. This time, Shockwave gave no reply except for a few dozen files that, from a quick scan, included charts and graphs aplenty.

[Well then. Understood. That would be all,] Starscream commed. With all haste, he cut the line. 

"The planet's worthless," he told Skywarp.

Home base's medbay was filled wall-to-wall with injured mechs, bristling from optic-contact alone and already trigger-happy from battle protocols that stubbornly refused dismissal. In general, decepticons had a tendency to try and walk off serious injuries for the sake of tough appearances, but after every skirmish or battle, able-bodied soldiers would unceremoniously dump the most gravely wounded off at the medbay doors. At least Knockout had been able to get the message across that he was no coroner, so corpse deliveries had grown increasingly rare.

Knockout had his work cut out for him today, even beyond actual medical care: soothing tempers, swatting wandering servos away from his tools, bemoaning his patients' overwhelming lack of style. Before he could begin anything at all, he needed to scan the gathered faceplates-- there were mechs personally blacklisted from his services for being uniquely horrible to treat. Knockout cast an unimpressed look at Astrotrain, who was banned for throwing a tool cart at Starscream, and grimaced at Vortex, who was banned from the medbay for every mech's peace of mind.

"Honestly, gentlemen. You're on your own," Knockout said. "Can you see yourselves out or do I need to get Breakdown?"

Vortex said, "I'm just looking, Doc!"

Astrotrain threatened to throw another toolcart.

Knockout needed to get Breakdown.

Muttering curses, Knockout hastily stepped out of the medbay with Breakdown's comm line open. The message was interrupted-- Knockout barely halted his pace in time to avoid marching straight into Skywarp.

"Hello. Just the mech I was looking to see!" Skywarp said cheerfully. Companionably, he shrugged an arm around Knockout's shoulders and in the next instant, the two mechs were nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Text

Boltcase needed to be hidden fast. One did not simply keep Megatron waiting-- and Starscream knew he was waiting, even though Megatron did not yet make any summons.

Skywarp's teleportation abilities got Skywarp, Starscream, and Boltcase into home base without being seen. The seekers knew better than to hide out in their assigned quarters, where they would be looked for first. They hid out in Knockout's habsuite instead, though there was a small delay when it came to the break-in. Struggling under the burden of Boltcase's limp weight, Starscream narrowly caught Skywarp's fist in time to stop him from busting Knockout's door locks open with a punch to the control panel.

"You idiot," Starscream said, "Just teleport to the other side and unlock it from there!"

"Fine," Skywarp vented.

Once unlocked, they hurried inside the habsuite, polite enough not to incriminate Knockout by asking permission at all. Starscream's tightly-compressed EM field threatened to unspool and wake Boltcase from her fitful recharge with the force of his own anxiety. Starscream supposed he should be thankful for Boltcase's monstrous fuel tanks keeping her alive despite the heavy energon-loss, but over all his many complaints, the chief among them were, Primus, why is she so heavy? and Primus, why is there so much energon?

Boltcase's blood-energon was just beginning to clot, enough to slow but not stop the fluids oozing onto first Starscream's armor and then onto Knockout's clean floors. After Starscream slipped on a growing puddle, he gave in to a fit of frustration and shoved her, upright, into Knockout's untidy closet.

"Thundercracker says he's on his way," Skywarp said. "He's not happy."

"We all have our grievances. Go get Knockout," Starscream said.

In short order, Skywarp and Knockout blipped into the habsuite together. Even unshakeable Knockout's plating could be ruffled-- his EM field was a tired mire of shock and exasperation.

"Got him!" Skywarp crowed, waving his hands over Knockout in display. Then he sat back on Knockout's desk, shoving the surface clutter backwards to make room.

Knockout began, "What--"

"--Sorry for imposing," Starscream said automatically. 

"Starscream," Knockout said slowly, his low voice portraying less of a purr and more of a blatantly unwelcoming disbelief. "You cannot tell me that you're trying to hide from Lord Megatron in here."

"Of course not," Starscream said breezily. "I'm here to see my doctor about my condition." He motioned to Skywarp, who had the nerve to wave. "Our long term memory files are as corrupted as ever. Your treatment, or lack thereof, isn't working!"

"Come back later, you schemer. You're not going to get me killed along with you."

"Our business here will be quick. We only--"

"-- Don't tell me. Slag, I know it's something you're plotting and I want no part."

"Fine, fine, you're right. Just do what we tell you to do and we can politely say that no matter your actions, you were ignorant and truly uninvolved with the larger plot around Boltcase's--"

"-- No names!"

"Boltcase is here, though," Skywarp said helpfully. He opened Knockout's closet and Boltcase spilled out, limbs flailing, crumpling to the floor like an empty suit of armor. "Oh, whoops."

The habsuite was by no means spacious-- with Boltcase laid out on the floor at Knockout's pedes, there was no convenient way for a mech to move around her. Knockout, Skywarp, and Starscream were stuck to three separate corners unless they wanted to jump over her-- or in Skywarp's case, teleport.

"Sorry about the mess," Starscream had to say. "It was a glitch to get her in here, you know."

Knockout vented. Underneath his field's swirling exasperation, Starscream got the hint of wry, unprofessionally dark humor. Knockout would help them. He had always liked audacity, the stupider the better, and Starscream was even trying his hardest to be nice.

"I am not a coroner," Knockout said, but Boltcase chose that moment to twitch on the floor in restless recharge. Knockout's optics shuttered in new surprise-- and without much choice, he was interested. "Now why in the pits would you two leave her alive?"

"To talk." Starscream fetched Boltcase's vocalizer out of his subspace and waved it around in front of Knockout's optics. "Can you put this back in?"

"Honestly. Of course I can. What do you want her to say so badly?"

"I just want to talk," Starscream hummed. He gestured imperiously at Boltcase's slumped frame. "I trust her in your capable hands, doctor."

"That's worse than complicit," Knockout said. "That's aiding and abetting." But Knockout was already eyeing Boltcase's sorry form like a project, like a puzzle made up of individual parts, assessing damage and calculating solutions. ". . . I need Skywarp to take me back to the medbay. First I need tools."

"Of course," Starscream purred. Thundercracker was always telling him he had a problem with arrogance, but it was impossible not to ooze self-satisfaction.

Knockout rolled his optics. "And then I can't afford to waste time here for long-- I'll work only enough to stabilize Boltcase's condition, and then I truly need to get back. Ugh, you wouldn't know, but leaving Hook in charge means that some of those sorry rustbuckets are just going to have to die."

Whatever teasing jab Starscream might have said next was interrupted by a comm message. Not word from Thundercracker, as Starscream might have hoped. It was a comm marked high priority flashing across Starscream's HUD with as much weighty self-importance as an error code: [Starscream. We must speak.]

"Rust," Starscream vented. "Our supreme leader calls."

"Look, it's still Megatron. We know him," Skywarp said. "He's always had a stick up his aft. You'll be okay."

"Don't make him angry, Starscream," Knockout said, far less optimistic. "Better get going."

When Thundercracker got off the deployment ship, let loose to stalk through the halls of home base, no one got in his way and a few mechs even stepped aside. The foundation of Thundercracker's intense, confident, 'I'm-dangerous-don't-mess-with-me' strut was an imitation of Starscream at his most arrogant. The current anger was real, though, and it fueled the believability like nothing else.

The thought of Starscream made the energon in Thundercracker's lines boil. Oh, he was furious with Starscream. It was not a heated, shouting, firework-explosion of anger like Starscream and Skywarp were prone to. When Thundercracker got angry, he got cold. The radius of his EM field stretched like a frost, reaching outwards, and the atmosphere in the dark halls seemed to curl inward and freeze before Thundercracker turned a corner and came into view.

There had been a rushed, reckless set of comms from Starscream telling Thundercracker that the situation had changed. Something about Boltcase. Something about a closet. Something, Thundercracker thought, about Starscream trying to be too clever for his own good. Starscream ordered Thundercracker to sneak over to Knockout's habsuite quickly and quietly.

Thundercracker did go quietly, even if he was putting his pedes down in more of a stomp than usual, but any special haste seemed futile-- the trek between the ship dock and Knockout's habsuite was considerable. Witnesses abound made it impossible to ask Skywarp for a quick lift. Thundercracker was unhelpfully aware of the attention he attracted in the halls as he went on his way, and there was no sense in attracting more by breaking out into an obvious rush.

The sensors under Thundercracker's frozen faceplate prickled. He marched onwards. Mutters followed after him.

"Looks tougher now than he did when there was real fighting."

"He actually retreated!

"We all retreated."

"He did it first."

"Fragging coward."

"His brothers, too."

"Did you see them?"

"Did you see him on the field earlier?"

"Did you see him just now?"

Mechs talked. Even with Boltcase blocked from a direct testimony, eyewitness accounts of the battlefield had no doubt reached Megatron's audials by then, and those had to be damning enough on their own. Starscream loved attention, but he had never learned how to stop attracting the wrong kind. What was Megatron going to say? Thundercracker tried to push that line of thought down, to keep his logic unit from twisting into an overthinking loop, but it kept stubbornly reappearing at the top of his priority tree.

Thundercracker had worked himself into quite a grim mood by the time he finally stomped up to Knockout's habsuite door. The hall it was located in was by all appearances empty-- Knockout lived in an especially derelict corner to avoid close neighbors. When Thundercracker thumped a few impatient knocks, his knuckles made solid, discordant clangs that echoed.

He waited. He knocked again. He waited. The door stayed shut, but when Thundercracker dialed up his audial sensitivity he could make out the faint sounds of struggle from behind it. Screeching metal and strained voices.

[It's me,] Thundercracker commed Starscream. [I'm outside.]

The reply was immediate, but truncated. [AM BUSY. NOT THERE. COMM SKYWARP.]

Thundercracker could feel the scrunch of a phantom frown. He switched to two-way comms with Skywarp. [I'm here. Where's Star?]

There was a dull thud from inside the habsuite. Knockout's door slid open halfway. "Hurry!" Skywarp hissed from the other side. "Hurry up, before she gets out!"

Thundercracker ducked helm-first into the habsuite, flinching as the door slammed shut behind him, near enough to feel the breeze and almost clip a wing. "What the frag is going on?" Thundercracker hissed, matching Skywarp's tone.

Boltcase was on the floor in a puddle of her own energon. Knockout's pede halfheartedly pressed down on her back as he worked frantic repairs on whatever he could reach. The substantial damage to Boltcase's frame was doing far more to keep her pinned than Knockout was, but Boltcase simply ignored the doctor. Her attention was all on Skywarp-- twisting in order to reach, she had her claws sunk into his black collar, trying to pull Skywarp's faceplates down to meet her gnashing dentae. A bigger frame gave her a longer reach.

Raggedly, Boltcase was saying, "If you think I would just let you-- if I would just go down without a fight--"

"That's-- exactly-- what happened!" Skywarp wheezed through static. Both hands wrapped around Boltcase's wrist, he struggled to pull back or remove her hateful grip, but Boltcase's jagged claws only scraped deeper.

Knockout's optics were furrowed in intense focus and upset alike. His hands and his tools flew expertly across the back of Boltcase's frame, scraping away peeling paint, slapping patches onto burst lines, and daring to rush a few spot-welds whenever Boltcase stilled long enough. Knockout's mouth muttered a steady, low mix of medical jargon and curses that sounded something like, "Slag, can't give me a normal job, not once, ever . . . Hmm, the energon clotting. . . Hmm . . . Good, all things considered. . . If a patch-- hold still! . . . Who does he think he is, the nerve, no one has any respect or any damn sense, Ratchet can eat slag. . ."

"What does Ratchet have to do with anything?" Thundercracker cried.

"Nothing!" Knockout snapped. "Just help me hold her down!"

Skywarp said, "It's supposed to be an interrogation-- urrrk!"

"I'll kill you!" snarled Boltcase.

The low hum of a charging cannon filled the room. Down the barrel on the back of his arm, Thundercracker met Boltcase's gaze. His aim did not shake, but something in his chassis did. "Why is Starscream keeping you alive?"

"I don't know!" Boltcase hissed. 

"Where is Starscream?"

"Megatron's got him and he's going to shoot him until he's nothing but melted slag!"

"Not true!" Skywarp tore himself free of Boltcase's grasp and shoved himself backwards into a corner, the farthest distance from Boltcase the small habsuite allowed. "They're just talking. It's a mission report or something."

Skywarp added privately, [I don't know how Starscream can talk his way out of this one, though.]

Primus. Despite his ire, Thundercracker tried to push onward with the apparent interrogation. "So, Boltcase. Starscream said he just stumbled upon you, knocked out and stashed away in a closet on one of the deployment ships. Know how you got there?"

Boltcase squinted at him. "No. I fragging don't. As far as I know, Starscream is responsible for everything gone wrong since the battle!"

"Do you have any other enemies?"

Boltcase winced, the first inkling of concession yet seen.

"So yes?"

"You don't get to any command position without it getting messy! All of you rustbuckets are going to find that out soon enough!"

"Who are they?"

Boltcase glared and shut up, but Knockout started to list them off: "Fearswoop, Blast-off, Vortex, Rumble, Frenzy, she stabbed Slipstream, Barricade is upset because of something about stealing kills, she tried to kill Deadlock in recharge, and then there's Swindle, Astrotrain, and Wildrider. . . She went for Dirge once so now Thrust and Ramjet have a problem, too. . . There's Reflector, Dead End, Hook . . . and a few more who I don't know by name." Knockout chuckled. "People love to talk in the medbay, Boltcase. You keep personally sending mechs there! The friendly fire was going to catch up to you sooner or later."

"Are you my enemy now, too, doctor?" Boltcase asked dryly.

"Enemy is a strong word, but you've certainly made my job more difficult."

"Well, like I said," Thundercracker continued, "Me and my trine don't actually hate you. If you answer our questions, we'll let you live."

"Liar," Boltcase said.

Thundercracker didn't want to be lying, but he couldn't deny that if there was no other choice, if it was between Boltcase and the trine, Thundercracker would choose the trine.

Skywarp told her, "Take the chance. Everyone already thinks you're dead. Who's going to look for you?"

Boltcase stilled, so Thundercracker could guess the answer was no one. "If-- Oh, come on. It was probably Starscream."

"Guess again!" Skywarp gestured.

"Well I don't know. Maybe it was Slipstream. She's still pissed about the stabbing. Maybe it was Vortex. He has a cannibal habit that Onslaught won't reel in."

"Oh," Knockout said suddenly. "Yes, it could have been Vortex. Did anyone see him right after the battle?"

Thundercracker wanted to frown. "No."

"No," Skywarp said. "I saw the rest of his gestalt, though."

"Did Bruticus ever form during the battle?"

Thundercracker and Skywarp weren't clear on what Bruticus looked like, but Boltcase gave a flat, "No."

Knockout rubbed his faceplates. "Yes, it could have been Vortex, then. Sometimes he goes rogue and the Combaticons lose him because he's off hunting for bodies. All the pilots and ship technicians complain about him using the ships as stash spots, but Megatron doesn't seem to care that much."

"We totally saved your life," Skywarp told Boltcase.

"I really am going to kill all of you," said Boltcase flatly. "Well, what now?"

"Now," Knockout said, "I'm still trying to patch you up. Could you turn onto your back? Can you sit up?"

"What's the point of that if you're just going to kill me after?"

Knockout looked at Skywarp. Skywarp looked at Thundercracker. 

Thundercracker vented. "Look, it's nothing personal between us, you understand?"

"They'll kidnap anyone," Knockout added wryly. "They kidnapped me."

"Starscream's getting what's coming to him," Boltcase spat. "Megatron doesn't take kindly to cowardice. "

"Megatron won't take you back like nothing happened," Thundercracker snapped, because her words cut and they both knew it. "Your reputation's in shambles. Starscream took you down in one hit. Even besides that, you were supposed to lead the battle. Now that it's failed, it's going to be on your helm, too."

"Decepticons don't retreat."

"Yeah," Skywarp hummed. "I guess we could've just let the autobots kill us all."

"You're late," Megatron said. The decepticon leader stood with the heavy weight of his favorite energy cannon strapped to his forearm, silver armor backlit by the dim glow of blue screens.

Starscream folded his arms behind his back, smiled through his irritation, and replied, "My sincerest apologies, my Lord. I went to the throne room first-- you didn't give me coordinates."

This was the command center, a long, rectangular room filled with the low whirr of overworked fans and the steady cloud of output heat they could not stave off. Towards the entrance was ample standing room to gather around an oval table, but the room's back end was filled with as many displays and computer banks as could possibly fit. Around Soundwave's chair, the floor became a tripping hazard from the huge, overlapping braids of multicolored wires winding underfoot. In Starscream's self-led exploration of home base, he had tried to nose around the command center a few times only to be pushed out again by one cassette or another-- except for high command meetings, this was mostly Soundwave's domain, where he would spend hours upon hours hooked up to rows of monitors and computer banks in a sort of half-stasis that allowed him to continue his work without the need for full recharge. Soundwave's chair sat empty now. There was only Starscream and Megatron.

"So," Megatron said, "When you pledged your allegiance to me, were you just biding your time or was it simply convenient?"

The tethers of Starscream's polite front broke. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I wondered when you would grow tired of simpering."

"I wondered when you would come to your senses! Where are the damn lights? The intimidation tactics are cheap, my lord. I taught you this one."

"Where are Thundercracker and Skywarp? I assumed you three inseparable."

Starscream bared his dentae. "They're not with me. Not for this one. My decisions are my own."

"Smart. Even Skywarp is smarter than I've given him credit for."

"What was the death toll for the battle? Do you know?"

Megatron rolled his optics, and it was so much like his old self it caught Starscream momentarily off-guard. "By the pits, I will not believe that you suddenly care for the good of the common mech now."

"Soldiers are resources. Resources will win us the war," Starscream seethed, stalking towards the other mech. "Soundwave told me the well of sparks is fragging dead because you and Optimus bombed the hell out of it in ancient history."

"We need energon to restore Cybertron, and in turn restore the well." Megatron's heavy steps met Starscream halfway across the room. "Every harvest must succeed. We can never retreat!"

"The soldiers we have right now are the only soldiers we will get! We can't keep counting on neutrals to change their minds and switch sides!"

"Don't you dare lecture me on spent lives! I know you sabotaged your commander, Starscream."

"Yes, I did! Because those lives weren't being well spent! That battle was a lost cause and you know it. You sent us out there to fight uselessly--"

"Silence!"

"No! You sent us out there to defend a worthless planet for nothing! You took a gamble that didn't pay off-- Shockwave finished his analysis and the planet's possible energon output is practically zero! What I did was damage control, to fix your fragging mistake before more--"

Calmly, methodically, Megatron unstrapped his energy cannon and lay it across the oval table. Starscream ranted and raved, spitting mad, but in the back of his mind some small appreciation bloomed. Starscream had never been good at de-escalation, but if Megatron would listen, if Starscream could reason with him without having to admit the information Optimus had given him--

Megatron struck him. Starscream staggered backwards. Plating buckled and pain receptors bloomed around his chassis. Starscream had let Megatron get so close-- but he hadn't expected--

"You--" Shock turned to fury. "-- stupid brute!"

Starscream tried to return the favor, but his fists skidded harmlessly across Megatron's reinforced armor. Starscream suffered another blow to the helm before he lunged at Megatron, dug his claws into a sensitive seam and pulled.

The plate shifted wrongly under Starscream's hands. Megatron's vents gasped in pain. Starscream rent delicate machinery with his claws, but he didn't get far before he was seized by a turbine and slammed into the table over and over again.

"Do you deserve a promotion?" Megatron sneered. "Did you want Boltcase's position for yourself?"

Starscream reached blindly behind himself, pushing off of the table, and pulled Megatron down by the collar. They took it to the concrete floor, but it was easy for Megatron to overpower him. In a one-on-one fight without flight or weaponry, Megatron soundly outmatched Starscream in every department that mattered.

Megatron crumpled him like aluminum. Starscream, even in all of his pride and arrogance, made noises about surrender, but Megatron kept going. And going.

He wants me to beg, Starscream thought hysterically, but by that time he couldn't even if he wanted to. His integrated weaponry was offline.

"You are from a different time," Megatron said later, "So I wondered if some lingering idealism had carried over with you from the past. But I should have known. I suppose you are the perfect decepticon, Starscream."

Someone is going to kill you. Starscream would have said it out loud, damn the consequences, but his vocalizer could only churr out angry static from his place on the floor. The tiny mechanisms in his vocalizer went into a series of minute adjustments, clicking experimentally, trying to function through the damage, but Megatron did not leave him more time for reconfiguration. He dug his claws into Starscream's chassis and hoisted him up by the collar, effortlessly dragging Starscream towards the door.

"I expect more focus from you in the future, old friend," Megatron said in parting. He tossed Starscream out into the hallway, slamming the door shut behind him without even pausing long enough to watch Starscream hit the floor with a screech of metal. The impact of Starscream's frame scattered a few sparks, temporarily lighting up the darkness.

Starscream was left alone. He let himself lay there.

His HUD was nothing but a wall of error codes and system warnings, an internal monologue wishing nothing but ill will upon Megatron running steadily in the background. Starscream's vocalizer was still trying to reconfigure. The sides of his helm were dented in. His beautiful nose was broken, and so was his left knee and a few unimportant servos. Something seemed to have snapped in his chassis because it protested loudly whenever he tried to so much as twitch his torso into a rotation. The initial battle damage on Starscream's left wing was rendered irrelevant, thanks to the fact that the entire wing was now bent jaggedly crooked. Starscream bled out of his seams. Like Boltcase. Pits, coming out of the ice wasn't half as undignified as this.

I should have just shot him, Starscream thought murderously. He should've just shot me!

Well, however badly Starscream had lost, there were places to be and loose ends to tie up. He tensed the struts in his right arm, found that he could coax movement out of it, and used it to turn himself onto his side. He pushed too far and ended up laying awkwardly on his back, propped up against the bent wing with his optics towards the ceiling. The new vantage point also gave him an unfortunately direct view of the blue, visored mech quietly standing over him.

Starscream cursed. His vocalizer sparked again, but something finally clicked into place. Even if it was through almost unintelligible static, he found that he could say, "What the hell do you want, Soundwave?"

Soundwave inclined his helm. "Query: Starscream desires assistance?"

"No." Starscream meant to get up and prove it, but his battered frame protested and he went crashing back to the floor. The feed from his optics sputtered, vision blacking in and out. He ignored it. With the last scrapings of dignity, Starscream held his helm up to face Soundwave as best as he was able.

"Starscream: seeks medical repairs. Soundwave: will accompany."

"No, no. I'm getting up, see?" Neither mech moved. "I'll call my trine. Leave me."

"Thundercracker, Skywarp: located in CMO Knockout's assigned quarters."

"That would be odd. Knockout's probably busy in the medbay."

"Knockout: located in assigned quarters."

Starscream glared at Soundwave. Soundwave, impassively, looked on.

"Soundwave: will accompany."

Starscream meant to fight him. He had just fought Megatron, after all, and Soundwave was ranked second-best. But as Soundwave's looming form closed in on Starscream, his EM field a smothering blanket, Starscream's system damage finally sunk its hooks into his active processor and began to drag his consciousness downwards into emergency shutdown. Starscream fought hard against a complete stasis, clawing against the tide of his processor's involuntary protocols as best as he was able.

It was in this way that Starscream drifted in and out of consciousness as he was picked up, slung over Soundwave's blocky pauldron, and trapped helplessly in his own frame. He tried to wiggle out of Soundwave's grasp and felt something in his chassis creak horribly. Soundwave moved them along.

Starscream didn't even try to power his cannons, but during one brief moment of clarity, a clawed hand managed to fumble its way towards the weak points of Soundwave's neck cables. Starscream passed out again. He woke up. His hand stayed where he put it, but it was all for nothing-- the points of Starscream's clawed servos only rested awkwardly against the front of Soundwave's neck because Starscream couldn't muster the strength or coordination to even close his servos into a tight fist, much less do any damage. Soundwave didn't even react. His steps were even and unhurried.

Starscream dragged a long, shallow scratch onto the clear bulletproof glass of Soundwave's cassette dock. "Put me down!"

"Cease struggle," Soundwave said a few times. He said it in a few different ways, too, his words cutting in and out of Starscream's audial receptors as Starscream himself plunged in and out of recharge. Fighting to stay afloat, Starscream dutifully ignored whatever he heard until Soundwave tried, "More time alotted to recharge = More time spent in online consciousness."

In his current state, the longest Starscream could spend online was about fifteen seconds. That kind of time didn't lend itself well towards any real scheming, and that was the last thought Starscream was able to have before he temporarily went under again. He surfaced into consciousness another fifteen seconds later, but it was impossible to focus.

"You and I," Starscream slurred, helm nodding, "Will have words."

"Affirmative."

"We didn't do slag. Don't toss anyone in the brig before I wake up."

"Acknowledged."

That was no affirmation, but Starscream knew he didn't have any more time to argue the point. His optical feed was going dark again, and this time he let it. The very instant he stopped fighting, stasis overtook him at last.

Starscream had always had a good working relationship with Soundwave, but never a close one. Soundwave wasn't much for conversation and that was true from their first introduction.

Megatronus's book club-- because he was a leader even then-- met infrequently in a variety of hidden alcoves and slum ruins around Kaon. Shortly after Starscream and Skywarp found out about Thundercracker's membership, the club started meeting in a huge drain pipe under street level. The mechs crouched in a stream of filthy water to swap file copies of whatever writing they could get their hands on and discuss how to find more.

Starscream hated getting his pedes wet, so he figured that the new location was chosen to discourage him from showing up almost as much as the enforcers. He stubbornly accompanied Thundercracker on most outings, in quiet fear of the day Thundercracker left and didn't return. Skywarp didn't care to regularly attend the club until later, when its purpose started to shift-- the spoils of the Vosnian academy archives were not enough to inspire in him a love of reading, and Megatronus's tiny, desperate book club did not, either.

It was a desperate, strange club. Mechs sparked low enough in the caste system were marked 'disposable' and officially banned from reading, so as not to be distracted from their simple functions. Starscream couldn't imagine it. As treasured seekers of the high towers, he and his trine mates had come online with dictionaries in their memory banks. In comparison, Megatronus had come online with practically nothing, but he was tenacious and hard to kill from the very beginning, grasping ever upwards. He was sparked into the laborer's caste as a miner, never meant to reach the surface or see the daylight. Megatronus saved himself by escaping the mines and fleeing into the chaotic, anonymous mass of crime and poverty that was Kaon. He saved himself by learning how to write, and do it well.

You would think that a mech with so much to lose would be more focused on survival than peddling contraband text files. Starscream said as much to Megatronus the first time he met him.

"I should rip your wings off," Megatronus had said, quite calmly. "You wouldn't understand."

It was the challenge, then, that made Starscream want to. He kept going to the meetings as Thundercracker's unwanted tag-along.

Core members included the cassettes, who originally numbered only three. They ran as a pack. If one was around, the rest were sure to be somewhere nearby. Laserbeak was so friendly she could talk anyone into audial failure. Buzzsaw was more reluctant, but he shared an interjection here and there, most enthusiastically about Thundercracker's original writing. Ravage didn't speak at all, and for a long time Starscream simply assumed she couldn't.

Before Megatronus took to his role as charismatic leader in full force, Buzzsaw was the closest thing the club had to a recruiter. First he got Thundercracker in. Rumble and Frenzy were picked up somewhere along the way, though they were company best tolerated in small doses. Then one day, Buzzsaw showed up to a usual meeting and said, "Hey. Me, Ravage and Laserbeak found this mech in the garbage."

That in of itself wasn't so unusual. "And?" Megatronus prodded.

Buzzsaw shifted casually, fluttering his wings to dislodge some dust. "His name's Soundwave. He's pretty alright."

"He runs with us now!" Laserbeak cheered.

"Ravage showed him your Big Poem and now he wants in."

Megatronus vented irritably at the nickname, but no one would let it go. 'The Big Poem' was not a poem at all, but Megatronus's long, seditious letter to the Senate. It outlined the grievances, injustices and hypocrisies of a society ruled by an ancient council of mechs who reformatted their frames every few centuries and never planned to die. Megatronus debuted it at the book club with no fanfare. Afterwards, he sat in silence with the rest of them as Starscream's processor boggled at the sheer amount of treason Megatronus had been able to compress into one text file.

As each mech was already a fugitive in some way or another, no one left the book club (though there was a loud, scathing argument about it within Starscream's trine). Thanks to Buzzsaw, the club even took on a new member.

Rumble, Frenzy, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw introduced Soundwave like he was the best thing since sliced energon solids. Even silent Ravage wound about Soundwave's legs affectionately. Starscream didn't know what to make of the mech, and from Thundercracker's long silence, he was not alone. Soundwave loomed, completely expressionless without even a legible EM field to read his mood by. It was like facing a wall and being told it was alive.

"Are you on the run?" Starscream asked him bluntly. "What's with the disguise?"

"This is just what he looks like!" Rumble protested. "Right, Soundwave?"

"Affirmative," said Soundwave.

"Is that a vocal modulator?" Megatronus asked, bewildered more than suspicious.

"Affirmative."

"Well, alright. So how does a mech like you end up in the garbage?"

"Function: not suited towards own wishes. Employment: terminated. Garbage chute: acceptable mode of escape."

Starscream grinned helplessly, but quickly smashed it down when he saw Megatronus glance at him with a matching one.

"Forgive us for the humor," Megatronus told Soundwave. "That was just a very. . . succinct summary. I am glad to hear stories of mechs managing to escape, and yours is a unique one. I blew up a mine. Starscream and his trine-mates faked their deaths. You may already know, but the cassettes rid themselves of a former master by. . ." 

"We ate his optics," Buzzsaw said proudly.

"So congratulations, Soundwave. I am glad you escaped. Do you like to read?"

"Negative."

Starscream snickered. "Well, half of our members don't. If it's the social aspect you want, you may be better off looking for some less rusted personalities."

Megatron rolled his optics. "Silence, Starscream. Yours is the most rusted of all."

Soundwave inclined his helm. "Inclusion: desired."

Starscream looked at Soundwave and knew he wanted more than that. At the time, he assumed Soundwave's one true desire was to get into Megatronus's panels. Later, he knew it was something much more insane: revolution. That was the thing about Soundwave-- he was so stoic, so blunt, that mechs always assumed him to be a voice of reason. He was not. What he was was a talented hacker, and what he did was expand the club's reach more than any of them thought possible. More than wise, came a creeping thought in Starscream's processor, but he never acted on it.

Net access was spotty in Kaon. Huge swathes of the city were dead signal zones, especially in the lower levels, and only a small percentage of the population could afford net access even if they could legally have it. Starscream and his trine were cut off from the net upon leaving Vos, while Megatronus and the cassettes had never been given the opportunity to use it at all. 

Soundwave's sparked function was data organization. He came online with his processor hooked up to the net, and he knew how to get back to it by lurking outside wealthy homes (still shabby by Vosnian standards) and hacking into their personal wireless networks. He promised the club could get in, too, but showed confusion for the first time when no one else could simply shutter their optics and connect their processors to the net through willpower.

Soundwave tapped the side of his helm. "Direct network interface: not possible?" Soundwave asked.

Megatronus shook his head. "I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"Estimate: Modifications necessary to remove blocks directly within the processor."

"Hmm," Starscream said. "We do know a doctor."

Megatronus scowled. "That fool who put Thundercracker's face back on? He can't even move it anymore! I say it'd be better for everyone's health if we just used data pads."

"Ugh. Fine. Where do you propose we find data pads, then?"

"We steal them."

Starscream threw his hands up. "Oh, that's all well and good. You make it sound so simple. I suppose I will come up with a plan."

"You just like to argue."

"All of you, meet me at the market. The nice part of the market."

It was the ragtag group's first social call outside of club meetings, though it was a social call only in the broadest sense of the term. They got those data pads. Soundwave got them wifi passwords. Megatronus made his first anonymous post to a philosophy net forum. And then another one. And then another one. Starscream knew he was reaching some measure of popularity when Megatronus started coming to him, of all people, for help.

"I don't know what this means," Megatronus would grumble, shoving a data pad under Starscream's nose, and Starscream would double over in laughter at whatever new comment Megatronus wanted him to decipher. Their first sense of real camaraderie was through Starscream teaching Megatronus vile internet slang-- though admittedly, what they said in Vos was different than what they said in Kaon or Helex or even Iacon.

It was all the way in Iacon that Megatronus caught the attention of an archivist with as much net access as he pleased. It was outside Senator Ratbat's mansion that Soundwave caught the attention of the senator, wondering who dared hack into his network, the strongest net connection in Kaon. Soundwave had always been good at covering his tracks, but he was not always the best.

Starscream onlined into dimness. He was laid out on his back, bent wing straightened-- on a berth that wasn't his own, Starscream realized. An instant later, his systems almost crashed from pain. He must have hissed or made some sort of staticky sound, because Soundwave stopped whatever he was doing at his desk and came over to stick something into the medical port on Starscream's blue forearm.

"Pain chip," Soundwave said. 

Starscream groaned. The pain fizzled out, but in its place rose a numbing fog. "How's this happened?" he asked nonsensically. "Why are you still here?"

"Starscream: sustained vocalizer damage. Continued use: inadvisable."

"How did Megatron get like this?"

Soundwave said nothing.

"You're hard to read, glitch," Starscream said, and his fatigue let a traitorous bit of nostalgic fondness slip through. "I know you don't like to waste words. What will you do now?"

"Soundwave: calculates. Lord Megatron: passes judgement."

"He can only pass judgement on what he knows."

Soundwave's visor flashed. He inclined his helm, pointing his gaze towards Starscream's remaining frame damage. "Starscream's plans: inconsequential. Judgement: already passed."

"Very well."

And they left it at that.

"You know," Skywarp said out of the corner of his mouth, "It's taking Star a long time." 

"He's dead," Boltcase said at once.

Skywarp was already whirling on Boltcase with a retort, but there was a knock on the door. Inside the habsuite, all conversation hushed instantly as Skywarp, Thundercracker, Knockout and Boltcase froze in an awkward half-turn towards the noise.

Skywarp's black helm tilted, optics going distant with the reviewal of an incoming comm. "Starscream says not to run," Skywarp told the others, wincing at the noise even as he whispered below the sound of a vent.

"Why would we run?" Thundercracker asked quietly.

"Why are we whispering?" asked Boltcase, but her whisper was not a whisper at all. The other three shushed her through their dentae.

"Well. Soundwave's here."

"Skywarp," Knockout gritted out. With their history, he was privy to the secret of Thundercracker and Skywarp's useful anomalies. "Get. Us. Out."

"Can't! Star's out there!"

"Frag that!" muttered Boltcase. Quickly, she leapt to her feet and limped into Knockout's closet, closing the door gently behind her. Knockout gestured furiously at the incriminating blood-energon trail she left behind on the floor. Skywarp yanked the reflective thermal sheet off of Knockout's berth and threw it down as a makeshift rug.

Thundercracker cursed. "We have to do something!" he mouthed, and before Knockout could stop him, he swept over to the door and opened it.

Soundwave marched inside, carrying none other than Starscream like disagreeable cargo. Starscream, grumpily crossing his arms, was in even worse shape than Boltcase. At least Boltcase's damage was centralized around the huge dent on her side-- Starscream looked freshly battered and wrung-out from helm to pede, like his entire frame got stuck between two gears. Soundwave pushed past Knockout and Thundercracker to pull out the chair from the desk and sit Starscream down heavily onto it.

"Well?" Starscream sneered. "Tell me I'm beautiful."

"You've been better," Knockout said. He had pressed himself to the wall.

The initial shock of Starscream's damaged appearance made Skywarp have to look twice to see the rudimentary welds and patches bandaging some of the worst wounds. Starscream looked-- furious, sure, but not worried. It was always difficult to tell with Starscream. Skywarp's optics darted to Soundwave, who was as impassive as ever but seemingly content to stand there like a statue instead of making any arrests.

Thundercracker gestured at a swaying Starscream and demanded, "Did you do this?"

"Negative." Soundwave's red, unblinking visor met Thundercracker's stare.

Thundercracker tensed, but Starscream snapped, "It wasn't him. Don't waste your energy."

Soundwave said, "CMO Knockout. Starscream: in need of medical attention."

Knockout eyed them both. "I definitively see that."

"Query: Last known position of Commander Boltcase?"

Knockout's easy grin went fixed around the corners. "Haven't seen her pass through the medbay in a few weeks."

Thundercracker said, "Maybe she got left behind."

Skywarp shrugged.

"Gruesome," Knockout continued. "Well, we may see her turn up yet. As a corpse, if nothing else."

"Acknowledged."

With that, Soundwave moved to the door. He paused for a brief moment in the open doorway, helm angled, but in the end he passed through and was allowed to leave without another word. Soundwave's surprisingly quiet footsteps receded down the hall. Silently, Thundercracker reached over to the door panel and shut it.

Skywarp waited about ten seconds to cry, "There is no way he doesn't know!"

"Quiet!" Knockout hissed.

"Of course not," Starscream scoffed. "But say what you will about Soundwave, he sometimes he does know how to mind his own business."

"They say he can read minds, you know," Skywarp said.

"Don't be stupid. What happened to Boltcase?"

"Hey, Boltcase, the coast is clear."

The closet door creaked open a sliver, then opened a little more, then burst wide open as Boltcase leaned out and pointed a crooked servo at Starscream. "You."

"You," Starscream repeated scornfully.

"Ugh," Knockout said. "Don't start shooting. Neither of you are in the shape for it and I have my work cut out for me as is."

Far from leaping into action, Starscream leaned back in the chair and went limp. He even shuttered his optics, though Boltcase kept glaring murderously on. "Let's postpone it. Did the interrogation amount to anything?"

"Oh! Yeah. It was Vortex," Skywarp said, a bit apologetically. "We were probably going to have to deal with him later, anyway."

"What a colossal waste of time," Starscream groaned. "You know, Boltcase, we must've saved your life."

"So how about we put this whole thing behind us?" Boltcase asked sweetly. "Shut up. I've decided how you're going to make it up to me. You are all going to help me fake my death."

Skywarp cast her a dubious look, but shrugged and said, "Well, if that's what you want, most of the work is done already. If we keep our mouths shut, people are just going to assume you got left behind and lost in a bunch of other corpses."

"Except for Vortex," Thundercracker pointed out.

Boltcase scowled. "You deal with him, then. You have to get me out of here without anyone ever thinking to look for me again!"

"So you're defecting?"

"Yeah," Boltcase said. "Frag this place. Frag this war. I'm not going to the autobots. You didn't tell Megatron I was alive, did you?"

"Ugh. No. But do you think we're kindred sparks now just because we both got our screws knocked loose?" Starscream asked snidely. "We can't help you. We have enough going on."

"If you don't help me, I will report to Megatron. He might punish me for failure, but my testimony will make him pay you another visit, Starscream. And he won't let you keep functioning a second time."

"Rust you. Give us something to work with, then. What do you transform into?"

Boltcase hesitated, but said, "A drill."

"What?" Starscream asked, but when Boltcase's glare turned darker he knew she was telling the truth. "Like what kind of drill?"

"A drill, idiot! I drilled things! Why the hell does it matter?"

Probably no wheels, then, Starscream thought. Something like a drill certainly didn't need to be sentient, and to create a line of bots with the alt-modes of such simple tools was just another showcase of wastefulness from an era already gone by. Starscream rolled his eyes-- but quietly reeled in his curiosity. "It matters," he said, "Because now we know you can get smaller and easier to hide."

"Hey, Knockout," Skywarp said suddenly, "Can we pretend she's dead and shoot her out into space with the rest of the trash, or do the dead mechs go to a smelter around here?"

Knockout shook his helm. "Corpses go to Shockwave, not to me."

"Why's that?"

"Ehhh, it's. . . recycling? Bodies go in, Shockwave does whatever he does, and afterwards I get clean and separate parts for the medbay."

"I'm not going to Shockwave!" Boltcase cried.

"Nobody said you should," Starscream spat. He splayed the points of his claws across his faceplates, pressing hard against his temples in a vain attempt to fight off the processor ache ravaging his helm. "Shut up! Everyone shut up for a klik!" He vented. He snarled. He took a moment of solace to hope that Megatron slipped in the shower and died with his spike out, as far-removed from a warrior's death as possible. "Okay," Starscream said after a bit. "I have an idea."

Chapter Text

In the end, ex-commander Boltcase's great escape was not so complicated. It was easy for Starscream to hold this opinion because he wasn't even there; his lasting injuries did much to simplify his involvement in the escape plan by grounding him in the medbay and cutting him out of anything past the planning stage. In the aftermath of the disagreement with Megatron, it would have been too suspicious for Starscream to be seen leaving home base either way.

Starscream did his part in ensuring the plan's success. He helped Skywarp stop Thundercracker from packing up, ripping his insignias off and fleeing into unknown space. He helped Thundercracker stop Skywarp from charging into Megatron's quarters with a weapon in his clenched fists and a practical death wish in his empty processor. He strongly discouraged Knockout from snitching.

After that, all Starscream had left to do was sit around the medbay and pretend to be bereft without his brothers around. The two other seekers had secured places as backup muscle for a scheduled trade exchange outside of decepticon territory.

"I still think we're acting too suspicious," Thundercracker said on the eve of their departure. "We're moving too soon. What if Megatron tries to stop us?" 

"We have got to get rid of, um, it," said Skywarp immediately. Boltcase had been banished to an extended stay in Knockout's habsuite (more specifically, Knockout's closet) and as the days eked by with all the pressure and slow grit of rusted machinery, Knockout was making increasingly louder and more harried demands for the trine to, "Save her or kill her already! I don't care what you do, just move her!"

Starscream said, "I gave Megatron the. . . impression that you two have abandoned me to my own choices. If it seems like you're trying to get some distance from me and our lord's displeasure, it fits."

Thundercracker kept grumbling after that, kept polishing and polishing the barrels of his cannons with his EM field a polluted black, but he offered no further resistance. When Starscream's brothers finally left on the trade mission, zooming away on a crookedly battered decepticon cruiser, they ferried a secret passenger among the cargo.

The idle time was no proper respite for Starscream, even if self-repair and Knockout's steady hands sealed his wounds. Starscream couldn't work up to a proper lounge-- the medbay was constantly in motion with the busy comings and goings of other decepticons, who were made no less obnoxious by their injured states or the curtains set up around Starscream's medical berth. Mechs lived and died in Knockout's clutches at all hours, noisily.

But above all, rest did not come easy for Starscream because it seemed as if any moment Megatron would come marching inside to put an end to their unfinished business.

"What do you mean, unfinished business? Lord Megatron's done with you," Knockout told Starscream in a rare quiet moment. "If he wanted to decommission you, he already would have. Just don't give him any more reasons to be displeased."

"Ah, but of course," Starscream replied dryly. "I'm so glad there are no loose ends lying around unfinished as we speak."

Knockout straightened and cleared his vocalizer pointedly, immediately making himself busy elsewhere.

So in the meantime, it was Skywarp and Thundercracker who smuggled Boltcase first off of home base and then into free territory.

On the upper levels of the small cruiser, the decepticon team cemented a trade deal with a colorful crew of alien pirates. Thundercracker's broodingly silent, off-putting demeanor encouraged strangers not to look too closely at him for too long. In this way, his presence in the negotiations distracted the rest of the team from Skywarp's absence--  because at the same time, Skywarp was creeping down in the empty cargo bay on the ship's lowermost level, cracking open the lift as much as he dared. The cruiser hung still in the lower reaches of a crowded planet's atmosphere. Purple and green light from the city below flooded into the cargo bay and illuminated the angular planes of Skywarp's frame. Across the distance between sky and ground, the voices and noises of night-cycle activity blended into a faint roar.

Skywarp quickly glanced backwards. The cargo bay was empty and dark. Boltcase's alt-mode was heavy in the grip of one hand, the last remaining piece of cargo.

Boltcase's worn drill-bit spun with a high, angry whirrr, the most movement she could manage in her alt-mode. "What's happening? What does it look like?" she demanded.

"This is the place," Skywarp said.

"My sensors aren't tracking any ground--"

Skywarp drew back his arm, readied his aim, and chucked Boltcase through the slim opening of the lift. Instantly, it shut after her with a soft hiss of hydraulics.

With a sword, a blaster, twenty-thousand galactic credits and no goodbye, Skywarp and Thundercracker left Boltcase on Unix Venis, a planet known widely across the galaxy as a diversely populated trading hub and a good place to disappear. Lesser known was the small community of refugee Cybertronians who made their home there. The planet's further reputation was as something of a hotspot for crime and debauchery-- but from the way she had made a name for herself within the new decepticons, Skywarp had an inkling that Boltcase might not mind. As Skywarp slipped out of the cargo bay and snuck back into the fringes of the upstairs gathering, he hoped Boltcase could manage to make something of herself down there.

But it was just as well if she died. He hoped their paths never crossed again!

The trine reunited around Starscream's medical berth for another much-needed deliberation. The curtains were drawn and CMO Knockout was out, the med bay suddenly and miraculously empty because Skywarp had taken it upon himself (without permission) to spread a rumor about Starscream having rust fleas. No one wanted to be within fifty feet of a possible contagion, and all of Knockout's latest critical-condition patients were either already in stasis or dead. No injury was so dire that the remaining mechs couldn't clear out.

"Mission success," Skywarp reported happily.

"If she survived the fall!" Starscream said. A sour mood lingered from a very recent tirade about the rust flea rumor.

"Come on, I'm sure she did!"

"Did you check?" Thundercracker asked, disapproval clouding his EM field a stormy blue-grey.

"You know I couldn't!"

On the verge of spitting on his enforced berthrest and making his own escape from the med bay, Starscream vented. "Rust and ruin. Well! That's that! Onto the next thing on our mountain of troubles."

"But first," said Thundercracker, deceptively casual, inspecting his claws. "You should tell us why we had to do all that."

As much as he wished otherwise, Starscream was under no delusion that Thundercracker and Skywarp would allow his choices to go unchallenged forever.

"I suppose that's only fair," Starscream replied. Doggedly, he aimed for a confident smile and received two impatient looks in return. No matter-- he could still turn this around. He knew Thundercracker and Skywarp were willing to be convinced (and Skywarp was certainly always willing to be entertained).

So Starscream gave his brothers all of the same reasoning he gave Megatron: that the planet was worthless, that fighting over it was a waste of effort and resources, that it did not serve the cause. Skywarp couldn't resist interrupting every ten seconds. Thundercracker listened intently until the end of the spiel, then nodded and said, "All pretty words."

Starscream made an outraged noise.

"Okay. I'll be fair," Thundercracker vented, "Those were good reasons. Now what was the real reason, Starscream?"

"What else can I say?" Starscream blustered.

"How exactly did you guess that the planet wasn't energon viable before anyone else did?"

"It was a hunch. A hunch that turned out to be correct, mind you, and while Megatron has so unwisely mistrusted my council, I would have hoped my trine--"

"Nuh-uh!" Skywarp shouted. "That doesn't work on us! Say it! Say it! You're holding out, Screamer!"

Bluster as Starscream might, Thundercracker stared him down. Skywarp kept needling and needling like a scraplet. The two mechs saw through all of Starscream's fronts and pursued the truth like honed missiles-- and they all let each other get away with a lot, but not everything.

Starscream was forced to concede. He screwed up his fine faceplate, held onto one last moment of relative peace, and then admitted, "Optimus told me."

"And you just took Prime's word for it?" shouted Skywarp.

"I double-checked with Shockwave after!" Starscream defended. "You heard!"

"Yeah, after! After we had Boltcase passed out on the deployment ship!"

Skywarp and Thundercracker erupted, both of them talking over each other, independently shouting their questions and cussing their disbelief, together managing to reach a height of volume usually associated with construction sites or factory forges.

"What happened?" shouted Thundercracker, "What happened?"

Skywarp swore. "What about Boltcase?"

"So taking her out wasn't just a grab for power?"

"That's-- wow!"

Thundercracker was waving his black hands. "If the enemy leader tells you to take out one of your allies," he cried, "Do you really think--"

"--I heard Optimus's optics are blue like Primus, is that--"

"--My processor is hurting again, Starscream, you are going to send me into early dysfunction, are you happy--"

"--Wow, I knew I should have teleported in after you--"

"--Does Boltcase know?--"

"--Have all the fun--"

The wall of sound threatened to flatten Starscream. He gave up trying to follow the thread of individual questions (he sensed many of them to be rhetorical) and tried to defend himself broadly. "At the end of the cycle," Starscream said loudly, "-- At the end of the cycle, what's done is done!"

"Frag you!"

"Did Optimus Prime tell you that, too?"

Hell, Starscream might as well get it all out in the open now. "He said it was an alien hatchground planet-- and that was true, I saw there were, er, eggs. And I figured that if the planet is fragging energon barren and the autobots were so worried about keeping squishy aliens from getting smashed they were willing to fight for them, there was no reason to keep going. And sure, Megatron probably would have us tear the place apart on principle, but it's like I was saying before-- simply a waste of time--"

"-- Yeah," Skywarp vented wryly. "Yeah, he would."

"Are you talking about Megatron or Optimus?" Thundercracker muttered.

"Both of them." Skywarp laughed. "Yeah, they would both do something like that!"

Starscream threw his hands up. "Like I was saying!"

"Orion was always-- you know." Ineloquently, Skywarp gestured. "I mean, even Thundercracker would knock a mech around if they were askin' for it, but never Orion." The purple seeker huffed through his vents and struggled through his words. "He's Optimus Prime the autobot now, but I guess there's still squishy Orion inside there somewhere."

Oh, is there? Starscream thought darkly.

Thundercracker said, "Hm. So the eggs are saved. If only he could care so much about mechs. Starscream, he didn't. . . say anything else to you, did he?"

"Recruitment efforts," Starscream said dryly. "Don't worry, there's nothing over there for us. He knows better than to try again."

"I hope so. And Megatron--?"

"Megatron doesn't know."

"We can keep it that way."

After Boltcase's swift exit, Starscream's primary concern involved the people swept up in Boltcase's initial discovery and the task of keeping them quiet. When it came to covering tracks, Starscream wasn't nearly as thorough as Soundwave, but even he didn't like leaving loose ends.

Starscream had long been comfortable in the fact that Knockout was a mech of opportunity and no matter their friendship, the chance of him one day double-crossing the trine was nonzero. Concerning Boltcase's desertion, however, there was no reward in telling Megatron except to earn their leader's ire. Knockout would not tell, and he himself promised as much in cool disdain under Starscream's prodding and Skywarp's sharp smile.

Starscream would not even attempt to reach out to Soundwave and try for a vow of silence past whatever understanding they came to in the dark halls outside of the command center. If Soundwave wanted to be an enigma, so be it-- if he wanted to tell Megatron he would, and Starscream would know if it happened immediately just from Megatron's reactive violence. Soundwave had had plenty of opportunities to make things very difficult for Starscream's trine and had not yet taken any, so until the next circumstance blew up in Starscream's face, they would leave it at that.

The real problem was Vortex. The personal problem was Vortex.

Unfortunately, Starscream couldn't just kill him and be done with it anymore. Sometime since the war started, Vortex had been reformatted into part of a combiner gestalt called the Combaticons. According to Knockout, the team bond was formed less in friendship and cooperation and more in the name of an invasive weapons experiment planned by Shockwave. The unlucky patients (Onslaught, Brawl, Blast Off, Swindle and Vortex) lived to tell the tale at the expense of having their mental walls lowered and their processors permanently linked together. Starscream figured that the other Combaticons would at least defend Vortex if they saw Starscream go for his throat, which stayed Starscream's hand from doing just that-- he didn't need to fight the entire team, not with Megatron breathing down his neck, too.

Starscream didn't have much personal experience with gestalts. Instinctively, he wanted to compare the type of relationship to that of a trine, but even Thundercracker and Skywarp, with all of their flaws, had strengths that made them more than just the sum of the trine's parts. As far as Starscream could tell, the Combaticons' main ability was to join together and form one worthless mech for the price of five.

The first battle fought alongside Bruticus formed this opinion and solidified it as quickly as concrete.

Chapter Text

Knockout fulfilled Starscream's wishes and ended his berth-rest prematurely.

"You're free to go," Knockout told Starscream after one good, long look to make certain that Starscream really was rust-flea symptom free. "And unfortunately, you'll have the chance to stretch your wings on another battlefield. Megatron wants you on the next deployment ship. He asked for you by designation."

Starscream realized his mouth had flattened into a hard line, so he reached into his arsenal and drew forth one of his cocky grins. "Hmm, I suppose we're not on speaking terms yet, but the fact remains that even he knows I'm needed out there."

"Whatever you say. I don't even know why I bother buffing you when I know you're going to go down in a tailspin and come right back to me. Stay out of the line of fire! And shoot at our enemies this time, would you?"

An orange desert planet on the edge of decepticon territory was halfway through energon harvest when the autobots attacked it. Whatever the planet looked like before the decepticons took control of it, now the entire thing was scored and gouged with massive mech-made mining pits blasted out with detonation and shored with steel. Layers of ancient sandstone were carved away to reach the crystal energon formations formed near the planet's core. Their sharp, exposed gleam was visible even from a seeker's vantage point in the sky.

The autobots and decepticons wasted no time for formalities. The planet erupted into frenzied battle on sight and Starscream did not envy the grounders forced to wade through endless dips and valleys of loose sand. Everyone struggled against the terrain. The field medics were at their wits' end, unable to keep up with the demanding pings of injured decepticons in a landscape almost inaccessible to wheels. A few of the unluckiest soldiers were pitched helm-first into the open mine pits, shattering frames and hard crystal alike.

The figures of Optimus Prime and Lord Megatron met each other at the center of the chaos, posturing at each other from the top of the same tall sand dune.

"Megatron," Optimus rumbled.

"Prime," Megatron laughed.

Optimus drew his battle axe. Megatron brandished his energy cannon. They locked into another inevitable, unwinnable showdown, the latest in a series drawn-out and repeated countlessly over millennia.

Starscream was doing his best to ignore it. Optimus was paying less attention to Megatron and more attention to Starscream than he had any right to. Despite the highest speeds and most confusing acrobatics Starscream could squeeze out of his jet-mode, Starscream could still feel the prickling weight of Optimus's blue-white optics following him across the distance. It was ridiculous. It was beneath Starscream's notice-- he was busy enough trying to make something work with the other decepticon fliers, present at this battle where they had not been during the last.

Apparently there had been an air commander of the decepticon armada, but Aceshot was gunned down shortly before the arrival of Starscream's trine and the vacancy of his position had not yet been filled. Perhaps that was why every single decepticon flier was so keen to show off-- outside of a few seeker trines sticking together, there was no coordination and absolutely nothing resembling formation. As a result, the decepticons' usual air advantage was coming undone around them. Bit by bit, the autobots were separating and grounding the fliers with strategic bursts of gunfire and missile launches towards the sky. Furious, Starscream barked orders at his trine-mates to stay close.

[Slipstream's down!] Thundercracker commed through the trine line.

[Where?] Skywarp asked.

[Behind us! Do we double back?]

Slipstream was barely an acquaintance, a face seen in passing without acknowledgement from either end-- but the mere absence of hostility was more than what could be said for the relations Starscream's trine kept with some of the other mechs they were forced to work alongside. And Slipstream wasn't even trined. She would likely die without aid. [Yes,] Starscream commed begrudgingly. [Lead the way, Thundercracker.]

In triangle formation with Thundercracker at the point, they dipped evasively around a few sand dunes, flying low. The seekers rounded a corner and transformed into root-mode mid-air, barreling guns-blazing into the handful of autobots closing in on a downed Slipstream.

Starscream traded a few blows and fired a few shots, but he quickly scurried behind the shield of Thundercracker and Skywarp, allowing them to take over the fighting-- especially Skywarp, who was laughing more freely than he had in a long time. Quickly and carefully, Starscream made his way over to Slipstream, heeled pedes tottering in the sand.

"I hate this planet," Starscream said by way of greeting. "It's even worse than the last one!"

"I think there's sand all in my plating! It'll be hell to transform!" Slipstream said, sprawled out in root-mode and struggling to rise from her elbows. She was another seeker-- blocked out in teal and purple, she had sharp edges and a smaller frame, all the better for getting her into places she didn't belong. Her leanness was a disadvantage on the open battlefield, though, as a single well-aimed shot had sent her spiraling into a sand dune. Her black-painted lips were drawn back in pain.

"Where's the damage? Is it a quick fix?" Starscream prepared to ping a field medic-- Knockout stayed on base.

"It's my wing! You need to bend it back. Self-repair will take care of the rest." Flopping onto her front, Slipstream jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, where a triangular wing was hanging crookedly off of a hinge, likely bent from a rough landing.

Starscream shuttered his optics at the damage. The worst part of pain was the expectation of it-- so Starscream seized Slipstream's wing without warning and in one harsh motion, heaved it into something more resembling its proper shape. Slipstream snarled soundlessly, hunching and clenching a fistful of orange sand. Mercilessly, Starscream wiggled the wing on its hinge to test it. It held, but there was a grinding resistance that had Slipstream thrashing in pain. Finally, she struggled to her pedes and slapped Starscream's hands away.

"You can fly," Starscream said, "But not well. Fly back to one of the ships."

Slipstream grimaced, but didn't argue. She steeled herself before leaping into a jet-mode transformation. Starscream may have imagined the crunch of sand grinding in her seams, but he winced at the slight, pained wobble in Slipstream's flight path as she took to the air and was off like a shot.

That'll be me, next, Starscream thought grimly. Stalling his own takeoff, he tried to flick his plating to dislodge the rebellious bits of sand that had managed to worm its way into his seams. It was no use.

[STAR! FLY!]

[GET OFF THE GROUND!]

There were two simultaneous comms from Skywarp and Thundercracker, and then his trine-mates were gone so quickly Starscream barely registered their take-off-- blue and purple blurs retreated over his helm in the shutter of an optic. He whipped around and saw the source of their fear: Optimus Prime rolling ungracefully down the slope of a nearby dune. His heavily armored frame tumbled to a skidding stop at a low dip in the landscape. Sand poured out of one of his smokestacks. Without Skywarp and Thundercracker there to harass them, Optimus's autobots fell back beside their leader, hands automatically reaching out to help him. Optimus waved them off, his finials flicking irritably, but his knees slipped in the loose sand and that was all it took for the autobots to swarm him again.

[Star?] Skywarp commed.

Starscream should have already been gone-- but oh, it was funny. He tittered out loud and immediately shut up when all those enemy helms, Optimus's included, turned towards him.

Somewhere out of sight, Thundercracker pinged Starscream fourteen times.

[Stay away,] Starscream commed distractedly. [I'm re-joining you.]

Autobot gun-barrels raised. There was no way to avoid every shot, but he could try. Starscream tensed to fall backwards into a hasty, stinging transformation.

"Hold fire!" Optimus blurted. "Autobots, re-join the battle. I will handle Starscream."

"Oh, you'll handle me?" Starscream retorted, forgetting his fear. "You'll have to catch me first!"

There was a shifting disturbance in the sand on top of a nearby slope. Megatron trudged up the tall dune, his energy cannon crackling with charge.

"Starscream!" he called roughly. A smile curled his lip. "Back to the sky with you!"

Megatron fired the cannon. A beam of pure, burning energy scored the ground in the path of the gathered autobots. The light was fierce. Starscream was standing just out of reach, but he threw a forearm up to shield his optics too late-- temporarily blinded, he stumbled and fell down the slope behind him. Limbs sprawled, wings preventing a full-on roll, he rocketed downwards in a painful slide.

Through a foul bout of cursing, Starscream realized that it was not Optimus Prime himself who inspired such a hasty retreat from Skywarp and Thundercracker-- it was Megatron, or more specifically, the explosive, bystander-unfriendly aspect Megatron gave to all of his personal fights.

Snarling, stumbling forward, Starscream pinged his trine. [Come get me!]

Starscream heard jet engines swooping in low, and soon after two sets of hands were grabbing at his shoulders, shoving and steadying Starscream in equal measures. Skywarp fired carelessly behind their retreat. Starscream rapidly shuttered his optics as the trine ran, but his optical feed could register nothing but the differences in light.

Over the blaster-fire, Skywarp shouted in Starscream's audial. "Are you blind? Are you deaf, too?"

"Not deaf!" Starscream shouted. "My optics need a restart-- nothing's too broken! I just need time!"

Ever grim, Thundercracker hooked an arm under Starscream's, urging him faster and ignoring Starscream's brief stumble. [How long until you can transform?] he commed.

[Soon! What did you see in the air? Is Optimus dead? Did Megatron finally do it?]

[Over that easily?] At Starscream's side, anger bled through Thundercracker's field. [We could never be so lucky!]

With Starscream grounded, Thundercracker and Skywarp would not leave his side. Forced to stumble on pedes like grounders, avoiding pockets of fighting in every direction, the three rounded a dune and encountered Deadlock. Starscream, squinting at ghostly shapes, only knew it was Deadlock when the mech called, "Hail, elite trine!" in a way that managed to sound not at all respectful. "Come on, Starscream," Deadlock added, more like himself, "Lower your cannons. You're pointing them in the wrong direction, anyway."

Starscream primly adjusted to better face the direction of Deadlock's voice. They needed Deadlock gone, for the sake of Starscream's already frayed temper and so Skywarp could teleport without witnesses if necessary. "Lord Megatron is back the way we came, outnumbered," Starscream said. "Perhaps he could use some assistance."

The sound of a long, high-pitched blast from a certain powerful energy cannon punctuated the sentence. Thundercracker's wings bumped Starscream's as they stiffened-- the blaster-fire was some distance away, but it felt like Megatron and Optimus could come charging up the hill behind them at any moment.

"No," Deadlock said wryly. "Unless the lord calls for backup, I think we'd better steer clear. What happened to your optics, Starscream?"

"I didn't steer clear."

"Back the way I came, Ironhide and Onslaught are tearing each other apart, so you'd better not go there, either."

Thundercracker said, "That still leaves us with east and west." Impatient to move on, Thundercracker tugged his brothers aside. "Let's each pick a direction and hope for the best. Good luck, Deadlock."

From there, the trine would have gone on their way, ducking out of sight as soon as possible, except there was a pause. New orders had come in. As no one superseded the decepticon lord's authority, Megatron was the acting commander of this battle and over the broad comm channel, he suddenly gave a rare order: [Onslaught, assemble Bruticus at once!]

[Combaticons, to me!] commed Onslaught.

[Well,] Brawl replied, [I'm at the bottom of a mine right now.]

[I don't see anyone!] Swindle said. [Where are the rest of ya?]

[We lost Vortex,] said Blast-off.

[Find him,] commed Megatron. [Search from the air. Now.]

Starscream winced as excuses started to pour in from injured, downed or otherwise occupied fliers. He tapped his brothers' arms. "You two. Go find those useless lumps and bring them together."

Instantly, Thundercracker said, "No."

"Anything to make this fight end sooner!"

"What, you want us to bury you and come back for you later?" Skywarp asked in disbelief. "You'll just get shot out here by yourself."

"Deadlock will accompany me."

"I've got nothing to help me dig," Deadlock said wryly.

"I'm surrounded by fools. There will be no digging." Starscream wrestled his way out of his brothers' hold and waded over to Deadlock's silhouette, not quite daring to catch the vague shape of his forearm. "My optics are getting better already. Go, get out of here!"

Thundercracker said, "This is reckless, even for you."

"Bah. Are you seekers or not? Go seeking! I trust you can make it quick."

Skywarp leaned in and muttered something in Thundercracker's audial-- "Waste time"--"I know"--"Teach him"--"Stubborn blockhead"-- until Thundercracker finally groaned in resignation. 

"You want to play with your life so badly?" Thundercracker said. "Fine!"

If Starscream knew Skywarp at all, then he knew Skywarp jabbed a claw at Deadlock in a sharp gesture at odds with his cheerful tone. "You watch my brother," Skywarp said. "He's slippery. If he gets another one of his ideas, he might try to run off!"

"I resent that," Starscream said.

"And remember, Deadlock. I can always find you!"

Deadlock made what must have been a bow. "'Con's honor."

Skywarp chuckled. Thundercracker scoffed. Starscream's trine-mates took off.

Deadlock tapped Starscream's shoulder, ducking the retaliation of Starscream's blind swat. "Come on! We should keep moving."

Starscream followed Deadlock in what was practically a blind chase. Deadlock was not an attentive or slow-moving guide, especially when the two were forced to skirt around the edges of battle (and sometimes through!). When the surrounding chaos was particularly bad, the best compass point Starscream had to go off of was only the sound of Deadlock's voice calling over a shoulder: "Over here!" and "Stay low! Stay low! Duck!" and "Hurry up, Starscream! Better dead weight than actually dead!"

Furious, Starscream spared a few ill wishes upon Deadlock as he ducked and stumbled through an unknown battlefield at a full run, gunfire blasting sand into the air far too close to his path. Mostly, though, Starscream was straining every sensor and allocating every thought process he had towards not getting shot. He ducked. He swerved. He rolled. He tucked his wings and ran.

Almost without Starscream realizing, self-repair did its work. Abstract areas of light and dark began to solidify into blurry shapes as his optical feed recovered bit by bit. This improvement, and the sound of Deadlock's wheezing vents, made the black and white racer easier to focus on by the time he and Starscream dashed into an otherwise empty valley of sand between two tall dunes. It appeared as though they had managed to find some small amount of peace away from the fighting.

"I think we lost them!" Deadlock said. The points of sharp white incisors gleamed in a frenzied grin. "You know, for one of those seekers, you can use your pedes well enough!"

Starscream did not have any words for him. He was exhausted. There was sand in places where sand should not be. The most famous golden-age racers could have only dreamt of achieving what Starscream just had on an alien wasteland planet too far in the war-torn future for celebrity athletes to even exist. Later, Starscream promised himself, he would have Skywarp put fireworks under Deadlock's berth.

Deadlock stretched, glibly ignoring the angry press of Starscream's EM field. "Come on. We'd better see what's around."

Crawling on their elbows, keeping low to the ground with nothing but a whisper of disturbance in the sand, Starscream and Deadlock peered over a slope to spy what lay beyond.

"Hmmph," Starscream grunted almost immediately. To him there was simply an ombre of blue and orange blurred together, from the sky and the sand merging into one. "What do you see?"

"Keep your wings down!"

"I am!"

"More!"

"Answer my question!"

"I see two mechs up further ahead. One's a medic."

Starscream, zooming and shuttering his optics, was able to follow Deadlock's gaze. A white, boxy mech with red detailing was waving a stick (a wrench?) at a slumped form on the ground-- apparently, a medic stalling on field repairs to give an angry lecture, judging by the medic's animated gestures. When the medic halfway turned with a dramatic, sweeping wave, Starscream could just make out a dark scowl and maybe a red chevron at the crest of his helm. There was no square of purple to signify a decepticon badge. "Wait," Starscream said. "I don't think that's a decepticon medic."

"No," Deadlock said distantly. "I better go check him out."

"Don't just leave me here, you two-timing, twisted bolt!"

"You'll be fine. I can see your optical feed's back already."

"Not to where it needs to be!"

"You'll manage. You have so far."

"What glory is there in killing medics?" Starscream snapped, but Deadlock was already scrambling across the dune, keen gaze never leaving the unaware autobot medic. Starscream let him go. With a curse, he swiftly turned away-- his pride was better than giving stumbling chase for a second time, so instead he climbed down the dune and stormed off in a different direction with an angry flutter of his wings. It was true that the quality of Starscream's optical feed was rapidly improving, and it was a matter of time until his systems would be self-repaired to the bare minimum of safe flight. He resolved to fire a missile or two close to Deadlock when he was back in the air.

Starscream had no interest in rejoining the battle yet. He hastily trudged cautious circles around pockets of fighting, choosing his path directly opposite from the noise of blaster-fire and screams. Optics shuttered against heat shimmers in the distance and plating flared searing hot from the baleful light. The battle has to end soon, Starscream thought. They're going to give up.

But time melted away and the autobots and decepticons battled on. Starscream ran constant back-to-back system tests until a result finally came through telling him he was on the verge of flight system restoration. It would be soon-- very soon-- and Starscream only had to decide between forcing himself to wait fifteen more astro-minutes or accept the risk of transforming early.

Starscream rapidly shuttered his optics at the top of an orange dune, the clash of weapons faded behind him in the distance. The world was clearer. Edges were sharper. Colors were brighter, especially that empty blue sky. Starscream grinned and straightened his spinal strut, relieved-- finally!

There was a confused noise to Starscream's left. He turned. It was Optimus Prime, heavily singed at the edges, leaning against the tall handle of his glowing battle-axe like it was the only thing propping himself upright.

It should have never been such a terrible thing to see the colors of Starscream's own paint job. Starscream shrieked, raised his arm, and shot Optimus in the chassis.

Optimus flinched back and grunted, but the cannon-fire seemed to melt away into the armored plating of his shoulder and side, harmlessly absorbed into the plating. Warframe tech had come a long way, apparently.

Starscream bristled in the face of Optimus's big blue optics-- that's not fair!-- and shot him again. Turning swiftly away without pausing to see the result, Starscream fell back into a transformation for a smooth and seamless getaway.

Something was immediately wrong. There was sand under his plating, sand in his seams, and it was like was liquid fire between the puzzle pieces of Starscream's transitioning frame. He aborted the transformation out of shock as much as pain, so it was a root-mode Starscream that fell, flailing, down the side of the tall dune.

"Starscream!" Optimus called. "Wait!"

"Those were warning shots!" Starscream sputtered, clamoring to his pedes. "Get away from me!"

"No, they weren't! You actually hit me!"

"What do you want?"

"I'm not trying to harm you!" Optimus said, quieter, almost pleading. "And I would appreciate it if if you didn't shoot me again."

"Look at where we are!"

Optimus winced. It was so strange, so much like Orion Pax, that it made Starscream for a moment mind-numbingly furious. "I- Yes, I understand. But I am just trying to thank you."

"I haven't done anything for you!"

"The hatchlings are safe--"

"I don't care about hatchlings! Stop talking about it!"

Starscream had done his best to paint the rocky hatchground planet as worthless to the decepticons' goals, but that was not even a lie. The dishonesty came later, when Starscream came to the irritated conclusion that it wasn't enough to simply reiterate Shockwave and declare the planet unfit for energon harvest-- he needed to declare the planet unfit for life. The new autobots were notorious for putting their bleeding sparks on the line for random aliens. If Megatron realized just how deeply the autobots wanted to protect the planet, and why, he would go out of his way to blow it up and waste even more time and resources (lives!) in the process. In the Starscream's finished reports, he peppered in descriptions of the planet's 'inhospitable' and 'barren' qualities, calling it 'an outgrown relic of a wandering, insignificant alien race.'

"Get away from me!" Starscream hissed. "You're going to get us both killed."

Apparently Optimus had been able to shake off Megatron's unrelenting pursuit-- so Megatron was hopefully lying at the bottom of a nearby mine, very injured. With his cannons hot, poised to open fire or flee at any wrong move, Starscream watched Optimus begin to leave the high ground and trudge downwards to join him in the valley of sand.

This time, Starscream sent an actual warning shot into the orange hillside next to Optimus. A small eruption of sand blasted into the air.

Optimus stopped abruptly. His heavy pedes sunk into the sand, uprooting his balance and threatening to send him rolling bodily downwards again. The autobot leader looked long at Starscream, optics narrowing in thought behind his battle mask, before he twirled his axe to the sandy ground and let it stick there. Tall and regal, Optimus raised his empty hands. Witless and mindless, he called, "I would like to speak with you!"

Wildly, Starscream scanned the area. Gunfire was still distant in the background-- he and Optimus were isolated from the rest of the battle, but all it would take was one ping to alert the other decepticons to their location. Annoyed, Starscream brought his guns down and brought them up again. He wasn't sure what surrender protocol was-- he was fairly certain that under the ruthless practicality of their code, decepticons didn't accept surrender. He also knew without question that Optimus was Megatron's to kill.

"Is Megatron dead?" Starscream called skeptically.

One of Optimus's finials flicked. "No."

"Did you check?"

"Er-- no, but he has survived my best efforts for a long time."

"Then why are you here chasing after me when Megatron is probably laying around very killable at the moment?"

"Starscream," Optimus said solemnly. "I know you must fear for Megatron, but I swear that as of right now he still functions."

Don't laugh, Starscream thought. "So," he said conversationally, "Did we just win the war?"

Optimus's finials went down and stayed there awkwardly. "It is-- the autobots do not surrender."

"Hm? No? You realize that you are their leader. And you are standing here now, looking very much like you have surrendered on behalf of your entire army just to speak with me."

"I simply wish to show you that I mean no harm."

Even Starscream knew he was enjoying this too much. "Why, Optimus. I'm flattered."

"I understand things are-- complicated-- and you must still feel loyalty towards Megatron as you have trusted him to lead like you have trusted no one else. But by now, you must see that he has changed."

And what? Go to the autobots? Continuously, Starscream shook his helm-- Oh, this truly is going to get me killed-- and then he stilled. In the back of his processor came a comm from Thundercracker: [Send your coordinates! It's finally done!]

[You would not believe where we found Vortex,] commed Skywarp gleefully. 

There was a rumble that shook the ground. Reunited out of sight, the Combaticons assembled. Somewhere nearby, Bruticus rose.

Finally, some backup! Starscream thought, relief like a punch to the chassis.

Optimus's optics widened, staring over Starscream's right wing. Starscream turned his helm.

Jaded Starscream could still find it in himself to experience wonder. That was what it felt like to see the face of a towering giant, paneled in mismatching colors, rise above the sand dunes to block out the sun. A mech as tall as a Vosnian tower and with all the strength of a small sun. From Bruticus's neck and shoulders, tall points like spires formed a cage around his helm. His optics, red and glowing fiercely, settled on the tiny forms of Optimus and Starscream below his pedes. He scowled.

"Oh, no," Starscream said smugly. "Better run, Optimus. He sees you."

"Why do you call me Optimus?" the other asked, and Starscream was incensed to realize that even at a time like this, Optimus could so easily look away from the blaring danger at hand and stare dumbly at Starscream instead.

"It is your name!"

"Yes-- it is--"

Bruticus took a step towards them that shook the ground. Around his huge pedes, sand sprayed in huge waves, dunes collapsing easily at the giant's whim. At the threat of burial, Starscream used his thrusters to quickly backpedal away in a few leaping strides, arms ungainly outstretched for balance. Optimus ran after him, scrambling up a sandy slope with surprising speed.

"You never called me Orion, before!" Optimus called. "Or you rarely did."

"So?"

"So why Optimus now?"

"Ugh, is this truly about me not giving you your due respect, Prime? Because I tell you now, you will never have it!" Starscream let Optimus approach, baring his own dentae and leaning in close. The seeker could see his reflection in the two shiny planes of Optimus's silver battle-mask. "Bad enough that I must call Megatron Lord," he said quietly. "You will never hold station above me."

"Alright," said Optimus, vents laboring and stuttering from the climb.

Starscream curled his lip. "Just alright--?"

"I am above no one."

Above them both, Bruticus crouched. Starscream glimpsed Bruticus's huge hand begin to reach. Satisfied, he stood back and prepared to let a problem take care of itself.

And then Starscream realized, too late, that Bruticus's grasping hand was bypassing Optimus entirely and headed straight for him. He shrieked and dove away from the lunge of closing servos just in time.

"What are you doing?" he shouted up at Bruticus. He had no idea how sensitive the giant's audials were, but Bruticus's glare seemed to darken. Thrusters firing, the seeker threw himself out of the way as a huge silver fist came down hard onto the sand, sending a choking cloud of it into the air.

Starscream's vents coughed as he clawed up the next dune.

"Starscream!" Optimus called from somewhere behind, ignored.

Starscream needed to transform. He needed to fly-- but there was sand in places sand should not be and Starscream could not risk pausing for a delayed start.

Bruticus's green arm had a long-barreled gun. Whether it was a cannon or a stun gun or an energy weapon did not matter-- any such shot at such a pointblank range might as well have been a meteor. It would probably render Starscream into dust.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" Starscream shouted, flailing. "I-Imagine how much more satisfying it'd be to crush me with your bare servos!"

And apparently this was a convincing enough argument. Bruticus tossed his gun aside (there was a whoomph that shook the ground) and stooped to snatch up Starscream with both hands. Starscream rolled desperately out of the way.

"Up ahead there's a mine!" Optimus shouted. "Over the next dune!"

Starscream fled with Bruticus in single-minded pursuit, both of them unknowing or uncaring about the autobot leader trailing behind in third.

The terrain started to dip downwards without rising again. Starscream saw the mine pit long before he reached it, a cavernous bowl carved into the earth. A bright ombre of green and purple energon crystals lined the inside like a geode, winking and glittering like distant stars wherever the sun's unforgiving light could reach. No walls or railings of any kind guarded the sheer drop-off. Even Bruticus couldn't reach an arm inside to touch the bottom.

There was nowhere left for Starscream to run. Bruticus was on him. A huge spray of sand spilled into the mine pit as Bruticus lunged. Riding the tidal wave without choice, Starscream half-stumbled, half-dove into a free-fall. In glimpses and snatches of choked sound, Optimus Prime fell helm-first after him.

Below the empty air, crystal daggers waited to split them open.

Starscream's vents choked on sand. He fired his guttered thrusters at full power, flipping blindly upright. Squinting, cursing, Starscream stretched a searching hand out towards Optimus and slammed into his side, latching on with claws and securing a painful grip into the seams of Optimus's hip and chassis.

This heavy brute, Starscream thought, and then he kicked out both of his legs, gritted his dentae, and used all of the power in his exhausted engines to slow their combined descent.

They still fell. They still hit the ground hard, but crystal and sand gave way before their frames did. The damage from Megatron was not as repaired as Starscream had thought, or else his sensors were still tuned up to their highest sensitivities after the temporary blindness. For a nanosecond, the explosion of dented pain threatened to drag him under. Crystal barbs were sharp underneath Starscream's side.

A suffocating blanket of sand rained down from above, shallowly burying the two intertwined frames. Starscream was left with no choice but to keep clinging to Optimus unless he wanted to disturb the sand cover and give away their location. Dazed, Starscream loosened his grip from where the sharp points of his servos had dug reflexively into Optimus's seams. Optimus gave a pained wheeze, trying to struggle up and out.

"You must be still!" Starscream ordered (pleaded).

Optimus stilled, fans whirring and stuttering. "There's sand in my vents. Yours, too. We'll overheat."

"Deal with it later." Though Starscream could not see him, Bruticus doubtlessly lingered above, watchful and vengeful. "There's nothing to do now but hide. Shrink your field!"

Optimus tensed like he would wrench himself out of Starscream's grasp anyway-- and then with a stuffy vent, forcibly relaxed.

[Star, we need your coordinates,] commed Thundercracker. [We don't see you.]

Starscream wrenched open the trine line. [MEGATRON'S USELESS OVERSIZED WAR MACHINE IS TRYING TO KILL ME.]

[What? Who could it possibly be this time?]

[BRUTICUS.]

[WHAT DID YOU DO?] commed Skywarp. [AND WHERE DID YOU EVEN FIND THE TIME TO DO IT?]

[I DID NOTHING! NOTHING AT ALL!]

Thundercracker said, [Coordinates. Now.] Starscream could practically hear the thunder in his brother's glyphs. He obliged. [We're on our way.]

[Wow!] commed Skywarp with far more excitement than was warranted. [I see him! Fragger's huge!]

[We'll draw Bruticus away. Just stay where you are and please, for anything, GET OUT OF THE WAY.]

[I will,] commed Starscream. [Con's honor.]

Starscream had every intention of honoring his word for once, but though Thundercracker and Skywarp could buzz around Bruticus like drones to serve as a distraction, the last thing Starscream needed was for them to be swatted out of the sky and left helpless. For plan B's sake, Starscream whispered to Optimus, "What weapons do you have?"

"A blaster in my subspace. My axe got left behind. You?"

"Well, that was such a foolish move, but I don't see how the axe could help us now anyway. I have cannons as usual." Starscream brushed his servos across Optimus's plating, reassuring-- what, that they would die together? There was safety in mutually assured destruction, he supposed.

"Why is Bruticus after you?" Optimus whispered.

"Hmph. Do you remember that time we got caught ferrying weapons between Ratbat and Megatron? Vortex is an old jail friend. We had a falling out. The grudge has lasted long, apparently."

"Don't worry, I've dealt with Bruticus before. He has a short attention span."

"Is this just another day-cycle for you?" Starscream hissed quietly.

The proximity tangled the mechs' EM fields as closely as their frames. Optimus was unable to hide the quickly-buried flash of amusement that bubbled up in his field. "Yes."

Starscream was incensed. He had been incensed for most of the battle thus far and his internals would probably suffer as a result, melting down or crystallizing from the stress if the heat didn't get to them first. "Ugh, never mind. Call your people to help us!"

"I already have, but the sand is difficult and I'm afraid they won't be able to reach us quickly. Do you think it's possible that. . . some assistance from your end. . ."

"My trine-mates are on their way. They don't care about you."

"Good news!"

"Not necessarily. When Thundercracker gets his servos on me, he'll kill me himself."

Optimus tried and failed to hide an actual laugh this time.

Starscream almost lost control to smack his pauldron. "Unbelievable."

"I apologize. And I already know you won't want to hear this, but I sincerely--"

"--What do you know about my trine's disappearance?"

Starscream half-hoped the question would shut Optimus up, but Optimus only startled at the abruptness and then hummed softly in contemplation. He didn't take long to choose his next soft words, poisoned by regret. "Almost nothing. I know about as much as I did when you first disappeared, and back then we-- Soundwave, Megatron, Shockwave and I-- only had conjecture."

"You're prime! The council answers to you now. Didn't you ever ask?"

"Briefly. Not as much as I should have."

"I needn't the apologies. Go on."

Optimus paused, one finial twitching in frustration. Sand whispered. "Soundwave already confirmed Zeta as responsible for the empurata-order on Shockwave-- were you told about that?"

"Yes."

"But we could never find anything about what happened to you from our own investigations. When I became prime, the council at the time wasn't forthcoming with answers, either. We did not have a. . . good relationship. They wanted another Zeta."

Starscream frowned, processor racing. "Is it the same council even now?"

"No, most of the old members were killed in the decepticon uprising, when Megatron first declared war. I fear the information may have died with them because I have been looking at the surviving records recently and I have found nothing."

"Hmph. So back to square one, I suppose. Megatron and Soundwave haven't found anything, either." Not that Megatron seemed to be trying. Following all advice, Starscream hadn't even asked Shockwave, but Optimus's lack of revelations left Starscream with few remaining options.

"What about your memory files?"

"Nothing yet," Starscream whispered peevishly. Someone had to be holding out information on him, but the more frustrating fact was that Starscream was already halfway convinced it was not Optimus doing so.

"I will keep looking into it," Optimus said, with all of the same noble and solemn promise he probably gave to the leaders of egg-laying aliens.

"What's the word of a prime worth these days?"

"You are-- not my friend. But we were at least allies once and what happened to you was wrong. It was simply strange, too, and it bothers me that the evidence has been covered up so well. Zeta and most of his council are gone, but their influence. . ."

"Hmmph. If you want to feed me sensitive information I certainly won't say no. But don't go beating yourself up over me if it turns out you can't deliver." It was likely Zeta Prime torched all the evidence millions of years ago. "I'm outside of your jurisdiction, anyway. Do you know who you should be spending all of this recruitment effort on? Vortex."

Starscream's optics were buried in sand and shuttered besides, but the distance between his and Optimus's faceplates was not much. He could practically feel Optimus roll his optics and give up on his holy, primely idea of mercy (for now). "Vortex eats people."

Starscream didn't feel the need to fight a grin. "Well, if you want to save me so badly, you'd be doing me a huge favor. No more Vortex, no more Bruticus."

"If you want to trade Megatron's next troop formations. . ."

"Ha! A hard-hitting manipulator they have made you. It takes everything in me to say no."

"Then I'm afraid Vortex will stay a loyal decepticon."

"What would you have tried to tempt him with? Hypothetically."

"Ah, I'm sure nothing he wants is anything I'd be willing to give."

"What about what I want?"

"What you want is diamonds, fur and golden berths. If I didn't tell you before, I confess now those things are in short supply within the autobot army."

"It's not fair that you got everything you wanted. Here we are, stuck together with as much time to talk as you please."

"I wouldn't say as much time-- that is--"

"-- I could almost accuse you of planning this."

"You are ridiculous. Stay with the decepticons, then." After that last part slipped out Optimus tensed in instant regret, but Starscream was delighted. He shut his vocalizer off to mute half of a laugh that came out too loud.

"If you say so," Starscream whispered gleefully. To stop Optimus from stewing in his own burgeoning discomfort, Starscream brushed his servos in tiny increments across the other mech's plating again. For--something. Reassurance.

Not at all buffered by the sand, the heat compounding between the two frames was making Starscream dizzy. It felt like his internals were being slow-cooked inside the forge of his own armor, and it would stand to reason his own critical-thinking module would be affected, too.

Optimus muttered, "Do you hear that?"

Starscream, for a moment, thought he was about to hear an internal component of Optimus's engine drop off and fail from the rising temperature-- Is this fragger about to explode?-- but he dialed up his audial sensitivity and registered something else. "Yes," he vented, "I do."

Skywarp and Thundercracker were on the scene, their engines roaring from low swoops and dives. If Starscream and Optimus could hear it through the sand and the distance to the bottom of the pit, exertion had to be running the two seekers ragged.

It finally dawned on Starscream that such infighting displayed so clearly in front of the autobot leader was not exactly beneficial to the decepticon war effort. It was a weakness for the enemy to take advantage of, a sign of internal instability-- But that's not my problem! thought Starscream angrily. The decepticon tendency towards friendly fire has to be old news by now!

And by the noise of it, Thundercracker and Skywarp were firing, endlessly and persistently. By no means would they shy away from dealing pain, but Starscream guessed they would try to avoid serious damage to what was, after all, still an ally. A pedestep with the weight of a freight ship behind it sent a fresh wave of sand cascading into the mine pit, at least contributing further to Optimus and Starscream's cover. Bruticus had to be stepping closer to the pit's edge, driven in one direction by Thundercracker and Skywarp's firepower. And, Starscream realized, if it was him were up there fighting, his first idea would be to decapacitate Bruticus by making him fall inside the pit.

He commed the trine line. [I'M INSIDE THE MINE. UNDER THE SAND.]

[Oh, rust,] said Skywarp. [TC! We have to switch sides!]

[Where the hell is Megatron?] Thundercracker commed. [Nevermind. I see a cluster of autobots to the south, let's drive Bruticus over there.]

The direction of the blasts changed. Bruticus seemed to stumble away from the pit's edge.

They would tell me if they needed help, Starscream thought, but each time he did so it was with less conviction. He didn't comm either of his brothers again for fear of only causing distraction. Warring with himself, Starscream ultimately just lay there and waited silently, Optimus Prime beside him.

Bruticus stomped his foot and a new layer of sand washed into the mine pit. Then, with the effect of an earthquake, Bruticus gave into his frustration and went off to follow a prey he could actually see.

Perhaps Starscream imagined it, but above the rest of the noise he thought he could just barely register a faint cackle that could only belong to Skywarp (who always had a problem with wanting to pick fights with bigger mechs, and here Skywarp was against the biggest mech of all). The roar of jet engines receded. The walls of the mine pit stopped shaking.

. . .

From a cautious guess, the threat was gone.

Starscream and Optimus tensed around each other for one long, mutually calculating moment before coming to the same plan of action. They sprung apart, launching themselves in opposite directions out of the shallow bank like the other's touch was lava. Starscream opened his vents wide and shook his frame wildly from helm to pede in an effort to the dispel bits of orange grit in vulnerable nooks and crannies. His vents coughed wretchedly, but the intake of fresh air was a godsend.

Twenty feet away, Optimus did much of the same. Starscream could almost see steam rising from the truck's seams. "I have to find Megatron," Optimus muttered to himself. "I have to find. . ."

Starscream had to get the hell out of there himself. The urge to run, to fly long distances at top speed, pulsed in Starscream's energon lines and thrummed with the beat of his spark. Still, poised for takeoff, he paused. "You can't expect me to fly you out."

"I had no expectations. I will make my own way through--"

"Don't tell me! Your enemies shouldn't know your escape plan." It was so bizarre. Here Starscream was, stalling his exit, glaring at Optimus, wanting one last word or confirmation of something, but unsure where to even begin. He drew himself up and managed to look down his nose at Optimus despite the height difference. "I suppose I will see you again. On the next organic wasteland."

Optimus drew himself up, maybe, like he was cheered and trying very hard not to appear so. "Until next time."

Starscream turned his back, transformed, and shot upwards. The sandy friction from the transformation felt like scraplets eating him alive from the inside. Through a cloud of angry pain it was by a narrow margin Starscream stopped himself from swerving right into the side of the mine pit on his way out.

Bruticus fell when Skywarp and Thundercracker, upon sight of Starscream's jet-mode zipping out of the mine pit, teamed up to send a barrage of cannon-fire toward the backs of Bruticus's knee-joints. Starscream leapt to a higher altitude, expecting Bruticus to hit the ground with the impact of an asteroid, but a transformation triggered and Bruticus fell more like a tower of loosely stacked blocks. The giant erupted with light at the seams, the whole of his frame splitting and sectioning-off mid-air.

Starscream arrived in time to see Bruticus disassemble up close, quite literally falling to pieces. Five individual mechs rained down from the sky and collapsed to the ground, groaning in the sand.

Starscream transformed into root-mode for a landing-- with minimal wincing and stumbling-- and stood over the Combaticons with his arms crossed and his heel-thrusters red hot. Unhurried, Thundercracker transformed and joined Starscream's side with aura like black tar. When Skywarp touched down, he made sure his landing sent a spray of sand over the mechs lying prone.

Onslaught, the leader, was the first to scramble to his pedes. He was all dark colors and permanent glares thanks to the shape of his triangular visor. Onslaught seemed to give only the slightest glance towards the seekers' overwhelming disapproval before turning his full attention to his downed team. "What the hell what that?" he demanded.

The Combaticons were unresponsive, other than dazed shifting and a few grunts of pain.

"Who hates Starscream so much?"

"What a bad deal," Swindle muttered distantly. "What a bad deal. . ."

"Answer me!"

Brawl muttered, "It's probably Blast-off."

Blast-off, sprawled on his back and shielding his purple visor from the harsh sun, waved a hand in Vortex's general direction. "It's him," he slurred. "By the Pits, it's not me."

Vortex didn't bother defending himself. Face-down in the sand, the only acknowledgement he gave was a weak spin of his helicopter blades. Despite the proximity to bystanders, Starscream really, truly considered shooting Vortex to death then and there, but Onslaught seemed to remember Starscream's presence and jabbed the long barrel of his own gun at the seeker in warning. 

"Hey, he's not much, but he still has his uses!" Onslaught said. "If you offline Vortex, I'll get Shockwave to reformat you into taking his place, Starscream."

"He's supposed to be your problem," Starscream shrilled, "But you can't keep him on his leash!"

"So it's true? Something happened between you four?"

Thundercracker crossed his arms and said, "Yes. But we shouldn't have any problems with the rest of you. Why's Bruticus gunning for Starscream?"

"Because I underestimated Vortex's sheer hatred for the three of you-- for Starscream especially. What did you do to him?"

Skywarp crowed, "Nothing he didn't deserve!"

Starscream offered, "We had a disagreement back in the day."

Vortex mustered the strength to raise his helm. The ruby visor flashed in the sun. "They left me for dead."

"Well, we're not gunning for you now." Starscream made himself shrug, made himself give a careless flick of his wings. "Why not let bygones be bygones?"

"This petty feud is disrupting my entire team! Enough of this," said Onslaught, pressing his servos to his temples. With the other hand, he lowered his gun. "There's a battle to be fought. Where is Optimus Prime?"

"I'm so sorry, I was too busy getting shoved into crystal pits to worry about keeping track of him!"

"Where's Lord Megatron?"

"How would I know?"

Thundercracker threw his hands up. "Megatron will drag himself out of the sand or someone will find him soon. The writing's on the wall and the battle's basically over. We should focus on getting out of here."

"That's Lord Megatron to you," Onslaught sneered. "And we aren't just going to run away."

Starscream said, "Think of it like a tactical retreat. Or do whatever you like."

"Cowards," said Onslaught, but he said it with far more incredulity than venom.

Thundercracker glanced at his trine-mates. "Come on. We fly."

Skywarp grimaced, hastily trying to pick sand out of his elbow seams with the tips of his claws.

As Starscream turned away, he saw it out of the corner of his optical feed: Vortex's hand skittering towards a gun tossed aside in the sand. But Onslaught stepped on the reaching servos before Starscream could act upon any deadlier preventive measures-- and Starscream let it slide. He took to the sky with his trine, commiserating with their cursing and complaining, pestering them to straighten their flight paths.

[We'll get Vortex some other time,] commed Skywarp.

[Maybe in recharge,] said Starscream darkly.

[Hmm,] Thundercracker commed, [There's nothing for it now. Make it look like an accident.]

Beneath, as the scattered mechs below were rendered into little more than scattered dots on a canvas, the fighting seemed to have petered out. The autobots were focusing their foremost efforts on reclaiming their wounded and stranded comrades. The decepticons, perhaps worn down from so long spent fighting the very land itself, did not seem to put much heart into chasing after them.

Megatron did not have the good grace to stay missing in action. Shortly, he crawled out of a pile of sand with an explosive announcement over the broad comm channel that amounted to little more than a long paragraph of creative cursing and an order to retreat in anything but name.

[I live!] it began. Starscream could practically hear Megatron's wrecked, shouting voice in the glyphs.

The decepticons kept control of the planet, hard fought-for, but Starscream could not say he was glad.

Chapter Text

The city-state of Vos screamed luxury, rivaling even the golden capitol of Iacon. A thick plating of polished titanium made every architectural embellishment gleam. The air was bitingly cold and clean. Light spilled so freely that at certain hours of the day-cycle, tinted visors were an outdoor necessity to combat flash blindness. Depending on the person, the air traffic was either exhilarating or nightmarish-- constant motion, tight corners, and a three-dimensional space in which to speed were all factors that contributed to infamously explosive wrecks. There was little luck to be had in telling a seeker to slow down.

Vos was a city that floated literally above the rest, and though it was as beholden to the Iaconian government as the rest of Cybertron was, flight-capable Vosnian citizens tended to share a similarly lofty attitude towards grounder mechs. Grounders were a rare presence within Vos by design. Menial jobs were said to be drone-automated as much as possible, eliminating the need for mech labor that low-caste grounders tended to fulfill.

(But later, Starscream came to know better. The number of mechs, previously labeled as drones, that he met within the decepticon army was not insignificant.)

Vos was raised into wealth and power in large part thanks to longstanding favor from the reigns of four different primes. The price was an exchange: The real Vosnian export was soldiers, more specifically seekers. They were mechs constantly mass-produced in huge batches from the same molds used over and over again for centuries. The same frames, the same faces, and the same wingspans made up one generation after another with little change.

All seekers were sparked from the same factory forges and predestined for servitude within the Prime's air armada. By Starscream's time, drafted seekers were shipped off to serve as specialized fodder for Zeta Prime's grand vision of space conquest. They were disposable and plentiful soldiers barred from their home city forevermore. And unfortunately, they also had a tendency to die gruesome deaths on distant planets.

There were the lucky exceptions, of course. Seeker sparklings were tested and monitored from early development so the overseers could determine which were high-value and which were not. The majority of sparklings were dismissed out of hand from any number of defects or shortcomings, but the most promising were allowed to remain in Vos for a chance to earn their places as permanent citizens. To such end, an education from the Vos academy was vital. Academia was cutthroat, thankless, and unbearable, but the last thing any seeker wanted was to be denied participation. Falling too low in the class rankings meant expulsion. Expulsion meant unworthiness, and to be unworthy left a seeker with no choice but to concede to the draft.

Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp met in the Vos academy as grown mechs and made it all the way to graduation, but they didn't make it much farther than that. Before Skywarp and Thundercracker could be subjected to their final screenings and join Vos's population as triumphant and productive members of society, the entire trine was wiped out in a freak accident. Their deaths were tragic and untimely and there were no mourners.

If Iacon was gold and Vos was platinum, the city of Kaon was only rust.

Space was hard to come by in Kaon, almost as much as light. Yet once a mech stepped within the city limits, the span of the dim surroundings seemed to grow and grow. Narrow footpaths wound downwards for miles. Everything was so jammed together and condensed, Kaon seemed to be able to fit much more than physically possible.

Strict zoning laws prevented industrious citizens from building upwards, so over the centuries many of them chose instead to tunnel down. The mazelike street layouts only became more confusing once the paths started to sink into lower Kaon-- though Starscream dug his heels in and refused to go anywhere too far from where the light could reach.

Some days it seemed like the majority of precious space, especially near ground-level, was devoted to nothing but hideous factory districts. The oldest were labyrinthine in design, their bones weak and brittle with rust. Factories were especially prone to collapse from poor maintenance. The ruins were built up again as cheap and fast as possible if the landowners didn't drag their pedes on shelling out the repair cost. Otherwise, the abandoned factories were left to molder under the acid rain, unused but not empty.

Normally, Starscream would be hard-pressed to bother trespassing inside one of those dirty mass graves, but he had words to exchange with Megatronus. That fool, Starscream thought venomously, Can't evade me forever!

The enforcers were conducting their own hunts for a certain burgeoning revolutionary, but with an intimate knowledge of the haunts Megatronus liked to brood in, on that day it was Starscream who found Megatronus instead. Starscream finally stumbled across him in the uppermost level of one abandoned factory out of fifty. The place had been waylaid by a terrible fire, if the scorch marks and explosion rubble was anything to go by. Megatronus was laid back against a block of broken rubble with his arms folded behind his helm, something like peace in his posture. A jagged circle of collapsed ceiling let rays of midday sun spill onto the other mech's frame, leaving the rest of the factory floor to darkness.

Starscream knew all too well how trigger-happy Megatronus could be when taken by surprise. At first he stopped warily at a distance, watching Megatronus watch the sky. Hints of winking silver broke through Megatronus's ever-present coating of road dust, greedily catching the light to shine like platinum. For a moment, with the silhouette of Megatronus's powerful frame awash in dim golden light, Starscream could imagine how those sycophants Soundwave and Orion Pax saw him. A visionary. A chosen one.

The moment passed like a strange dream or a processor ache. Starscream scoffed and unceremoniously picked his way through the rubble, making sure to kick rocks and make plenty of noise to announce his presence and shatter the peace. Here was the leader of the supposed revolution, Starscream thought, and he was sat back idly cloud-watching. Primus have mercy.

Megatronus purposefully ignored the click-clack of Starscream's pointed footsteps until Starscream was close in front of him, leaning down to physically block his line of sight. Megatronus allowed himself one long-suffering roll of the optics before pasting on a fake grin.

"Starscream," he said, "I was expecting someone else."

"I figured," Starscream sneered. "That sniveling archivist said he wants to see you."

"You know Orion has never sniveled in his functioning. But here you are, acting as his messenger?"

"No. Today he can come find you himself. I simply wanted a word with you first."  Starscream straightened and shifted his weight to one hip, casting his own gaze up through the roof to parse what Megatronus found so interesting. There was nothing to see but a smear of ugly city smog, harsh sunlight trying its hardest to break through and succeeding in measly patches.

"Fine. Sit." Megatronus crossed his legs at the ankles and patted a slab of rough concrete beside him. "Don't look at me like that. Sit with me if you have something you want to say so badly, you arrogant rustbucket. I know you just came here to complain."

"I'm arrogant? You would give orders to a drone if it so much as twitched in front of you!" But Starscream deigned to lower himself onto the rubble beside Megatronus with one last haughty sniff. "On to business, brute. I know you've brainwashed my brothers into pledging their lives away towards your doomed cause."

"I have done no such thing. Thundercracker and Skywarp can make their own choices."

"You must have promised them-- glory, fame, riches, grand victories, whatever else! I won't stand for it. The decepticons are a suicide pact."

"I know you have some speck of intelligence buried deep down in that processor of yours. I think you should use it more often."

"Frag you!"

"Do you really think Thundercracker cares for riches? For grand victories? He can throw a punch if he has to, but only if he has to. I'm still not sure Skywarp gives a damn about anything but his next prank. He has no discipline. He's almost as self-serving as you-- I can barely process the idea of him taking orders."

"Then why recruit them?" Starscream screeched.

"Well. We're short on members," Megatronus said archly. "The online support is nice, but it's buried in ten layers of anonymity. Without your trine-mates, the only actual decepticons are me, Soundwave, and the cassettes."

"This thing hasn't even gotten off the ground yet and you're already desperate? If Pax hasn't joined up yet, don't you think that's a sign?"

Megatronus had the gall to laugh, deep from the chassis, a rare and broad smile warming his words. "Pax is a delicate case. I'll get him. If not tonight, then soon."

Starscream scoffed. "You two will be perfect for each other. You leave Thundercracker and Skywarp to me--  they're worth a hundred Orion Paxes and you don't even want them, fool!"

"I do want them," Megatronus said easily. "They gave me their word and I've decided to trust it. If they say they want a free Cybertron and if they say they're willing to work alongside me to make change, who am I to refuse them?"

"Dead is what you'll be. Within the year. You won't live to see this pretty future you keep writing about because no one is unfindable, not even in Kaon."

"Is that what's ruffled your plating? The enforcers are looking for me, yes, but they have no idea what I look like or who I actually am. All they have is my screen handle and my own writing." Megatronus snorted. "To them, I'm sure we all look the same, anyway."

The seeker felt the last tether of his limited patience slip away. Starscream snapped, "If you keep going on like this-- if you keep flaunting your little rebellion-- then they will find you. The enforcers are going to pluck you out and string you up and make every single thing you thought you accomplished worth nothing in the end. Then no one will remember you!"

Megatronus crossed his arms and groaned in much of the same way he did when Thundercracker went on one of his bookish spiels about romance-- like Starscream's worries were of the same trivial caliber. "Do you think those mechs sitting on the council-- in those gilded cities-- are better than us?" Megatronus asked.

"It's not about who's deserving. It's about survival."

"I've done plenty of surviving. I want something more. I want what they have. I think you would know what it's like to want something and not get it, Starscream."

Starscream's faceplates contorted.

Megatronus shook his helm, and before Starscream could formulate a properly scathing remark (or convincing denial), the silver mech asked, "Why are you still here? Orion said you were only waiting to be convinced."

"I don't give a rusted nut about what Pax has to say. I suppose I thought I might be able to knock some sense into you. You are sometimes a very smart mech-- and you are not an entirely bad one."

"Thank you." Megatronus grinned. "But if you wanted, you could stop everything here by turning us in."

"Shut up."

"The enforcers will give you a pretty sum of shanix for my helm alone, and they're still trying to pass me off as a nobody. Soundwave would fetch a high price-- they know he's quite technically skilled and that makes him dangerous. Maybe you could use us to prove your worth to the mechs who cast you out. They might overlook you dodging the draft."

"I-- you-- Primus, you are such a suicidal tool!" Starscream cried. His wings bristled. His heel-thrusters fired a hot burst of angry flame that scorched the concrete ground, but his scuffed pedes did not lift off or break stance. "They won't ever let me back into Vos! Not if I traded you to get in, not if I traded in my own trine!"

"I know. You especially can't go back to Vos trined to sparked outliers."

In his usual theatrical way, Starscream rolled his ruby optics. "There doesn't have to be anything wrong with us to make us dodge the draft, Megatronus. I thought you'd understand not wanting to throw your life away for an old mech in a high chair."

Megatronus would not be distracted. "Skywarp can teleport. Thundercracker can make a kind of sonic boom."

It was Starscream's instinctive reaction to deny it-- he needed to-- but blindsided, he and the rest of his trine were well and truly caught already.

Starscream had allowed his own EM field to grow large and wild with anger, letting Megatronus know exactly how Starscream felt about him; now it backfired spectacularly, because bright dismay lit up Starscream's field like lightning and could not be hidden. Megatronus gave him that smug, untouchable look. Starscream wanted to kill him. Of course he would weaponize Thundercracker and Skywarp even in this small way.

"Ah, did you make Soundwave do some digging?" Starscream hissed. "Did you ask the cassettes to do some slinking around? You're going to collect as many lost freaks as you can and hope their bright talents can do all the heavy lifting for you while you just open a datapad and type things? That's not going to work. You're all going to die. You are going to lead them to their own deaths and ask them to be happy as they go, for the sake of your grand and glorious delusion!"

"Thundercracker and Skywarp told me about it themselves. They trusted me and I will see to it that their trust is not misplaced." Megatronus shrugged. "You keep telling me I'm going to die. It's likely. That's fine. I don't plan on it, not before I finish rebuilding Cybertron, but I need to build the decepticons first. There have to be mechs devoted to to carrying on after me if that's what it takes. That's how we'll beat the council in the end. There will be far more of us than them."

Starscream stood, wings fluttering in agitation. He wanted to stalk away. He wanted to fire his thrusters and shoot up in a spiral though the hole in the ceiling, air regulations and low profile be damned. He scraped the palms of his blue hands down his face. "You're mad."

Megatronus huffed through his vents in a dry sort of half-chuckle. "You are terrible. Selfish and grasping. I have never met someone so clever and so stupid at the same time, except-- ha!-- except for Orion. You should join the decepticons."

"Terrible pitch."

"You are very different than Orion. You are very different from me. I need mechs like that around."

"That's the desperation talking."

"I've done all I can as one mech. Join me."

Starscream did not gut Megatronus with his claws. It took conscious effort not to try.

"Hmph," said Starscream slowly. "I suppose you are in sore need of advice. Here is my first suggestion-- say it with me now, this one phrase will help you greatly with future recruitment efforts-- 'I don't want to die.'"

"Of course I don't want to die, you fragging idiot!"

"Too difficult? I tried to make it as simple as possible. Say-- 'I don't need to die.'"

Megatronus stood, too, crossing his arms and looking down at Starscream in exasperation. "I don't need to die."

"So there is the first thing we can agree on. Here is something else-- you're not going to get where you want to go with words or poetry alone, regardless of what Pax might think."

Megatronus's optics gleamed. "Finally we're getting somewhere."

"Don't look so excited. This is still your sinking ship."

Megatronus just nodded. "Orion Pax is a treasured comrade-- so whatever you're about to say, think twice-- but he has always been an optimist. I do believe that most. . . comfortable mechs aren't going to go out of their way to help anyone."

"Of course not! Take it from someone who used to have it good myself. You are going to get nowhere by asking nicely for gilded Iacon to 'Please remove the weight limits' and 'Please remove the flight restrictions' and 'Please get rid of the seeker draft' and, 'Hey, if a racecar wants to be a doctor and he is very dedicated, could you please let him?'"

"Yes." Megatronus seemed to strengthen, his sheer presence seeming to grow bigger and bolder. "Mechs from every caste must be given the option to join our cause-- Orion himself is a shining example-- but those who prefer the old system must die. The council must die."

"You're getting ahead of yourself again!" Starscream scolded. "You are so short-sighted. Always talking about what you're going to do in some nebulous future where you get your hands on power and never saying what you are going to do tomorrow. How will you get there?"

"Recruitment will start here, in Kaon. I'll have to reveal myself on the net and head into lower Kaon stay out of the enforcers' way."

"Still vague. Risky. Reasonable enough, I suppose." Starscream vented heavily. "But forget recruitment for now. You're going to need more mechpower than internet fans and book club leftovers, but if you are to have even the smallest, tiniest shot of success in the long run, you need money!"

Megatronus made an offended noise. "I have more than book club leftovers. Soundwave is a very capable mech, and his sense of duty--"

"Yes, yes, you're right. You do have mechs on your side who can do miraculous things." Starscream gritted his dentae so hard they creaked. "You need to use them wisely, fool. You've got all the philosophy and the ideals ironed out, but you need an actual plan. You need money! Go find someone who has it! Mechs with power and influence are always looking to get more. Make a pitch. Get some treasonous funding for your treasonous plans."

Megatronus scowled. "You've lost me. We do this on our own, on no councilmech's terms--"

"--A councilmech is certainly aiming high--"

"--Because if we allow ourselves to compromise we are going to lose. We are drones to them. They'll give us nothing."

"Of course whatever rich mech you can get will want to take advantage of you. Just make sure you get something in return. That's how business relationships work. That's how you'll know they won't just turn you over to the enforcers immediately."

"They're probably working with the enforcers."

"We aren't talking about recruiting the all-powerful councilmechs that get to do whatever they want. We're talking about the nobility a little bit below them, who get to do. . . only mostly whatever they want. And yes, a lot of them probably are working with the enforcers, but not all of them. From the way things happen around here, there has to be a few dishonest mechs with money in business too dark to stay out of consequences if things ever got to light. It'll be a situation of mutually assured destruction. Hopefully."

"So that's who you want to ally ourselves with? Part-traders and slavers? We can get the money another way."

Starscream shrugged. "Fine. That's a nice thought. But the fact of the matter is that you don't know how you'll do it. I have not heard a single thing assuring me that Thundercracker and Skywarp aren't going to die immediately under your watch."

"It must be difficult for you to understand, standing by anything except your own cowardly life, but some things are worth the risk."

"You're wasteful. My life is worth a lot to me, and that's no shame." Starscream shuttered his optics. "My brothers' lives are worth a lot."

Megatronus made an odd expression, like his emotional subroutines were stalling between anger, offense, amusement, and exasperation. "I feel like-- rust, I feel like we could meet in the middle, but we just keep missing the connection. Starscream. I want to work with you. I don't plan on throwing anyone's lives away. As much as you claim not to care about anything but yourself and your trine, you still have ideas. Even if we disagree-- I could use them."

Well. Starscream had had quite enough of mechs trying to use him already.

At the first opportunity, he planned entirely on dragging Thundercracker and Skywarp away to speak alone. They would listen to him. . . eventually. They would let go of their foolish notions of renegade treason. Together, they would all leave rotted Kaon behind. The trine could wait out in Stanix or Helex until whatever puff of smoke Megatronus caused got him decommissioned by the enforcers and the whole bloody mess was swept under the rug. It would be difficult, but things were always difficult-- Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp would never have to return to Kaon again.

But for now, Starscream was tired of speaking. "That's not going to happen," he told Megatronus. "Come. The others are expecting us. You know how Pax gets."

Starscream set off towards the closest collapsing wall suitable enough for a makeshift exit. In passing he made sure to knock Megatronus's shoulder harshly with his own, but that was the wrong decision. Megatronus only took the opportunity to grab one of Starscream's scratched ailerons and halt the seeker mid-stride.

"Starscream," Megatronus said. "Consider it."

Starscream plucked Megatronus's broad hand away with claws. "I said no."

It was a lie, but at the time Starscream did not know it.

Chapter Text

The restlessness dogging Thundercracker’s heels made him feel constantly on the verge of takeoff. Like the cliff’s edge was right there in front of him and he could fly— he need only jump.

But really, there was no escape to be made without Skywarp and Starscream behind him. Therein lay the problem. Starscream clung to the decepticons out of hubris and an old, ugly desire for power. Skywarp clung to the decepticons because, despite his loose-cannon personality and Unicron-may-care attitude, once Skywarp decided to start a fight, he never stopped fighting until it was finished.

Rust and ruin, they were both so stubborn.

Thundercracker could concede to his brothers one point: other than the decepticons, there was a severe lack of options for a mech to go. The autobots were out of the question. The few neutral communities Thundercracker had been able to glean word of lived out stifled, hushed existences among the existing populations of alien planets, never belonging, always keeping their helms down low. The eternal, explosive civil war preceded the reputation of Cybertronians everywhere and among a wide number of space-faring alien races, Cybertronians were firmly not welcome.

And Thundercracker did not want to escape to an alien colony. His spark screamed for home. He wanted Cybertron. He wanted streets and air traffic. He wanted to break into that Helex theater and watch another musical. He wanted to live out that stupid fantasy Megatron had planted in his hopes so long ago: to live unburdened among every caste and creed, in a world where every mech could be different but the same. Free to do no harm and expect none in return.

None of that was going to happen anytime soon, so the one thing Thundercracker could do was find somewhere to be alone, in private, and think clearly. Enough time and determination could brute-force his logic center into calculating a solid plan of action for dragging his trine-mates kicking and screaming first onto a starship and then out of decepticon territory for good.

He ventured out of the cramped comfort of his habsuite alone. He spoke to no one. He stayed out of the way. Like a ghost, Thundercracker floated through home base, wandering.

The private corner Thundercracker found was a wide room repurposed into a junkyard dumping ground for wrenched metal, broken parts, and general garbage. It was a rust outbreak waiting to happen.

Perfect for brooding! said a small voice from within Thundercracker’s imagination. It sounded like Skywarp. Across his lower faceplates, Thundercracker felt the warmth of what would have been a small smile, but he scratched the corner of his mouth with an idle claw and the itch faded. He was irritated with Skywarp!

Towards the back wall, the empty shells of discarded shipping containers were stacked high over Thundercracker’s helm. The gaps between them formed a cramped and dark maze with only marginally less structural integrity than the actual halls he had just come through— but the maze itself looked like a goldmine of hidden nooks and crannies possibly even more perfect for brooding. The cassettes— Ravage, especially— had taught Thundercracker an appreciation for small hiding places, even if the scale of Thundercracker’s frame gave him considerably fewer options than they had.

The junkyard seemed deserted. Biolights were easily visible within the dim conditions— Thundercracker’s own lights cast a dull shine over the discarded metal in his path— but as the seeker hesitantly crossed over rolling hills of abandoned garbage to reach the stacked maze at the back, there was no revealing glow from any headlight or optic that did not belong to him.

He reached the shipping containers with a cautious sense of burgeoning hopefulness. Splitting focus between scanning the shadowy surroundings and searching for a seeker-sized gap in the maze, Thundercracker took care with the placement of each creeping step. He found his entrance soon enough. Thundercracker’s silver wingspan made the squeeze a tight fit, but the difficult entrance only provided him with greater reassurance— no one would bother him here!

Thundercracker crept through the maze, ducking and twisting to accommodate his wings.

A sudden slippery surface and a glass crunch underfoot almost sent him slipping backwards into a fall that might have been disastrous for his health, but he managed to steady himself in time, hands outstretched against either close wall beside him. Huffing in frustration and no small amount of embarrassment,, Thundercracker ducked his helm to see what stray piece of garbage had been trampled below.

A flutter of excitement made his wings scrape against the corrugated side of a shipping container. A datapad!

The glass screen was splintered by a tangle of cracks fanning out from the bottom left corner. When he picked it up and tried the power button all he got was the red symbol of a low battery, but it was promising that the datapad worked to show at least that much. Locating a matching charger might be tricky, but Starscream would build him one from scratch if necessary, out of spare parts that might be found in that very junkyard.

Tucking the data pad close against his chassis, Thundercracker continued on. Eventually, he peered into a small rectangular alcove with enough floor space in one corner to hunker down cross-legged and give the data-pad further inspection.

Squinting, he managed to pry open the back of the datapad and peer into the tiny nestle of its internal components. From what limited tech knowledge he did have, nothing seemed to be missing or noticeably burnt out. Occupied with old memories of poetry and the digital copies of said writing pulled up on his HUD just because, Thundercracker reached into his subspace and retrieved a pair of half-moon reading lenses.

Suddenly, from the left, the cloying weight of another EM field made itself known in a spike of displeasure like a hard poke against Thundercracker’s own field. Thundercracker froze, like if he remained still for long enough the new presence would forget about him and go away.

There was another hard poke. Well. It seemed like Thundercracker’s private corner was already occupied. He turned his helm to look.

Against the opposite side of the rectangular alcove was the shape of Deadlock, perched remarkably like Ravage on top of a discarded steel drum. Five astro-feet separated the two, but Thundercracker had seen Deadlock lunge greater distances for his share of energon in the mess hall.

Deadlock leaned out of the shadows to give Thundercracker a look that could cut a diamond clean through.

“Alright, alright,” Thundercracker groaned, rising to his pedes with a protesting creak from the knee-joints. He pocketed his reading lenses in subspace and dismissed the documents pulled up on his internal HUD, resigning himself to the tedious process of navigating his way back out of the tight quarters (under the scrutiny of a judgmental audience nonetheless). One clawed hand held the datapad protectively against Thundercracker’s cockpit. The other was splayed in exasperated surrender. “I’ll go, I’ll go.”

As Thundercracker worked towards a clumsy escape, Deadlock’s red gaze watched piercingly all the while. Grumbling inwardly, Thundercracker tried to make an exit fast enough to suit Deadlock’s impatience and slow enough not to provoke his probable paranoia. The blue seeker had had enough of knives at his back for one cycle already— a brawl had broken out in the mess hall a few hours earlier, forcing Thundercracker to duck his helm, hug the wall and scurry out of there with half the energon he had wanted.

“Hey. Wait,” Deadlock said.

Thundercracker had just reached the mouth of the little alcove, a step away from plunging back into the maze. Thanks to that seeker wingspan he could not comfortably turn around without whacking something or, worse, knocking down the nearest stacked column of smaller metal boxes and causing a domino effect that could bring the walls crashing down. Thundercracker tried, anyway, twisting his torso and craning his neck to level Deadlock with a blank, silent look over one pauldron.

“You’re old, right?”

This line of questioning had become quite the topic of debate between Skywarp and Starscream as of late (Skywarp, as always, never wasted an opportunity to get under Starscream’s plating: “Boo-hoo, Star! You missed out on your prime before it even got started!” Starscream, as always, tried to use bluster to cover up the fact that such accusations truly bothered him, so these disagreements escalated fast). Regarding this matter Thundercracker did not care at all, but he had gotten so used to squashing down his brothers’ fights that, on instinct and with more force than necessary, he yelled, “No!”

Deadlock laughed, suddenly and helplessly, like the noise was startled out of him. Prominent canines flashed like winking stars. Thundercracker was well used to seeing sharp dentae, but Deadlock’s canines were the perfect size and length for cutting neck cables and were doubtfully part of the black and white racer’s original frame. “I’m old, too. Pre-war. We must have been built around the same time— I was in the Dead End when Megatron was coming up in Kaon, but I don’t remember much of it.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Anyway, that must mean you know how to play cards.” From subspace, Deadlock brandished a battered deck of laser-cut playing cards, the smooth iridescent finish interrupted by lines of jagged scratches and pockets of rough scoring. The sides and corners of the acrylic rectangles were smoothed down and rounded out from what must have been years worth of hard conditions. “Most of the mechs I might ask here are too young. Either sparked when the war had just started or right before Cybertron went dark. And I’m a bad teacher.”

“I do know a little,” Thundercracker said.

Rumble and Frenzy had known a myriad of card games, eager to teach them to any member of the book club they could pester into playing with them, back when the book club was still a book club in even the most liberal sense. Soundwave’s poker face had been unmatched. Shockwave was addicted to making risky bets, so he either won big or lost hard with no in-between. Skywarp had been a terrible cheat. Starscream had been a terrible bluff. Orion Pax had always been the first one out because of that terrible honesty— directly, Starscream could ask that mech what cards he had in his hand and he’d stammer and blush and usually fail to convincingly lie. Megatronus had been a patient, straightforward natural talent that rankled even Thundercracker when he did not have to resort to anyone else’s cheap tactics for victory.

Suddenly, the prospect of playing cards with Deadlock became far more attractive than any of the other important ruminating Thundercracker could excuse himself to get on with. “Do you know how to play reactivity?” he asked. It was Buzzsaw’s favorite.

Deadlock thumbed the deck. “I do.”

Thundercracker subspaced the data pad. He backed up, managed to turn himself around, and ended up sat with his legs folded across from Deadlock on the scuffed metal flooring.

Settled by the flip of an alien coin Deadlock had on hand, Thundercracker dealt the cards— Deadlock’s EM field prickled with sly mirth, like Thundercracker wasn’t trusted to deal fairly, but that it didn’t matter to Deadlock either way.

In response, the seeker shrunk his own EM field small and still, out of reach from any more light prodding. “I’m interested in an actual game,” he defended, all too aware of how the hiding suggested otherwise.

Deadlock shrugged and offered no argument. The game began in earnest.

Thundercracker, behind the fan of his own cards, could not decide if he liked the soldier. He knew already that he did not trust Deadlock, but trust and fondness were not mutually inclusive— Thundercracker liked Skywarp and Starscream enough to make a lifetime commitment with them, but his trust in those two still only went so far. Could he trust his trine-mates with his life? Yes. Could he trust them with their own? Certainly not.

At cards, Deadlock was a lucky mech. Whenever Thundercracker pushed too much of an advantage, Deadlock was always miraculously able to regain ground. Deadlock was so lucky, in fact, that Thundercracker knew he was cheating before the first round was even over.

The seeker huffed through his vents at the warm itch oozing across his own lower face-plates, the phantom smile that wanted to curve upwards and could not.

“What was that?” Deadlock asked innocently enough. He hardly glanced upwards from his own deck— for a cheater, he put on a good show of intense focus.

“Nothing,” said Thundercracker. “I’m just trying to figure out how you do it.”

“Do what?”

Thundercracker wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of begging for answers— with enough time, the seeker could figure out Deadlock’s dishonest strategies on his own. “I don’t know how you use those swords,” said Thundercracker instead, pointing to Deadlock’s sides. Even now, the twin scabbards were strapped to Deadlock’s hips. Thundercracker had never seen Deadlock armed without them, but he had also never seen one of those swords unsheathed, much less brandished.

Deadlock said, “I use the pointy ends.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to have to get so close in battle?” asked Thundercracker. “You could use guns instead.”

“Mechs think showmanship is as important as doing damage. It’s easier to be showy with a sword. And two swords? Decepticons fall over themselves.”

“Ah, you sound just like Starscream.”

Deadlock made a face. “I’m sure you mean that as a compliment—“

“— I don’t.”

“Heheh. Well, I do the bare minimum for what gets me respect around here.”

“And sword tricks do that,” Thundercracker said flatly.

“Yes.”

“Show me one.”

“No.”

An odd snrrrk escaped the corner of Thundercracker’s mouth— a laugh harshly cut off at the root, because the incongruity of laughing through a completely blank face was uncanny even to himself. “Fine, fine. Keep your secrets.”

They played cards for five rounds, four of which Deadlock soundly crushed Thundercracker. The seeker suspected his sole victory was merely a calculated allowance on Deadlock’s part in order to keep him playing, but conceded his losses gracefully. Unfortunately, Thundercracker came no closer to unraveling Deadlock’s cheating strategy in the meantime.

As Deadlock dealt the cards for their sixth round, apropos of nothing he said, "Your face."

"Hm?" said Thundercracker.

"Your faceplates don't move. You were an empuratee, weren't you?"

Thundercracker stilled for one moment, processor generating a dozen possible paths he could take forward as a response. He made a decision. "No. My brothers and I lasted three day-cycles outside of Vos before I got into a fight and someone ripped my faceplate off. But it was very difficult to get treatment. The empurata laws made any kind of replacement surgery around the helm illegal for just about anyone who wasn't a noble." Not to mention Thundercracker, Starscream, and Skywarp were all legally dead. The price of silence was exorbitant.

"Well, you got something. At least you're not ugly!"

"It's some of Knockout's early work," Thundercracker said dryly. "He always cared about looks first."

“The same Knockout as the CMO?”

“Yes. That’s how we met. On a sidewalk below a bridge for my operation.”

“Do you think Knockout could fix your faceplates again and give you full functionality now?"

"Hm. I haven't asked. I don't know if I would change it, though. It's . . .  helpful."

“I bet. I’m almost jealous.” Deadlock tilted his helm. “Did you know Ratchet?”

“The same Ratchet as the autobot CMO?”

“Yes,” Deadlock said cautiously. "They say he and the Prime go way back. Knew each other before Prime became Prime, even."

Thundercracker shuttered his optics once. “I never knew a Ratchet,” he said honestly. “Pax would come visit us from Iacon, but he never talked about his friends back home. I assumed he didn’t have any.”

“Ratchet would have fixed your face,” Deadlock muttered, an afterthought more than anything. Looking down, he became far more preoccupied with his own cards.

“Why the interest? I don’t have any old friends left in the autobots, if that’s what you’re trying to get at. I’ve got no attachment to Optimus Prime.”

“I believe you. Just curious, is all. We don’t get many new decepticons anymore,” said Deadlock. “I asked around about you and your trine, you know, after we met. Turns out I recognized you from these old posters—“

Thundercracker bent his neck, covered his face with the fan of his new cards and groaned.

“Ha, come on! I wasn’t going to ask for a signature.”

“I’m sure Knockout was happy. He probably used mine for his portfolio.”

There was laughter in Deadlock’s voice. “They weren’t spread around that much until your trine came back and kicked up more interest in them.”

“Hm.”

“Anyway, my point was that I asked around and the other seekers seemed to know more about you three than anyone else.”

Thundercracker lowered his cards (though not without checking the angle to make sure Deadlock couldn’t sneak a peek at them). “How so?”

“Apparently there were stories about the elite trine’s noble sacrifice from way back when on Cybertron.”

The other seekers had shown no indication of any such recognition towards Thundercracker, Starscream, or Skywarp. The trine was treated with a cool distance and a thinly veiled sense of distrust, but Thundercracker had experienced much of the same attitude from the ground forces and he wasn’t interested in a spike measuring contest with anyone. Mostly, he attributed the flyers’ frostiness as general useless posturing and competition for the open spot as air commander.

“Hm,” said Thundercracker again, reluctant to give any further indication that he still didn’t remember making any noble sacrifices at all.

Periodically, Knockout scanned the trine’s processors for any irregular activity, but their short-term memory files and day-to-day function operated in perfect normality. Knockout had yet to crack open anyone’s helm and look deeper— “I still don’t know what I’m doing,” Knockout said plainly. “I’m trying to find some sources to study up on, but. . . there aren’t many.”

Thundercracker stretched his wings. “None of the seekers have said anything to my face.”

“The posters probably worked best on them in the first place,” Deadlock mused. “We used to have a lot of seekers in the decepticons.”

“How many?”

Deadlock shrugged, looked away. “Not sure, exactly. Hundreds? We used to have more soldiers in general. . . But right when the war started, Vos fell, so most of the seekers left alive at all were the ones in the prime’s air armada. And then Lord Megatron convinced them to turn on the prime.”

“Yes, they wouldn’t have been in the prime’s armada by choice,” agreed Thundercracker distantly. “It’s strange. I remember when Starscream used to talk about doing exactly that, but to the rest of us it was just a booster dream. We had no idea how we could even reach contact with Zeta’s seekers.”

“And here you are now.”

“Here I am now. Getting my aft kicked at reactivity.”

“I’m just good at reading mechs.” Deadlock grinned.

Wryly, Thundercracker said, “I’m sure.”

He never did figure out how Deadlock cheated.

Meanwhile, mindful of the darkest and freshest splotches of purple staining the outside of the medbay's swinging doors, Skywarp used the tips of his claws to toss them open and waltz inside. Knockout could be spotted immediately, elbow-deep in some poor mech's chassis, the fine red of his meticulously kept paintjob muddied by streaks of black oil and purple energon.

"Oh, good. You're not busy," said Skywarp as he ambled closer, casting a surveying glance around the wide space. There were rows of open curtains and empty berths.

"Actually," Knockout grit out, squinting into the patient's open cavity and not looking up. "I am."

"Not that busy! Nobody's here for a change. Weird, after that big fight."

"Ugh. It's because for the most part, I sent everyone down to the washracks to see if they can blast the sand out of their own seams before declaring medical emergency. Most of them didn’t bother coming back." Knockout shuddered. "Everyone's scraped down to the metal. Some of those sorry fools walking around in raw silver might be autobots for all we know. Most of the casualties were dead before they even got off the field, and those have already been carted off to Shockwave."

Angrily, Knockout yanked at an internal part stuck fast, ducking a spurt of black oil arcing out of the patient's open chassis.

"Ouch!" Skywarp eyed the leak as Knockout worked quickly to stop it. "Good thing he's in stasis."

"What do you need, Skywarp?"

Skywarp did have a request, but despite all of his initial conviction it hung back unspoken behind the cage of his dentae. No matter what Starscream said, Skywarp could read a room when it suited him and Knockout's foul mood had an undercurrent of wire-stung mania that did not bode well for any possible inclinations towards generosity. It did pique Skywarp's own curiosity-- so he changed his mind about what he wanted to say.

"I'm just coming around to say hi," Skywarp told Knockout. "Need a hand?"

Knockout scraped a hand down his faceplate to smear a few splatters of wayward oil. The medic vented, some of the wired tension easing out of his struts. "Yes. No funny business."

"I can be professional."

"This isn't another kidnapping attempt, is it?"

"Not this time."

"Then go over and grab me the pliers from the tool bench."

Skywarp gave his most winning smile and did Knockout's bidding competently enough for the next few hours.

A few patients came and went for minor (mostly sand-related) grievances, giving Skywarp odd looks throughout whatever treatment Knockout prescribed. Still, beyond the rude stares no one made any further fuss about the presence of Knockout’s decidedly unqualified and unprofessional new medical assistant— because Skywarp made sure to wave cheerfully whenever Knockout’s back was turned, one of his own clawed hands settled delicately on a tool cart plainly laid out with scalpels.

As much as Skywarp had an interest in taking mechs apart with old-fashioned wham-and-bam violence, he was fascinated by the way mechs like Knockout could put them back together. Back on Cybertron, curiosity was the strong pull that drew Skywarp to haunt Knockout's practice in all of the temporary and ever-moving pop-ups Knockout set up to evade the enforcers for operating without a license or medically-designated function. Eventually, Knockout warmed up to Skywarp's brand of off-color humor enough to tolerate his company. It helped that Skywarp was a deft hand at a fast exit whenever the enforcers did come knocking.

The two reached a compromise: as long as Skywarp sat on his hands and touched nothing at all, Knockout would let him sit in on the occasional illegal surgery to watch.

"The seeker? He's my nurse," Knockout used to tell any patients with questions. "They say winged flight-frames can sense an instant blood-pressure change within a mech's energon lines."

(And that last part was a total lie, but most grounders didn't know any better, especially the low-caste gutter mechs who made up Knockout's early clientele. Seekers used to be a rare sight outside of Vos or the Prime's air armada. Silly rumors about the frame type ran rampant.)

So for Skywarp, it was charmingly nostalgic to trail behind Knockout three million years later, watching the CMO pick individual grains of sand out of joints and from underneath plating. The purple seeker hoped they got to a real invasive, bloody surgery soon, but fitting that category there was only that single mech laid out in stasis since before Skywarp’s arrival, his internal machinery open to the air. Between the visits of other, conscious patients, Knockout consistently went back to tinkering on that same deep wound, but he didn’t seem to be making much progress towards bettering it.

Knockout’s mood wasn’t making any progress towards the better, either.

"You keep hammering at that engine like you're mad at it. What's wrong?" Skywarp asked bluntly. He gestured at the patient laid out on the table like a corpse. "This guy do something to you? Is he going to. . . have a tragic passing right about now?"

Knockout huffed a chuckle. "No, no. This grunt doesn't matter. It's just that-- my usual assistant isn't here. He hasn't been answering his comms."

"Slacking?"

"He got sent out to fight."

"Oh. Uh, as far as I know, all the field medics got back safe."

"No, Skywarp. He got sent out to fight. He's not a medic, exactly-- He's got steady hands, an eye for detail and he's the only nurse I'd trust to hold a scalpel with my back turned, but Megatron doesn't see any of that as a good enough reason to give him the battlefield exemptions 'real' medics get. It doesn’t matter that I say he’s well-qualified to be a nurse by now! It doesn’t matter that I taught him myself! I’m blinded by conjuxal fondness so my say doesn’t matter!" Knockout glared at a stray tube within the patient's chassis as if it had done him personal wrong. "So he gets put out on the battlefield. Between you and me-- he's got that temperament Thundercracker has."

Internally, Skywarp had many overlapping reactions at once, but the loudest scream above them all was: YOU? Got CONJUXED?

Skywarp just barely bit those words back from escaping out loud, which was good news for his own self-preservation because when Knockout was motivated, he could swing a hard hit. Skywarp ended up frozen with his faceplate locked in a grimace as Knockout went on tinkering and adjusting, the red mech caught up in the heat of his anger and none the wiser.

Thundercracker, if he were there, would have had something graceful and tactful to say in response. Starscream-- wouldn't, but Starscream would have been able to say something so snappy and outlandish it would’ve quickly offended Knockout into shedding that layer of shocking, sad tension wrapped around his EM field.

But it was only Skywarp, so Skywarp said, "What's his designation?"

"Breakdown. He's a big construction frame. Navy and copper plating. Did you see him out there?"

"No, can't remember anyone like that in particular. . . But, uh, you know how it is. Mechs blend into a crowd. I can keep an optic out. Better yet, I'll ask Thundercracker to ask Ravage and Lazerbeak to keep an optic out, and the cassettes see everything."

Knockout vented. “Maybe that’s still true. But I don’t think the casettes walk around home base by themselves. Most of the time they lock themselves up with Soundwave whenever their team’s off-mission. Hand me the saw.”

Skywarp swiveled around to pick out the huge electric saw from the bottom of the tool cart, hefting it into Knockout’s grasp with both hands. “Why’s that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why don’t the cassettes go out and about? Soundwave’s a homebody, but even Ravage knows how to have fun. Oh, you should see it if you haven’t already— she can tell a story when you catch her in a good mood.”

Knockout shuttered his optics in a blink and then shrugged lightly. “I didn’t know Ravage could actually talk. I never knew any of them like you did. I still don’t— Soundwave and his little friends never come in for checkups. Soundwave must do all of their tuneups himself.”

“You never just. . . See them around?”

“Soundwave, sometimes. Every time he’s been through medbay, it’s because someone else has dumped him here in stasis or in pieces or both. Those were bad cases.” Knockout angled the saw-blade carefully against one of the patient’s abdominal chest-plates. “The cassettes? Never.”

It felt too much like sulking, but a frown etched its way across Skywarp’s faceplate and he could not help it. “That’s weird.”

“Skywarp,” Knockout said, not unkindly. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been around.”

Knockout brought the saw to life with a high-pitched, screaming whirr! Skywarp stepped back as an explosion of yellow sparks arced upwards. Knockout meticulously cut away sections of living metal to widen the open cavity around the patient’s fuel pump. Barking over the noise, the CMO ordered Skywarp to grab hold of the patient and turn him this way and that underneath the blade’s reach.

A few painstaking slices of metal later, Knockout inspected the done job with a satisfied hum. He traded Skywarp the saw for a cylindrical replacement part the length and width of a servo. “Almost done. It’s all coming together!”

“You just cut some pieces off.”

Knockout flapped a dismissive hand. “Semantics. The patient is confirmed fixable and we can finish him up before I’m off-duty. This lucky bastard— for a while there, I wasn’t sure if we were going to have to throw him out as a lost cause.”

“Ah, I don’t think I can stick around much longer, doc.” Skywarp grinned. “I’m sure the mech’ll be safe in your capable hands. Just don’t mention anything you just said when he wakes up.”

“Why did you really come over here to lurk around? I assumed you wanted something."

Skywarp reached for a lie easily. "Ah, you know Slipstream? The seeker? When we were on the field we saw her get shot down, so me and the trine swooped in to get some autobots off her. Wanted to make sure she was okay. . . But, uh, she’s not here!"

Knockout frowned. "Yes, she hasn’t been through recently. Was the wreck bad?"

"Didn't look like it. She flew off right after."

"Slipstream acts like she's tough as carbon fiber and I’m actually inclined to believe it. Ha, I don’t see her much because she’s usually better at not getting hit. If she does have lingering damage and she’s just being stubborn about it, she’ll see reason in a few cycles and come into the medbay on her own."

"She's probably fine if she's managed to stay alive this long." Skywarp leaned in. "Now do you want to know the real real reason I'm here?"

"You just love to waste everyone’s time." Knockout rolled his optics, but made a beckoning motion with stained servos. "Sure. Why not?"

"I was hoping to catch Deadlock berth-bound in here so I could put some fireworks under him. It's a long story, but he totally left Star stranded out there in the battle when he promised he wouldn't!"

Outraged, Knockout brandished a wrench to point accusingly under Skywarp’s chin. "You think I don't have enough going on in here already?"

Snickering, Skywarp danced backwards out of swiping range. "Well, Deadlock’s not here, either! I'll probably find him in his habsuite, wherever that is, but if you do see him, could you comm me? Relax, haha--whoa! Careful, I've still got the fireworks on me, we wouldn't want anything to explode where we wouldn't want. . . Ah, look at the time. I'd better get going. Nice seeing you, Knockout! I hope you find your nurse! Byeee!"

With one last salute, Skywarp teleported out of the medbay before Knockout could weaponize a tool that could do real damage.

Deadlock would get what was coming to him sooner or later, but the fireworks scheme was actually set aside for a later date. Skywarp’s unspoken request for Knockout had nothing to do with sand, either. All along, Skywarp’s real, real, real concern was the corrupted memory files lingering between him and his trine.

Sleeping off the memory loss was not working, and it was obvious to Skywarp that something else needed to be done. With Knockout burdened, it was time to explore other avenues. With Thundercracker in one of his pensive moods and Starscream’s cowardly avoidance of the very mech Skywarp had in mind, Skywarp went to visit Shockwave's lab alone.

There were some big mechs in the decepticon armada-- a good chunk of the decepticons came from the lower castes, and a good chunk of the lower-castes were heavy-duty laborers created with blockier edges and larger frames, to carry heavy loads and make for better machines of burden. Faced with the enormous blast-proof double-doors of Shockwave's lab, Skywarp realized that the even tallest decepticon shuttle could stand up straight and walk easily through.

Skywarp had seen smaller prisons. And friendlier ones.

Will I need an appointment? Skywarp caught himself thinking, and then he chuckled to himself and unceremoniously banged on one of the doors. "Hey, Shockwave!" he shouted, "Are you home?" Skywarp was used to going anywhere he wanted anytime he wanted regardless of obstacles like doors and security measures and privacy, so even asking that much permission was uncharacteristic of him-- but Shockwave had been something of a friend before things had gone so strange. 

Skywarp knew, logically, the changes empurata had wrought upon Shockwave’s frame. He had seen Shockwave a few times in the midst of the mech’s recovery and had spoken haltingly to him before the trine went off to Iacon with the ultimate plan of avenging him in the aftermath of his attack. But it was still difficult to think of Shockwave as anything other than that smiling Senator, edges softened and lines sleek, using friendliness to disarm his opponents as effectively as any weapon.

So, despite all of Skywarp’s own best intentions, he startled when faceless Shockwave, decepticon head scientist, unbarred the lab doors and answered his knock.

“Skywarp,” said Shockwave, betraying nothing. He had opted to keep the indigo paint job slapped over his original white, blue, and green. Entirely in place of the old helm sat a flattened hexagon, one staring optic with a glowing circle of yellow light swallowing Skywarp whole. Shockwave’s right hand, from the forearm down, was replaced with the long metal barrel of a permanently integrated gun.

Skywarp’s grin went crooked. “Hello, there. Long time no see.”

Meanwhile, Starscream was getting into a fist fight with Vortex.

He did not set out to do so. He set out to track down one of his brothers or Soundwave or stretch his leg struts or wander aimlessly or do any number of things better suited to his valuable time than a scuffle with Vortex, but Starscream sort of fell into it when Vortex stepped out of a sharply turning branch in the hallway up ahead and their paths crossed by chance.

Vortex straightened to attention and did not stop to regard Starscream for long. “You know what’s going to happen now,” he said.

“All I need,” Starscream sneered, “is one excuse.”

And the two went from there.

It crossed Starscream’s mind to shoot Vortex in the helm (it was premeditated, even, with how many times it had crossed his mind before then), but Vortex was already picking him up by the collar and tossing him bodily down the hallway and then there was Vortex’s stomping pede to contend with and Starscream became primarily concerned with defense.

He caught Vortex’s pede in both hands and tucked it into a roll against his cockpit, dragging Vortex down to the concrete floor with a crash. Starscream scrambled on top of Vortex’s boxy chassis, bearing down with all of his weight and whaling fists upon that glass visor. It glitched a rainbow of color, splintering from the impact, but Vortex grabbed Starscream’s wrists and headbutted him in the chin.

They flipped, Starscream underneath and Vortex above.

"You rust-bitten traitor,” Vortex muttered breathlessly, voice so quiet beside Starscream’s audial it was almost intimate. “I’m going to pull you apart.”

“Where will you find the energy?” Starscream shrilled. “I just know you’re starving.”

“I am.” He twisted Starscream’s wrists. “Slipstream as appetizer. You as main course.”

Starscream couldn’t halt his own reaction in time. I saw her off safe, he thought harshly— but apparently not safe enough.

Vortex’s visor twinkled, still keen. “You know what organics call it?” Vortex leaned down. “Meat.”

Starscream thrashed so wildly he managed to unsteady Vortex for just long enough to buck him off.

Through all of this biting and gnashing and tossing and swinging, Vortex and Starscream made blind progress down the hall, inching around random bends and turns until Starscream shoved Vortex through a doorway that ended up opening over the staircase down into the mess hall.

A crowded roomful of mechs watched in silence, energon cubes half-raised to their mouths, as Vortex flew backwards down the staircase, banging and crashing like a tossed-out refrigerator. When he dragged himself to his pedes, he spat a mouthful of blood energon onto the lowermost step.

“You’re dead!” sputtered Vortex, and as he drew an energy rifle out of subspace Starscream was already humming a charging shot on his null ray cannons.

“Slag!”

“Oh, frag—“

The room behind Vortex and Starscream sprang into activity as decepticons got down and out of crossfire range.

Vortex and Starscream traded fire pointlessly, each mech too focused on their own defense to stay still long enough for proper aim. Starscream ducked safely behind the doorway. He darted out again in the first pause from Vortex’s messily enraged hail of shots, dancing on his pedes, using his thrusters for light liftoff and lunging down the staircase to wrench the rifle out of Vortex’s hands and earn an uppercut to the helm for his trouble.

“What in the pits—“

“We just had a fight in here—“

“Haha, get him!”

Somewhere towards the back, Onslaught stood up from his seat, the rest of the Combaticons gathered around him in varying states of dark annoyance and laughing thrill.

Starscream noticed nothing. He curled his servos under the edge of a recently vacated table and used both straining arms to swing and let go in Vortex’s direction. “Glitch!” he shouted.

“Relic!” Vortex retorted, diving wildly over the table.

Finally, finally, finally, Starscream raised his gun and shot Vortex point-blank in the chassis, dead center over where his beating spark lay.

Vortex stumbled, but only briefly. He took a step forward— and then another and another and he walked it off.

“What the frag?” Starscream cried, and then Onslaught and his entourage closed in on him from the side, the Combaticon leader himself flattering Starscream with the personal attention of his left fist.

Starscream, trineless, wound up buried underneath the mountain of every single Combaticon except Bruticus.

The unexpected distraction of card games with Deadlock had. . . helped Thundercracker. And after they parted ways out of that cramped junkyard maze, he found that he did not want to be alone again so soon. Still finding himself less inclined to suffering Skywarp and Starscream’s company after so much of their recent foolishness, Thundercracker’s pedes pointed in the direction of the officer’s habsuite shared between the cassettes and Soundwave.

The door Thundercracker stopped in front of was mended five times over with reinforced steel patches, as sturdy now as a bank safe and locked down just as securely. Thundercracker wondered if there were any hidden cameras or sensors already notifying Soundwave of his unscheduled appearance, but he drew in his field and knocked anyway.

“Anyone home? I know I didn’t comm,” he called. “I haven’t commed any of you since— well, I wasn’t sure if the lines were still good. And I was just passing by. Know anything about data pad repair?”

The door snapped upwards, the suddenness of the motion sending Thundercracker into a backwards stumble even if he was pleased at the easy admittance.

Lazerbeak squawked from within.

“Slag!” cried Rumble. “We didn’t lock the door!”

Ah, Thundercracker thought, frozen in embarrassed horror. The automatic motion-detector had granted him unwanted entry.

Except for a desk straining under the weight of a dozen blocky monitors and one keyboard, the habsuite was barren of any personal effects that could be decisively pinned towards Soundwave. The floor was scattered with colorful puzzles and knickknacks more likely belonging to the cassettes. The cassettes themselves were home and they were spread out in a fan across the room, eyeing Thundercracker over their shoulders like he was an armed intruder.

Soundwave was also home. On the floor with his back against the far wall, he sat uncoordinated and limp like a broken sparkling’s toy.

“Primus!” Thundercracker blurted. “Are you alright?”

“Affirmative,” Soundwave droned. “Damage: negligible. Part replacement: unnecessary.”

Ravage hissed, “Close the door!”

Thundercracker did so at once, though from the wince Rumble and Frenzy made, the others had not preferred he step inside the habsuite first. The seeker was too busy staring at Soundwave to care.

Air whistled wrongly as it traveled a warped path down Soundwave’s dented vents. A line of blood-energon dripped out of his neck seam and streamed a wet path down his blue front, crossing over the decepticon emblem centered on Soundwave’s clear cassette dock.

“I didn’t see you at the battle. It was. . .” Thundercracker trailed off. The sand planet battle was two cycles ago. Here and now before his optics, Soundwave was freshly bleeding and freshly damaged, frame rent from the clear indentations of fists. Thundercracker’s processor could easily superimpose the memory of a damaged Starscream over the live optical feed of a damaged Soundwave. It was difficult not to jump to the worst conclusions. “Who did this?” he asked.

Thundercracker looked at Soundwave, face blank. Soundwave looked at Thundercracker, just as impassive. No explanations were volunteered. The cassettes were frozen, silent.

“I’ll call Knockout,” Thundercracker said evenly. “He can make another house call.”

“Negative,” said Soundwave. “Assistance: not desired.”

“Is he already on his way?”

“Negative. Cease: questioning.”

At a loss, Thundercracker turned to Ravage, who had stood alert upon his entrance and had yet to relax, the black segments of her tail arched in high warning. “You don’t seem surprised. Is this how Soundwave usually deals with damage?” he asked her. “On his own?”

Coolly, Ravage replied, “I’m here. This is none of your business.”

Thundercracker turned back to Soundwave with his arms crossed, warring with indecision. Should he be firm? Pleading? Should he mind his own damn business, like Ravage said? He didn’t know Soundwave all that well, even with their shared history, because the cassettes were far more personable and willing to socialize. And he had never seen Soundwave in a position of such weakness before. It was. . . eerie.

In the end, Thundercracker settled on, “You’re not made of concrete, as good as you are at pretending like it. We can get you help!”

Soundwave’s visor flashed with a hint of consideration to its tilt. “Approach.”

Thundercracker kneeled gingerly to put himself optic-level with Soundwave’s slumped frame. The invitation itself was unexpected, but Thundercracker could not stop a spike of alarm as Soundwave tipped forward to draw even closer, draping a heavy palm around Thundercracker’s pauldron. Soundwave’s hand squeezed down tight, lighting up a scattering of pain receptors and threatening to crush dents into Thundercracker’s plating.

Ah, so this is a threat, the seeker thought at the same time Soundwave said, “Thundercracker: will maintain silence. Order pertaining to: all knowledge, speculation, discussion regarding current situation. Failure to comply: will result in termination.”

“I promise. Who did this to you?”

No answer was forthcoming, of course, except for a steadily increasing pressure against Thundercracker’s pauldron. Pain reverberated.

But the scare tactic was basic and an easily intimidated mech could not have been trined to Starscream and Skywarp. Narrowing his red optics, Thundercracker changed gears and swept his gaze across the others. The cassettes were likely to crack before Soundwave did— and indeed, Rumble and Frenzy were tightly covering their own mouths like a verbal slip needed to be physically suppressed.

“When Megatron hurt Star, you didn’t seem surprised,” Thundercracker told Soundwave softly. “You didn’t say anything. Did you know it would happen?”

Metal squealed as blue plating began to crumple.

“I won’t tell anyone. I can walk over to Knockout’s and nick some patches and pain chips.”

Soundwave’s grip loosened.

“I need to know. Was it Megatron?”

Frenzy tore his small hands away from his own mouth. “Of course it was Megatron!”

Lazerbeak groaned, “Oh, Frenzy!”

Thundercracker tore away from Soundwave’s grasp and stood. He stepped back, so as not to loom over Soundwave, but the cassettes tensed in response and if it made any difference to Soundwave himself, there was no sign. “Why?” Thundercracker cried.

Frenzy took in a vent to answer, but Soundwave’s EM field shot out in a wide radius, catching everyone in a heavy smog of unhappy warning. “Cease,” ordered Soundwave.

Thundercracker’s attempt at restless pacing was aborted when he stepped on a colorful puzzle and almost rolled his ankle. “Maybe Starscream can talk to him—“

Rumble burst out, “Like that’ll do anything good! He’ll just make Megatron madder!”

“This is— not leadership! If the other decepticons knew—“

Lazerbeak shook her beaked helm wildly on the segmented column of her long neck. “Mechs can’t know about this. They’ll— pick on Soundwave!”

“They’ll see an opening for a spot as Second,” Ravage amended. “There can be no weakness. Soundwave is fine.”

“You really shouldn’t be here,” said Frenzy. His small EM field reached out with something like an apology frayed with nervousness. Urgency. “Get going, Thundercracker.”

Aghast, Thundercracker asked, “Are you worried Megatron’s going to come back?”

“Almost just as bad!” cried Lazerbeak, “Ratbat’s going to be back any astro-second now!”

“Ssssh!” said Rumble.

“Pipe down!” Frenzy gritted out.

At once, the other cassettes rounded on Lazerbeak with admonishments that came too late.

“Sorry? Ratbat’s here?” Thundercracker repeated over the ruckus. “Senator Ratbat? I’d just assumed somebody had killed him in the uprising back on Cybertron! No one’s even mentioned him since I’ve been back!”

“He’s not a senator anymore,” said Lazerbeak.

“Lazerbeak!” Ravage hissed, black triangular ailerons laid flat against the top of her helm. “This is none of his business.”

“No! The rest of you, hush! He should know about Ratbat, it’s common knowledge!”

“Uhhhh, is it?” asked Rumble doubtfully.

“It should be!”

Throughout all of this Soundwave said nothing, but his outward silence did not count for a lack of things to say. Thundercracker could wager a confident guess that the SIC’s comms were bursting with rapid-fire back-and-forth communication between him and the cassettes.

After enough of this apparent internal review, Soundwave inclined his helm. “Information declassified: Senator Ratbat = demoted. Monetary beneficiary: no longer necessary to decepticon cause. Re-assigned: communications department services.”

“Communications?” asked Thundercracker dryly. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Ratbat is so very unpleasant,” Lazerbeak said. “People don’t really talk about him much, but he doesn’t show himself much, either, since he got reformatted. He’s not a big tall frame-type like you and Soundwave anymore. He’s a cassette! Ha! And mind you, the form he’s got now isn’t even ugly, but Ratbat is Ratbat and he hates, haaates, ‘debasing’ himself by walking near the ground like the rest of us.”

Rumble, Frenzy, and Ravage shifted in place, tittering or grumbling darkly in agreement.

“He’s a snitch,” said Rumble. “He’ll tell Lord Megatron you were here and that’s no good.”

Thundercracker’s logic unit twisted itself into a loop, assessing and re-assessing the new information to try and build a narrative of events it could recognize as plausible. He was met with error code after error code.

What the hell? he thought, but that didn’t offer much in the way of solutions so next came: What do I know?

There was this: Thundercracker had always expected that one day, Soundwave and the cassettes would have their well-deserved revenge upon Kaon’s own Senator Ratbat.

Ratbat was the decepticon’s first benefactor and a necessary, temporary evil, meant to be pruned off like bad code as soon as the decepticons came into their own power. Senator Ratbat took more than he gave. His introduction to the decepticons was to blackmail Soundwave and the cassettes into doing his bidding under threat of turning them over to the enforcers, forcing the six of them into Ratbat’s own personal servitude as spies. Soundwave had hacked into the wrong network and drawn the wrong attention, and then Ratbat’s mercenaries were on him before anyone even knew there was danger.

Soundwave’s associates were also of interest to Ratbat, but Orion Pax was out of reach and Thundercracker’s trine managed to slip his radar. Pax was safe in Iacon— Megatronus warned him to wait there until the storm blew over (and make some solid alibis in case it never did). Thundercracker’s trine was saved by that distance Starscream had stubbornly pushed between himself and the new decepticons, forcing Skywarp and Thundercracker to divvy up their time between being present at their trine-mate’s side and being present at fledgling decepticon meetings.

Ratbat did catch Megatronus, though.

Megatronus was pushed into performing in the gladiatorial arenas that once flourished in the Pits, where Senator Ratbat’s law enforcement looked the other way. Where there was money to be made in that city, Ratbat had a stake in every enterprise— “With that edge and that back story, the crowds are going to eat you up. I’m going to make you a star!” he told Megatronus, and then he situated himself as Megatronus’s unasked-for Pits manager.

As a poet, Megatronus was grim. As a gladiator, he was even grimmer.

“Of course I’ll make it worth your while,” Ratbat told Megatronus and Soundwave. He shook their hands. He smiled wide. “I’m always interested in some controlled chaos.”

The decepticons got funding. They got a double-edged form of protection. Megatronus began repeating one new phrase like a curse: “Are you happy now, Starscream? We have our mysterious benefactor now!”

In the end, Senator Ratbat’s money had served the cause greatly, but only after Thundercracker’s trine broke into his home and Starscream ‘negotiated’ a more equal partnership by threatening to carve Ratbat’s processor out of his helm then and there. By then it was too late— the decepticons were stuck in the circumstances Ratbat had set up because Megatronus and Soundwave had convinced themselves that the benefits of dealing with Ratbat outweighed the negatives. Megatronus chased gladiator fame to spread his recruitment message. Soundwave continued to do Ratbat’s bidding on the side, to keep an eye on the senator’s internal affairs and the Cybertronian council at large.

Starscream joined the decepticons.

In the time since the trine’s disappearance, Soundwave had opted for a more complicated revenge than Thundercracker would have ever expected from him— why not just kill Ratbat?— and it was one thing to destroy Ratbat’s personal pride by forcibly reformatting him into one of the mechanimals he so looked down upon, but it was another thing for Soundwave to willingly keep Ratbat so close for all this time. If Ratbat was a cassette, then he must dock within Soundwave’s cassette player, too, nestled right in Soundwave’s chassis alongside those Soundwave held most dear.

Thundercracker could not understand it. “Does Buzzsaw so badly need a replacement that you have to use Ratbat?” he asked in disbelief. “Are there no other options?”

Ravage’s tail lashed. “Buzzsaw has nothing to do with this.”

“Is Ratbat that good of a spy?”

“It’s not like we wanted it to happen this way!” Lazerbeak protested. “We just thought we were going to get back at Ratbat, Megatron’s the one—“

“—Hush, Lazerbeak!” Ravage snarled with real venom.

“About Buzzsaw, then,” Thundercracker couldn’t help but ask. “When will he be back?”

“Oh, I dunno. Soon. He’s real busy,” said Rumble desperately. “Cut it out, you’re just making the boss sad!”

Soundwave had not outwardly changed expression at all, but with his vents steaming and his joints laboring, he began to struggle to his pedes. Thundercracker caught his forward stumble, holding him upright until Soundwave pushed, swaying, out of his grasp.

“Remember: orders,” Soundwave intoned heavily.

Thundercracker did not quite dare an optic-roll, but he did presume to support Soundwave’s wobbly stance by pressing a light palm against the mech’s upper arm. “Out of respect for all of you”— And only respect— “I will not tell. Not even Starscream and Skywarp. No matter how unnecessary—“

“— Cease.”

The seeker did roll his optics, then. “Let’s get you to a chair, at least.”

“Acceptable. Upon mission completion: Thundercracker leaves.”

What a stilted picture, Thundercracker thought, the two of them must have make. “Fine.”

Thundercracker crept out of Soundwave’s habsuite, but all of his nervous trepidation seemed to be wasted; he did not see anyone or anything that could be remotely identified as Ratbat in Ratbat’s new form.

What would Buzzsaw think? Thundercracker thought numbly.

But Buzzsaw was far away from there. Thundercracker hoped he remained so, hoped for a few unexpected detours lengthening the secret mission taking Buzzsaw away in the first place-- so maybe the cassette would be gone for long enough that things would be better by the time he got back.

Maybe, Thundercracker thought. His processor was churning with the foolish beginnings of something that was not hope and so must have been determination.

It was obvious that things weren’t right. It was obvious that things needed to be fixed, and ironically it was Lazerbeak, Rumble and Frenzy who had replaced Thundercracker’s thoughts of fleeing with thoughts of fixing; it was their tense unhappiness, their glimmers of resistance. It was not that everything in this new future was ruined and different, it was that. . . Megatron was ruined and different. And Megatron was one mech.

I’m oversimplifying it. But Starscream was always teasing him about being too sensible for any real ambition and getting rid of Megatron seemed like an ambitious goal. At the moment, it seemed like the most out-of-character, insensible, and ambitious thing for Thundercracker to do was stay with the decepticons.

“Wow!” said Skywarp, as he followed closely behind Shockwave’s heels. “It’s like a cave in here.”

If the majority of home base was kept to the same uniformly grimy dimness, Shockwave’s lab was a refreshing and almost blinding beacon of light. The ceilings were so tall that the crisscrossing rafter supports were left to darkness, but Shockwave illuminated every wall near mech-height with an army of blazing floodlights. The lab reminded Skywarp of Knockout’s medbay, even down to the low hum and multicolored screens of scattered machinery, but Shockwave’s lab was distinctly colder. Sterile gray instead of sterile white. Other than Skywarp and Shockwave himself, the place was empty of life or movement, though Shockwave had managed to fill much of the vast space with the clutter of tools, loose parts, and huge half-finished projects Skywarp could not guess the purpose of except ‘weaponry.’ This was not a place of healing.

“. . . And your memory files,” Shockwave was saying. “Starscream and Thundercracker are exhibiting the same symptoms?”

“Yup.”

“The three of you have the same gap in memory for the same amount of time?”

“Yeah.”

“Interesting. Any deterioration of your short-term memory since you came online again?”

“No, thank Primus! I definitely know who I am and who you are and stuff like that, but I don’t know how I got here since Starscream busted us out of the ice on this planet—“

“— I read the mission files reporting your discovery. Can you tell for certain that all of the memory files that would fill in this gap are still there?”

Skywarp frowned. “I don’t think anything’s completely deleted. But I can’t be sure what’s missing until I know what’s there. Knockout said we shouldn’t try to mess with our own files too hard so we don’t corrupt our new memories.”

One of Shockwave’s antennae flicked irritably. “When did Knockout teach himself anything related to the functioning of a processor?”

“Errrr, it’s a work in progress, hehe.”

"The most logical course of action was coming to me," said Shockwave. “And perhaps I owe the elite trine a favor.”

"Oh, yeah? What for?"

"Starscream fell on the grenade for me, so to speak. Lord Megatron was distracted from focusing any of his displeasure onto me for the unfortunate results of my late analysis. It helps that Boltcase is easy to lay blame on, too-- she was never going to make it as a commander for long."

"About that," said Skywarp slowly. "Megatron beat the scrap out of Starscream! It was crazy."

"He and Lord Megatron have always argued viciously."

"But it's never come to fists. You didn't see Star after Lord Megatron was done with him, Shockwave. It was. . . too much."

"Starscream has a special talent for pushing buttons. He must learn that he cannot speak to the Lord in such a way."

“Shockwave. I’m not exaggerating.”

“Neither am I.”

Abruptly Skywarp stopped walking, gazing towards Shockwave’s back with something in his chassis twisting. Shockwave continued onwards for a few steps before he realized Skywarp no longer followed. He halted, looking over his indigo shoulder.

“Illogical,” Shockwave said. “We both know Lord Megatron does not stand for rebellion. If Starscream wants any form of power or respect within the decepticons, he will learn his lesson and fall into place. There is no need for unease, Skywarp. I am helping you now.”

And they needed help. Skywarp needed things to make sense again.

“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” he said, and then he followed Shockwave further into the depths of the lab.

Shockwave led Skywarp past bubbling vats of rainbow goo and past crystal-clear tanks with organic creatures suspended in liquid within. Skywarp had a million questions and couldn’t resist blurting some of them out loud, but Shockwave had no patience for any curiosity but his own.

The scientist finally came to a stop beside a few long tables pushed together to hold a wide spread of clear bins and soft cushions. Within, caged and supported, were a dozen small, squirming, and mechanical “experiments,” as Shockwave called them.

Skywarp didn't hide his grimace as he took in undulating metal and weakly flopping hinges. He felt the press of Shockwave's gaze, studying. Faceplate or no faceplate, Shockwave already was less impassive than masked Soundwave, without the SIC's need for secrecy-- adopting politeness when it suited him, Shockwave retained the same tone and vocal inflections Skywarp remembered from before the empurata, if he did not retain the same warm cheerfulness.

“Wait here,” said Shockwave. “You’ve caught me at a busy time and there are other matters I must attend to before we can take a look at your condition.”

“Yeah, sure. Take your time.”

“Do not touch anything.”

Raising his hands in surrender, Skywarp smiled. “Who, me? Look and don’t touch, I get it.”

“No ‘looking,’ either. The chances of any unwanted mistakes decrease significantly if you remain standing where you are.”

“Sure, sure, mech. I get it.”

The yellow beam of light streaming from that one huge optic turned away like a headlight as Shockwave marched through a side door and disappeared.

With Shockwave gone, Skywarp did not have to shrink his EM field small to hide the depth his own disgust. The experiments were an uncanny imitation of sparked life. They moved and twitched as if in pain, mouths opening and closing like there could be speech if only a vocalizer was attached.

Laid apart from the rest was one small experiment coiled up like a hose, spilling out of a low, open-top plastic box. It was a stripped and mangled parody of a mechanimal's innermost parts; nothing but a tiny helm connected to a spark case by a naked steel spine. The metal segments on the steel spine shifted in place, clicking softly, devoid of any covering that could be likened to a mech’s outer armor or inner mesh. It felt disrespectful to Buzzsaw's memory to find his likeness in such an ugly monstrosity, but Skywarp could not help but compare the shape of the experiment’s beaked helm to that of Buzzsaw's winged root mode.

The beak clacked weakly.

It was not just a likeness, Skywarp realized at once.

"Buzzsaw," Skywarp vented unthinkingly.

The experiment twitched hard. Two pinpricks of yellow light flickered to life in those empty optic sockets, visual sensors unable to register feedback without the glass filter of two missing optics.

"Is that you?" Without waiting for an answer, Skywarp recklessly tangled his EM field with the experiment’s. It was so weak and shrunken that Skywarp had missed it easily at first, but it was there. Skywarp recognized the yellow-gold signature of Buzzsaw's field just as well as he could recognize any member of his own trine's. 

Buzzsaw's field retreated, unreceptive, before Skywarp could push a message across.

"It's me, Skywarp!" the seeker tried again. "Buzzsaw, what's happened?"

The lower half of Buzzsaw's metal beak wrenched open on a stiff hinge. "I don't care," came the familiar rasp of a grumpy voice, but it was tired. Soft. Distant, as if Buzzsaw was speaking through a long tunnel. "Leave me alone. You can't trick me."

Skywarp's EM field poked at Buzzsaw's repeatedly, communicating urgency while Skywarp tried to leave out the bulk of his own horror. ‘It's me! It's me! It's you!’ Skywarp said. None of the messages reached through to the other side— it was like trying to push understanding through a brick wall.

"Stop-p-p-p pushing," Buzzsaw wheezed. "Just do what you came here for and then leave."

"Well," said Skywarp, processor racing. "I'm starting to think that maybe, uh, I wouldn't want Shockwave's type of help after all. So plans change. And, seeing as I'm on my way out now, I can take you with me!"

"That's stupid. Skywar-rrrp never sounded like that. He . . . he didn't stop to think about anything. If he-eee was here, I'd already be gone."

That was as good as permission. "Okay! Sorry." At once, Skywarp reached down to scoop up Buzzsaw's limp, stripped frame in both clumsy hands.

Buzzsaw's spark casing fit neatly in one palm, warm to the touch and fitted with a glass dome that protected the spark itself from igniting any direct contact with Skywarp's servos. It was still so wrong, that Skywarp was able to touch so close, so in his rush he tried to be gentle, considerate, slow (all things that did not come naturally to him). But as soon as Buzzsaw's frame left the tabletop surface, the cassette squawked and fought like Unicron himself was rising up to decommission him. That steel spine coiled and thrashed with far more strength than Skywarp thought possible, whipping Skywarp painfully across the cockpit with a metallic crash.

The pain was bearable, but the noise would not do!

Skywarp still had Buzzsaw's old comm line. [Quiet! Be quiet, please, I'm helping you! I'm not Shockwave! It’s me, Skywarp!]

Without acknowledgment, Buzzsaw continued to struggle-- so if everything else was stripped down, Skywarp supposed that Buzzsaw's comm center must have been taken away, too. Past the beak and the optic sockets, Skywarp could see the exposed back of the cassette’s small helm, and he was no medical expert like Knockout, but there looked to be some hardware missing.

Gritting his dentae, Skywarp was forced to pin Buzzsaw against the table. He looked wildly around as Buzzsaw's snapping beak bit sharply at his servos— Shockwave was still absent.

Were Buzzsaw's optics around?

A triangular sliver of bright yellow glass caught Skywarp’s attention— it was an optic the same color as the accents on Buzzsaw’s original frame, wires and a forked prong poking out from behind. Pinning Buzzsaw below the helm with one hand, ignoring the scratching and biting and fearful twist of Buzzsaw’s frenzied EM field, Skywarp reached an arm out, stretching, just able to hook the tips of his claws over the small yellow optic and slide it across the table towards him.

Skywarp snatched up the optic as soon as it was within reach. “You’ll see,” he told Buzzsaw. “Just wait. I’ll show you. Uh, hold still!”

Mercilessly, Buzzsaw’s hooked beak sunk hard into the living mesh between Skywarp’s thumb and forefinger. Skywarp’s optics went wide and he forced himself to focus through pain alerts, manually overriding the protocol telling his tear ducts to spill fluid.

Optics attached to the helm with several tiny, important wires responsible for color and depth perception, but Skywarp couldn’t begin to address those with a fighting patient and no tool but his bare hands. Clumsily, messily, he twisted the optic into Buzzsaw’s left socket and hoped for the best.

The main plug-in snapped into place with a soft click. Buzzsaw’s optic socket could not shutter around the new part without the connection of those missing wires, but Buzzsaw’s aborted attempt to do so gave Skywarp hope. He released Buzzsaw and skipped back.

On his spindly, too-fragile excuse for a neck, Buzzsaw flopped his head sideways against the cold table. "I won't," he said, static warping and softening his words, "I won't look."

Skywarp scurried around to the other side of the table, trying to put himself in range of whatever sensors Buzzsaw had left. "It's me! Warp! It's really me! Uh-- Shockwave's not here, don't worry!"

At last, Buzzsaw looked up at him. His beady gaze lingered, unreadable.

“Huh,” said Buzzsaw. “You do look like him.”

Skywarp grinned showily, through the expression felt wrong on his faceplate, and spread his arms wide. “It’s me, in the metal! Now come on, there’s no time to waste.” In the center of his chassis, Skywarp's cockpit swung open. Buzzsaw, reduced as he was, could manage to fit inside. The translucent yellow glass was not ideal for secrecy, but the cockpit was the closest thing Skywarp had to pockets beside subspace, and subspace was no place for a living being. "Here, get in. If you dim your optic--"

"No!"

"I know-- it is kinda weird-- but my spark isn't in here, if that's what you're worried about. It's a whole different compartment. You're not gonna see it. It's not even gonna be warm in there. And we are in a hurry, so--"

"I'm not leaving here. I can't."

"Why not? TC is back, too. And so is Star-- not even he would be in on something like this. We can help you."

The frail, interconnected remnants of Buzzsaw's neck swayed and trembled, making Buzzsaw’s helm wobble unsteadily. "Swear to me that you won't tell either of them that I'm here. It would ruin everything. Swear to me."

"Why? Soundwave— "

"— Soundwave knows I'm here. It's just the way it is. You've been gone for too long. You shouldn't be here, in the lab. What were you thinking? Don't come back here."

"Is this some. . . volunteer thing?"

A pause. "Yes."

"I don't believe you!"

"Then you're just as dumb as I remember!" Buzzsaw burst out. "If you don't swear to me right now, I'm going to scream. And then Shockwave will come back and once he sees that you know too much, he's not going to let you leave again. You'll end up right here with me, Skywarp. And Starscream and Thundercracker won't be let close enough to find you."

"That's crazy!"

"Last chance."

"Oh-- ugh, rust, fine! I swear I won't tell anyone!" Skywarp hissed, the fine edge of hysteria creeping into his hushed words. "But I don't understand! I could help you! I don't understand why you'd wanna be stuck here being— being tortured all day!"

This was the fate Skywarp and Thundercracker had escaped by fleeing Vos before their sparked anomalies could be found out-- unwilling test subjects in the torture labs only whispered about outside of Zeta Prime's closest entourage. But Zeta Prime was dead and had been so for three million years, why was this happening now, what was Shockwave doing--?

"For science and progress or whatever." Buzzsaw was tired again. He flopped his head to lay sideways on the table. "But really, this is my punishment. I did something. Take my optic out.”

“What did you do?”

“Take my optic out and I’ll tell you. Put it back exactly as you found it.”

Grimacing, Skywarp obeyed, whispering apologies when the points of his claws scraped and Buzzsaw could not hold back a flinch.

When Buzzsaw resettled, two dots of empty pinprick light blinking in his sockets, he said, “I-- tried to kill Megatron a while back."

"So? Starscream's almost at that point already, and we've just got back!"

"Is this a joke to you?"

“No? Okay, okay, I’m sorry. It’s just— did you really try to kill Megatron? Seriously?”

“Yes!” Buzzsaw snapped. “And now here I am! I don’t need to hear any more about this from you, idiot.”

“I know. I’m the idiot,” said Skywarp beseechingly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I need you to help me understand. What did Megatron do?”

“Stop talking to me.”

“It had to be something.”

“Well, obviously not. He’s still got lots of followers. He’s got you.”

“I missed out on a lot. I don’t know. . . what’s happened.”

“Shut up, Shockwave.”

“I’m not Shockwave.”

"Don't come back here, Skywarp," Buzzsaw said. Then he coiled himself small and still, just as Skywarp had found him, and did not speak again.

The real Shockwave would be back soon. And then what would happen?

"Bye," Skywarp said slowly. The words hung small and meaningless. He turned on his heel and left, forcing his trembling wings into upright stiffness.

Skywarp so badly wanted to warp directly out of there, but below that inward chiming voice of ‘Idiot, idiot, idiot!’ was the urge to. . . not be one. There were loose ends to tie up with Shockwave. Flimsy excuses to be made.

Skywarp ran into Shockwave twenty astro-feet from the lab's huge dungeon doors. He did not give Shockwave a chance to ask questions or say much of anything at all.

"I changed my mind about the treatment," said Skywarp quickly. "I just remembered Knockout said he had something he wanted to try, better give that a shot first-- and now that he and Starscream have been left alone together for this long, they're probably fighting up there. Haha! Gotta go break 'em up."

These were all the excuses Skywarp could stand to stick around long enough to give. Mid-stride, cutting off the tail-end of his sentence, he warped out of Shockwave's labs with no desire of ever returning.

Starscream came online, as was becoming all too common, in the medbay. After waiting groggily for his optical feed to reboot, Starscream’s first waking sight was that of Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Knockout hovering over his medical berth and peering closely down at him like a specimen trapped under a microscope.

From their end, Starscream could assume exasperated judgment and, if he flattered himself, uneasy worry, but the intensity of the overhead lights battled fiercely against his adjusting optics and he could no longer make out detail. His optical feed looked like it was being filtered through a veil of white-out steam.

“Ah, there you are,” said the red blur that was Knockout.

“Screamer!” said Skywarp, too loud. “How you feeling?”

“Guuurrrrhh,” said Starscream.

Experimentally flexing his limbs lit up pain sensors all along Starscream’s frame. His HUD supplied a wave of repeating damage alerts, but the feedback only amounted to a mere discomfort and a little disorientation— truly, in comparison to everything else Starscream had experienced recently, this damage was practically nothing.

It didn’t mean that Starscream couldn’t be annoyed.

“That rust-licker,” Starscream muttered darkly, nonsensically. “Scrap-heap. Glitch. Good-for-nothing Vortex!”

“Oh, see? He’ll be fine!” Knockout turned his shiny helm to address Starscream’s trine-mates and the new angle perfectly redirected a beam of harsh florescent light right into Starscream’s adjusting optics. “He’s already back to acting like his normal self. His vitals are good, too.”

Skywarp said, “If it makes you feel better, Star, you didn’t completely humiliate yourself. From the way people are talking about it, you two were evenly matched— Vortex almost punched your helm off and then you got up. You shot Vortex right in his spark and then he got up.”

“Yes!” Starscream spat, outraged. “I shot him in the spark! Who survives something like that?”

“Vortex is no dead vessel of Primus, but he is a front-liner,” said Knockout. “Big. Heavy-duty. War-frame. Your weapons may be a little outdated.”

These guns are black-market top notch! Dangerous! Rare! Starscream wanted to shout, but even he had to realize that though this might have been the truth once, it was the truth. . . three million years ago.

Snarling, Starscream made to bend at the waist and sit up, pulling taut the diagnostic cables plugged into the medical ports in his arms and chassis. Before he could make much progress, Knockout’s firm hands were there to push him back down by the shoulders.

“Ah, ah! You’re not going anywhere yet,” Knockout said smoothly. “Just sit here and lounge for a few hours. You can glare all you like.”

“I’m fine. Let me up!”

“To do what?”

“I wish to speak with Megatron!”

This time, as Starscream struggled to sit up, Skywarp and Thundercracker’s hands joined Knockout’s to shove him back down with a force that whooshed the air out of his vents.

“Not right now,” said Thundercracker, optics blazing, clawed fingertips pressing.

Skywarp added, “Yeah, remember last time? Don’t you think you should give each other a little time to cool off before you go, uh, making any more suggestions?”

“I’m giving him my mission report,” Starscream shrilled, clenching two fists around the medical berth railings and trying to use that grip to heave himself up. Knockout, Thundercracker, and Skywarp were stronger, thwarting his efforts again. “Let me go!”

“You already reported to Soundwave about the sand planet stuff!” said Skywarp.

“I’ve got something to add!”

“This is a horrible idea, Star!”

“I’m not asking you to come with me!”

“Starscream,” said Knockout, “Whatever you want to bring to Lord Megatron’s attention is most certainly not worth it.  He’s not going to care that you lost a fist fight in the mess hall. He’s not going to care that you have a personal grudge against Vortex. As your doctor and also someone invested in your wellbeing, I suggest you let it go.”

“Oh, it’s personal,” Starscream sneered, “But it’s not just a matter concerning me for once. I’m letting our most esteemed and venerated warmongering Lord know that he’s got a sick, sick freak working under his name and banner! Vortex did something to Slipstream! He was going to do something to Boltcase!”

“You did something to Boltcase!”

“You’re not listening to me! It’s an open secret that Vortex eats people! Our own troops!”

“I know! We know! Lord Megatron knows and he doesn’t care! Strong rule over the weak— it’s what decepticons do!”

“Then why,” interjected Skywarp, “Hasn’t any other random mech gotten rid of Vortex by now? It doesn’t sound like Megatron’s going out of his way to protect Vortex if he’s not protecting anyone else.”

“Because Vortex is very good at not getting killed by autobots and no decepticon wants to risk being forced to take his place in the Combaticons. If Vortex goes missing, Bruticus still needs to be formed. Shockwave is just itching for any excuse to get his servos on live experiments again.”

Quickly, Skywarp shrunk his EM field small, but Starscream caught a potent wave of an uneasy nausea.

A fist tightened at Thundercracker’s side. “And what was that about Slipstream?”

Starscream said, “He did something to her, I just know it!”

“I’m sure Vortex was just taunting you,” said Knockout.

“He is a problem. I refuse to accept any of this.”

Knockout looked at Starscream sidelong. “Sticking your neck out for the greater good is unlike you.”

“I’m going to make Megatron care. He’s not better than me.”

“Oh. Hubris, then.”

Thundercracker’s wings flickered in agitation. There were scrapes of missing paint along the edges. “I’m going to ask you something, Starscream,” said Thundercracker grimly. “I want you to answer me seriously. Do you still think we can change the decepticons from the inside? Or are we still here because— because we’ve nowhere else to go?”

Starscream thought back to what Optimus had said in that mine pit. The current Cybertronian state of affairs was quite simply in shambles.

He shuttered his optics tightly against the processor ache sending fractals of pain reverberating throughout his helm. He should get an award for trying to think in these conditions! “I’d say our original decepticon goal is well and accomplished,” said Starscream harshly. “The council is dead. Zeta Prime is dead. Our planet is dead. Society, too! And hopefully functionism along with it? Unless Optimus runs those autobots like his predecessors. . .” Starscream vented out. “I don’t know why we’re still fighting. . . Unless Optimus and Megatron are still using this whole war to play out their couple’s spat.”

Knockout said, “Did Soundwave even tell you three anything? We’re trying to restore Cybertron. The autobots are trying to stop us. I, for one, want to go home. I’m tired of dead space and war wounds. It’s been a long few million years.”

“It’s been millions of years,” Starscream said sardonically, “and Megatron still hasn’t managed to kill Optimus Prime?”

Skywarp muttered, “Goes both ways.”

“Oh, shut up. I know you worship Megatron, but—“

“— That’s not true!” Skywarp exploded sharply. The others couldn’t help some small surprise at the vehemence.

“We’re all on the same side,” Thundercracker protested, “us four. Let’s— come to a consensus.”

“I’m speaking to Megatron. Now,” Starscream said. “And I did the polite thing by letting you all know. Get off of me before I open my comms and tell him to come here.”

Knockout stilled and then drew back, letting up some of the pressure keeping Starscream pinned to the medical berth. The CMO’s field molded into invisible spikes that stabbed the air in frustration and the bright edge of fear.

Staring after Knockout, Skywarp took his hands off of Starscream’s chassis, too. Thundercracker followed suit after a brief hesitation and one long look towards Starscream that meant, ‘Wait’ without words.

“Knockout,” Skywarp said softly, “what if Vortex found Breakdown?”

“That wouldn’t happen,” Knockout choked out. “Breakdown’s strong. He has attachments. Vortex doesn’t go for mechs like that. Just—“ Knockout turned away, motioning vaguely in the trine’s direction. “— Do what you will. I’ll weld you back together afterwards because I have to.”

Knockout stormed out, the medbay double-doors slamming open and left swinging wildly behind his polished back. A quick burst of noise from the hall signified a transformation, and then Knockout’s sleek racer alt-mode took off in a lightning start that burned rubber tracks against the bare concrete floor.

The silence in the med bay afterward was cloying.

“Who’s Breakdown?” Starscream asked.

“Uuuughghhhhh.” Skywarp scraped the palms of his hands down his faceplate. “Knockout’s missing conjux.”

“Knockout got conjuxed?”

“. . . I hope they find each other soon.” Thundercracker put his hands on his hips and let an unseen weight bow his helm for a moment. “Okay, Starscream,” he said eventually. “If you think we’re going to let you see Megatron alone, you’re rust-bitten insane. But first, you have to prove you can walk in a straight line without falling over.”

“From here to the door!” Skywarp pointed. “Go!”

Starscream vented in deeply, curled his servos tightly around the berth railings, and braced his aching struts to heave himself upwards. “In the meantime,” he vented, “what have you two been up to?”

“Nothing,” said Skywarp, too quickly, which meant that sooner or later his trine-mates would have to reckon with the consequences of a misbegotten prank.

“Nothing,” repeated Thundercracker tiredly. “I found a broken data pad.”

Thundercracker’s gaze was welded to Starscream’s pedes as they found the floor again. Starscream was good at that. Getting back up.

Chapter Text

“I’m here to discuss Vortex,” said Starscream.

“Starscream, you look terrible,” Megatron said, matching Starscream’s light tone. “Especially for going against someone whose usual targets are corpses that can’t fight back. If you’re not strong enough to stand on your own two pedes, then fall.”

“See, that’s not quite true. And actually, I’m walking quite well, thank you. I’m here to discuss Vortex’s cannibalistic proclivities.”

Damn it all. Starscream’s misadventures put him right back in the medbay.

This time, the overhead lights in the medbay were dim. Any illumination was left to biolights and a few stationary lamps set up around Starscream’s medical berth. Starscream, the patient of the hour, onlined to see Knockout gazing wryly down at him with a hacksaw hefted between both hands. And such a sight should not have been reassuring (indeed, Starscream watched that saw with leery trepidation) but it was (mostly). It meant that Knockout was still willing to take time out of his busy schedule to piece his fool self back together again.

“It’s been three hours,” said Knockout. He held himself with a deceptively casual ease, but underneath his optics lay the dull tracks of dried optical fluid standing out against the white-silver gleam of his faceplates.  “Any word of Breakdown?”

“. . . It didn’t come up.” Starscream grimaced and it was not from the fuzzy discomfort peeking around the pain chip in his arm. “Listen, Knockout. . .”

Knockout chuckled weakly. “You don’t have to do that. Primus knows what disasters happen when you’re forced to put those rusty interpersonal skills to use.” And the words might have been biting if not for the softness of Knockout’s tone. “I’m fine. Breakdown will come back to me. He always does. Now tell me about that meeting with Lord Megatron.”

Megatron, that ugly, useless, dithering, careless, outdated old piece of junk! “It didn’t go well.”

“Yes. And?”

Starscream groaned. “I cornered him outside of the training rooms. He did not appreciate it. But neither did I, being ignored!”

“Skywarp and Thundercracker are so spittingly mad at you. They said they were supposed to go with you? And then you left them turned around and stranded at a ship dock?”

“What was I supposed to do?” Starscream whined, his scratchy voice going high and reedy. “I couldn’t bring them with me! If Megatron lay hands on them, I’d be forced to kill him, and then where would we be?”

“You really are something.”

“Give me another pain chip.”

“No. No, you need to have some sense of. . . consequence!”

“Oh, please. I get that enough of that sentiment from Megatron.”

“Evidently, it doesn’t stick. You need to stay out of Lord Megatron’s way or your frame is going to fail faster than I can rebuild it. It is a nice thought to spare Thundercracker and Skywarp from his temper, but you need those same thoughts for yourself!”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s just me. I can handle Megatron’s tantrums. The rest of you— yes, the rest of you are better off staying out of the way.”

Knockout glared up at the ceiling, perfect dentae bared, momentarily at a loss for words. “It is not just you. He— why, I think Lord Megatron must have executed one of his commanders the day you arrived. The designation was. . .”

“Slipshod.”

“Yes! You see? No one is an exception.”

“I don’t care about Slipshod. I don’t care about any failed commander or innocent bystander. I have my ways and I have my priorities, and my priorities are myself, my trine, and. . . you, I suppose. Don’t get cocky. That missing conjux of yours takes even lower priority because I can only extend so much towards a mech I haven’t met.”

“You. . .” Knockout scrubbed his optics. “Reap the benefits of my own patient favoritism and you damn well know it because you are too cocky. Listen to my advice if you really have put yourself at the top of the priority list.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

Knockout yanked the pain chip out of Starscream’s forearm, its absence letting a wave of pain signals flood Starscream’s circuits so powerfully his vents stalled. “You know, the only reason Thundercracker and Skywarp didn’t go right to Megatron themselves is because I talked them out of it, and I had one hell of a time doing so. But they’re more reasonable than you. And have a better appreciation for self-preservation, which I thought you at least had.”

“It was worth it.”

Knockout tilted his helm, curled his lip. “Really?”

“Megatron gave me a command position.”

Granted, it was a temporary command position. And it was a ripe opportunity for Starscream to humiliate himself, a challenge borne out of Megatron’s own desire for amusement and not out of any true recognition of Starscream’s leadership ability, but Starscream could take what he was given and rise to a challenge. It was what he did. He adapted.

To start over from the beginning: it was true that Starscream’s trine had initially accompanied him out of the medbay, and it was true that when Skywarp and Thundercracker flanked Starscream’s wobbly gait like prison guards, Starscream’s spark couldn’t help but warm at such a show of support and unity.

“We’re going with you to see Megatron,” his trine-mates said.

“I’m glad to have you with me,” Starscream agreed, and all of them were lying out of their exhaust pipes.

Starscream had every intention of speaking to Megatron alone. Thundercracker and Skywarp had no intention of letting Starscream speak to Megatron at all. Starscream managed to steer the group’s path alongside a ship dock (“Damn! Who took a wrong turn?”) and faked a limp more severe than it was in actuality, right up until the moment he was dashing away from his entourage with a closing airlock between them.

Skywarp was a hard mech to shake, but Starscream’s one saving grace was Skywarp’s ingrained need for secrecy when it came to that warping ability. Starscream ducked into a crowd of disgruntled mechs offloading from a large deployment ship and pressed himself up against a wall.

[Forget me,] Starscream commed Skywarp, [You’d better go get TC before that ship takes off with him on it.]

[SLAGGER. COME BACK!] said Skywarp.

But Starscream silenced his comm systems before another scathing reply could come through. For good measure, he dampened his own faintly pulsing, connected line of the trine-bond so Skywarp couldn’t follow it as a beacon to his location.

Straightening his left knee with an only mildly worrisome click, Starscream pushed off of the wall and followed the flow of hallway pede traffic, disappearing into the depths of home base with two furious seekers left behind him.

Megatron was on his way out of the training rooms when Starscream cornered him for their unscheduled chat. Coming freshly out of a three-hour haze of simulated explosions and violence had either put Megatron in a fine humor or else put him in a mood simply primed for more violence. Both were probably true at once.

And Starscream made his case, but he paid the price.

“Your petty grievances aren’t worth my time.” Megatron made to brush past Starscream, but the seeker scurried in front to block his path.

“If you don’t want to deal with it, make it Onslaught’s problem!” Starscream said. “If you keep letting Vortex get away with this he will only grow bolder!”

“Vortex is cowardly. He’s not going to strike anyone with any attachments, so your trine is going to be safe. He prefers battlefield corpses.”

“Do you hear yourself right now?”

“He strikes fear into the sparks of autobots, which is far more than any of your trine has done.”

Try as Megatron might, he had yet to strike fear in the spark of Starscream. When Megatron made to sidestep Starscream once more, Starscream moved to put himself defiantly in front of the warlord’s path.

This was the end of Megatron’s patience.

“You old tyrant!” Starscream sputtered, dodging wildly. He said a lot of things, only some of which he remembered later, but all of which he meant with every atom of his being. Perhaps all of this cursing and railing was not wise to utter out loud— but it was difficult for Starscream to keep his wits about him when Megatron so enjoyed beating him when he was down. “You fool! We’re on-n the same- side! Helping me-ee helps you!”

Megatron paused at last, tilting his helm down at Starscream, fists still curled. “Fine, then,” he replied. “I have an idea for you. Let’s put some of this wandering focus you have towards something useful. How would you like to have a taste of leadership, Starscream?”

Starscream was not provided with much opportunity to reply. Later, he peeled himself off of the floor and trudged back to the medbay at a significantly slower pace than he had left it, streaming energon and collapsing in a heap halfway to the destination.

But— the next cycle, Starscream woke up, had his pointless back-and-forth with Knockout, and then he rose to go bother Megatron about the details concerning his newly appointed command position.

Starscream figured he could expect six mechs for his team. Six was a good number. He already had three, with himself, Skywarp, and Thundercracker. It should have been simple. It should have been easy.

But no. Megatron refused to give Starscream even the barest notion of control even when it made sense and Thundercracker and Skywarp were excluded from the mission, expressly forbidden from tagging along. Instead, by Megatron's order, Starscream's first ever command position was to be over himself, Rumble and Frenzy.

"And what of Soundwave?" Starscream asked. His agreeable grin was more like a baring of dentae. With every new cycle was a new play at civility.

"Soundwave outranks you," Megatron said, "and he will not be joining you, anyway. Rumble and Frenzy will be enough."

Rumble and Frenzy. "I was told," Starscream said slowly, mildly, "that I would command a team."

"Three is a number you should be used to," Megatron replied. He stared at Starscream, the corners of his mouth lifted pleasantly. Starscream stared at Megatron in like fashion, polite and professional interest pasted on but beginning to crack.

"Rumble and Frenzy can not fly. I am not a tape deck."

"And?"

"We are not compatible."

“Disappointing of you to admit failure already, when you haven’t even started.”

Evidently, the discussion was over, because the next vent Starscream took for protest made Megatron raise his hand. Starscream flinched— and hated himself for it. He glared at Megatron’s EM pulse of amusement, removing himself from the situation by turning on his heel and storming away.

So Starscream got Rumble and Frenzy. That was it. There wasn't even a damn pilot on the tiny, insentient cruiser Megatron foisted onto Starscream for the mission. Apparently, in addition to the main mission, Shockwave wanted to refine an autopilot system and Starscream would be “conducting the preliminary test-run” by riding along and passively praying that the system did not malfunction and pilot them straight into a passing sun.

And yet, for now, it is my own ship. Maybe I’ll learn to pilot one way or another, Starscream thought, and when that thought inevitably led to Optimus, his already dour mood worsened.

Starscream knew what Megatron was doing. It was a set-up! Sabotage! A fragging joke! A team of three by itself was not out of the question, but such a small number necessitated seamless cooperation between agents. It necessitated professionalism. Intelligence. Skill. Rumble and Frenzy were idiots. Soundwave kept them around because of their casette-and-carrier compatibility, but mostly he kept them around just because he liked them. Starscream did not, even with the warm lens of better-days nostalgia between them.

And that nostalgia faded as soon as Starscream was forced to speak with Rumble and Frenzy at length once more.

“We are not calling you boss,” said the red one. Starscream was only mostly sure this was Rumble. “Soundwave’s the big boss.”

“Yeah! You can be Commander Screamer,” said purple Frenzy glibly. “Has a bit of a ring to it, huh?”

“Thundercracker and Skywarp call me ‘Star’ when they are pleased with me and ‘Screamer’ when they are not. Indeed, you two are poor replacements for them,” said Starscream archly, “and you will refer to me only by my designation. Starscream.”

He pushed down the surfacing thought that, even if Thundercracker and Skywarp were given the free option of switching places with Rumble and Frenzy then and there, they would not take it. The depths of their ire simmered hot, and though Starscream’s trine-mates continued to stay moored to his orbit, deigning to see him off before his departure, there was a careful distance between them that Starscream did not try to bridge.

Starscream sat perched in the pilot’s seat with every bit of dignity he could manage, what with the fit being so awkward and the other two passengers being such gibbering buffoons.

“Gehehehe,” he heard the minibot twins snicker from somewhere behind him. Starscream ignored it with a stoic front he could imitate quite well from Thundercracker’s example— because if the twins sensed any sort of weakness, if Starscream gave any sign of discomfort or annoyance, then he knew their presence would overtake barely tolerable and become unmanageable.

“Comfy, Commander?” asked Frenzy gleefully.

Starscream did not turn around. “Sit down.”

Starscream’s frame did not quite fit in the pilot’s chair. The ship’s control console wrapped snugly around the small, round space of the cockpit and a seeker’s wings could could only comfortably bend upwards so far. Then there were still the strangling seat belts to contend with, confining Starscream stiffly in one place, strapping him to the back of the chair like a prisoner wrapped up for interrogation.

Starscream vented, flexed a shoulder in its socket, and failed to get comfortable. With that being a lost cause, he leaned forward as much as he was able and wiggled his servos over the manual controls. “Now, let’s see about all these buttons. . .”

“What about the autopilot?” called Rumble, but Starscream was already pushing the accelerator forward.

The ship engines roared to life, vibrating the flooring under their pedes and the thin durasteel walls all around them. Oooh, that was power, even if the frame of the small ship probably wasn’t built to handle it. Starscream’s spark thrummed in time with the noise, purring. He felt his mouth curl into a smirk. “How nice.”

Rumble and Frenzy rushed to secure their own seatbelt fastenings. “Forget it, Screamer!” Rumble cried, voicebox warbly. “Put the autopilot on, you’re gonna crash us before we’re even outta the dock!”

Starscream was all confidence in the glow of his EM field and the hiking of his wings, but it took a few furtive guesses and wrong buttons to activate Shockwave’s autopilot systems. Even then, when the brakes released and the ship took off under its own power, Starscream was not immediately certain if they were even headed in the right direction.

Starscream, Rumble, and Frenzy were meant to disable a lone radio tower controlled by autobots on a small and unassuming moon outpost. When Starscream saw the round shape of their destination grow steadily larger on the black horizon of space, he was bored to find it as ugly as any other place decepticon business trips were taking him nowadays.

The ship’s cloaking technology, another invention of Shockwave’s, made this mission possible. As the three decepticon saboteurs broke into moon’s atmosphere, the outside of the ship blended into invisibility between the empty black of space and the powdery gray of moon rock.

“I don’t think they’ve spotted us,” said Frenzy cheerfully. “We haven’t been shot down yet.”

“And hey, there’s the radio tower! We’re right on top of ‘em,” Rumble snickered. “’Bots never learn to look up.”

Their words seemed to ring true— after a tense moment of scanning the moon’s dusty surface, waiting for anti-aircraft cannons to extend out of hidden holes in the ground, Starscream relaxed and allowed himself to glance away from the windshield view. “Enlighten me, then, on what your expertise in espionage has taught you,” he said, using a preexisting score in the console frame to sharpen the edge of a clawed thumb.

“Usually,” said Rumble, “we go out into the field and Soundwave stays behind to be the guy behind the screen.”

“Works for me,” replied Starscream. He was already kicking his pedes up in the pilot’s chair, seat belts released. “I can comm you from here.”

“You’re not the boss!” protested Frenzy, visor flashing. “Soundwave stays behind to, like, hack stuff! What can you even do?”

“If I see you two tearing it up the hill with autobots in pursuit, I’ll blast them off your spinal strut.” In anticipation, Starscream’s servos hovered lightly over the gun controls— there was a laser cannon mounted on either side of the squat, oblong frame of the small ship, and he was at least confident enough to manually operate those. He didn’t necessarily need to hit his targets to give them a good scare.

Rumble fit a mighty frown onto his small faceplate. “So you’re just gonna do nothing?”

“Ah, whatever. He can’t sneak around, anyway,” Frenzy pretended to whisper into Rumble’s audial. “Those pedes he’s got ain’t even made for walking.”

“I swear, it’s like speaking to Skywarp,” said Starscream, which the twins did not take kindly to. “And on second thought, forget comms. I know that both of you can read important and time-sensitive instructions, but I’m not entirely convinced that you will choose to even if it’s our lives on the line.”

“Ice in his logic center, I tell you,” said Frenzy.

“Or,” continued Starscream scathingly, “I don’t believe you’ll wait long enough for me to compose a message at all before acting on your own and doing something foolish. We’ll talk on radio frequency instead.”

Rumble scrunched up his faceplate. “You just like to hear yourself talk!”

“Yes, I do.” Engines quieting, the autopilot system let the ship drift downwards in an easy descent. It came to a hovering stop ten feet above the ground, half a mile from the radio tower and the dinky station squatting at its base. “Don’t you two have somewhere to be? Get down there.”

‘Disable the radio tower,’ was a mission objective that left much room for interpretation when it came to execution. The minibot twins were eager to blow it up from the get-go, waving around some crudely rigged explosives with far too much gusto below Starscream’s nose, but that plan was regulated to a last-resort contingency. Explosives did not fit into any definition of stealth and the deceptions still needed to leave the moon after their mission was completed, preferably without autobot starships in hot pursuit. The invisibility of their ship’s cloaking mechanism would not hold up against close scrutiny.

Rumble and Frenzy were able to sneak across open ground and slip into the base of the radio tower undetected, finding an unguarded control box and busting open the lock in no time flat. Starscream hissed a demand for quiet over the sound of their early celebration. Subtlety, secrecy, was a key component to the mission’s success, Starscream said.

Over call, Rumble replied, “Nobody likes a backseat driver.”

“Never mind that. Cut the blue wire,” said Starscream.

“No,” said Frenzy, “I think it’s the red!”

“I got it,” said Rumble, and before anyone could say anything else, a soft snip echoed across the line.

In utter silence, there was a pause as Starscream registered what he had just heard.

“What did you just cut?” Starscream snarled.

“It was a compromise!”

“Rumble, you bucket of bolts!” wailed Frenzy. “He cut both wires!”

“What the frag is wrong with you?” shrilled Starscream.

In an instant, Starscream glanced up to watch his shrunken view of the radio tower erupt in a sea of flashing red lights. The sound of a deep alarm blared warning from across Rumble and Frenzy’s end of the call. The small figures of autobot soldiers poured out of the radio station with their guns drawn, searching. A line of tiny frames rounded the back towards the base of the radio tower.

“They know you’re there,” said Starscream grimly, “and since stealth has so obviously gone out the window, we’ll have to go with the backup plan and blow this whole thing up.”

“We hafta get out of here!” cried Rumble, ignoring everything.

“First, you must finish what we started!”

“They’re after us!”

“They haven’t found you yet.” Curling his lip, Starscream stood from the pilot’s chair. “I’ll go down to distract the autobots long enough for you two to rig the explosives— so rust and ruin, you two had better stay out of sight! Let me know as soon as the bombs are set up and then make it for the ship!”

Starscream cast a glaring optic across the buttons and glowing dials on the control console. The autopilot systems could not properly land or dock a ship— that had to be done manually, but Starscream could manage something as simple as a landing without programmed assistance. He was a seeker!

With an urgency the situation demanded, his metal hands slammed down onto the controls. The ship’s engines rumbled and quieted down to an unnerving low hum. Starscream cursed. The entire craft was sent into a spark-stopping free-fall downwards.

Starscream so narrowly avoided crashing the ship that, when the ship’s thrusters caught themselves in a steady hover ten astro-feet above the dusty ground, he almost stumbled out of the lift to kneel and kiss the moon’s surface. As it was, he left the ground untouched and the ship cloaked and parked. He transformed and gunned it out of the lift to soar a wide arc towards the radio station, fast and flashy and uncaring of who saw him.

The autobots knew Starscream was there as soon as he took to the air, but their forces were widely spread out and there were few grounders who could keep up on wheels against a seeker’s jet-mode. As Starscream was looking to cause trouble with no objective but distraction, he made a hasty landing right in the center of all the chaos: the radio station, a plain gray rectangle against the surface of a plain gray moon. Starscream smashed open some door locks and ducked into the first entrance he saw. Almost as soon as the door slammed shut behind Starscream’s wings, his steel crumbled— what was he doing, throwing himself into the fire for Rumble and Frenzy of all mechs?

A gaggle of autobots tore down the hallway up ahead, a stampede of footsteps growing louder and ever nearer. They numbered a strong five or six but conducted themselves like an entire platoon, buoyed by that self-righteousness autobots were famed for across the galaxies.

There was nowhere for Starscream to hide. Outnumbered, there was no choice but to play it cool— but when the autobot soldiers rounded the corner and came into proper view, Starscream saw Optimus Prime at the head of the group. Some tight worry in the back of Starscream’s processor seemed to relax.

Oh, Starscream thought slyly, This is doable.

The autobots spotted him and hit the brakes in surprise. Starscream draped himself against one side of the doorway, spreading his wings wide to block the way. The weight of a searingly powerful energy rifle prickled in Starscream’s subspace because after the two lackluster showings his integrated cannons had given him since coming out of the ice, it was high time for a replacement. Until then, Starscream had to make do with an external weapon like every autobot before him openly wielded now.

He did not give the new company the chance to speak first. Starscream looked right at Optimus and, like there were no guns involved at all, said, “Hello, again. We have got to stop meeting like this.”

Optimus’s entourage cast strange looks upon their leader, but Optimus paid them no mind. “Starscream. I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said conversationally. “What brings you?”

“Certainly not the sights. It’s so ugly. There’s nothing here.”

Standing at Optimus’s elbow was a bulky red mech giving Starscream an especially strong glare. Starscream vaguely recognized him from one of the many, many profiles Soundwave had the trine review as part of a ‘Welcome back to the present!’ debriefing— this was one of the more notable autobot soldiers, designation. . . Ironwide? Ironhide?

“We’ll show you what the brig looks like!” said Ironwide or Ironhide.

The autobot Arcee stood off to the side, lithe and pink and mean, known to Starscream by designation only because their chance meetings thus far had given him sufficient enough reason to look up her profile and then actually remember it. “It’s obvious that he’s a distraction,” Arcee told Optimus, waving her blaster at Starscream with a flippancy he did not like. “His friends could be up to anything while we’re standing around here.”

Starscream posed against the door frame. What inane filler would Skywarp use? “You’re looking at the whole package, gentle-mechs.”

“There’s never just one decepticon!”

“I’m flying solo.”

Doubtfully, Arcee faced Starscream helm-on. “If Megatron sent you out here by yourself, then he probably just wants you dead.”

“Or Megatron is simply well aware of my capabilities. You should be wary, autobots!”

The reaction this proclamation garnered was not wariness. The autobots looked to their leader again in an amazement that held more incredulity and less fear than Starscream would have preferred.

Internally, Starscream wrenched open his comms system. [HURRY,] he commed Rumble and Frenzy. Optimus Prime remained unreadably calm, but every other autobot in the group worked silently and not-so-subtly together to close in on Starscream. They were so obviously not impressed that the seeker could not put it past them to give up on asking questions and simply open fire. [FINISH IT!]

[DAMN!] commed Rumble. [WE’RE TRYING!]

[I CAN ONLY DISTRACT THEM FOR SO LONG, IMBECILE!]

[THE ASSEMBLY WIRES ON SOUNDWAVE’S BOMBS ARE REALLY SMALL, OKAY?]

[YOU are small! MAKE IT WORK!]

“Red Alert knew the moment something was off,” said Ironwide or Ironhide smugly. “Let us know right away that someone was out there messing with things they shouldn’t be!”

It couldn’t be that immediate, if the terrible twins had all that time to climb the tower and burden me with their drivel in the meantime, thought Starscream inwardly. Outwardly, Starscream grinned slyly, like he was in no particular hurry and had no particular worries. He made sure to expose the edge of one sharp canine by the corner of his mouth, tilting his head so it caught the light. It must have glinted with the effect Starscream was aiming for, because Optimus’s blue optics centered on the point. Starscream would say that the trick worked on just about anyone and his trine-mates weren’t around to refute him.

Arcee shot Optimus a momentary, narrowed glance. “Well, Starscream,” she said. “If you really mean no harm, you can come with us and we can talk—“

A proper explosion rocked the walls of the radio station—  not from the radio station itself, but above.

“The hell?” shouted Ironhide (designation debatable).

Through the flimsy walls Starscream could attune his sensors to the beginnings of an onerous metal groan as a break in the structural supports began to tip the huge tower into leaning.

“What was that?” Arcee demanded.

Optimus’s optics shuttered at Starscream in pinpoint understanding. “The radio tower—“

There was a second explosion, putting to mind fireworks and a Vosnian graduation ceremony that never happened. It made hands grip their weapons tighter, made gazes shoot up towards the ceiling.

In the opposite direction, Starscream took off in a dead sprint down the hall.

“No!” he heard Optimus’s echoing shout behind him. “Hold your fire! We need to evacuate— there will be debris in the very least, if the tower itself doesn’t fall right on top of us!”

Starscream ducked into the first room with an unlocked door and a window. He shattered a panel of space-grade crystal glass with a strike of one heel, spilling outside with the simulated atmosphere of the radio station spilling around him, too.

There were startled, angered shouts that Starscream didn’t bother investigating beyond the fact that those voices did not belong to Rumble or Frenzy. Their fate was out of his hands!

I’m getting away! Starscream thought wildly as he transformed and shot towards the general direction of the cloaked decepticon ship.

I’m getting away! Starscream thought as, behind him, the radio tower began its slow descent out of leaning and its fast transition into falling.

I’m getting away! Starscream thought as the tower’s impact sent a ringed wave of moon dust soaring oppressively into the thin, low-gravity atmosphere. The dust was thick, choking, and blinding. Suddenly, the autobots had more to contend with than chasing wayward decepticons.

The outline of the decepticon ship shimmered into existence. The narrow lift opened just in time for Starscream to dive inside and transform without ramming his nosecone disastrously into the wall separating the pilot’s cockpit from the tiny cargo bay.

[Wait for us!] commed Frenzy.

[Or Soundwave will kill you!] added Rumble desperately.

[And Laserbeak will peck your eyes out!]

Those were not empty threats. [Alright!] commed Starscream, pressing wild urgency into every glyph. [You two had better be close!] He stumbled into the pilot’s chair and sunk down into the embrace of the control console, servos flying as he set a destination and a rush return speed for the autopilot.

[Well. Well!] commed Frenzy in an odd half-start. [You just need to wait!]

[Rust me! You two aren’t nearby at all, are you?]

[No! No, we are!] commed Rumble. [We got a huge head start on those auto-idiots. We’re almost there. Wait for us, Screamer, or Ravage is going to chew up your inner wires and spit them out!]

[RUN!] was all Starscream said. His hands twitched, servos spread, over the accelerator lever.

Rumble and Frenzy ran.

Soon, Starscream heard two small frames jump up against the outside of the ship and begin onerously hauling themselves into the lift, cursing. He made to extract himself from the pilot’s chair, rush into the cargo bay and haul Rumble and Frenzy fully inside, but a spray of blaster-fire against the other side of the flimsy wall of the pilot’s cockpit made him duck down for cover.

“Who followed you?” Starscream shouted angrily over the noise, using a leg to kick up and shut the slim door between the pilot’s cockpit and the cargo bay by jamming his heel at the door panel. “Kill them!”

Rumble and Frenzy were screaming wordlessly, returning fire at the unseen enemy. As Starscream crouched along the control console and drew his energy rifle out of subspace, he hoped the screams were war-cries.

Starscream flung himself low across the control console to mash buttons. The lift snapped shut. Thrusters fired blue-hot. The ship was sent soaring into a break-neck vertical rise so sudden it was as if the entire craft had been shot out of a cannon.

“Hey!” Frenzy hollered.

Starscream killed the engines in a stop just as abrupt as the start, knocking every mech inside the ship temporarily off of their pedes and letting the ship come to an invisible rest almost level to where the radio tower’s point used to jut out into space.

Decepticons could find their footing quickly. There was a deep, metal tonk that sounded distinctly like a mech getting bashed over the helm with a metal crate. The shooting stopped.

Rumble, voicebox scratchy from the shouting, murmured, “Did we just bust his processor?”

“No, no!” said Frenzy. “Bee’s got the hardest helm in the autobots.”

There was the screech of dragging metal. Starscream, deducing the fight to be over and choosing to put more faith in the ship’s cloaking technology than it deserved, left the cockpit to re-establish his commander’s authority and get a true scope of the situation. Standing tall and flexing his wings in their sockets, Starscream swung into the cargo bay as if he had not just ducked for cowardly cover.

The twins hefted an unconscious yellow minibot between them, trying unsuccessfully to fold up the mech’s short arms and legs to fit him like smuggled contraband inside one of the larger crates. The autobot badge was a bright red stain on the minibot's chassis. Starscream vaguely recognized him as another one of the more notable autobots— he was called The Bee or something like that, and apparently he was a fair hand at scouting despite his glaringly unsubtle choice of paintjob. Rumble and Frenzy were careless in their haste, letting Bee's pedes drag sparks against the ground and ruining his shiny yellow paint.

Rumble and Frenzy froze at the sight of Starscream, visors flashing in alarm.

Starscream didn't have the energy left for surprise. He subspaced his energy rifle. "No, you two. Throw him back. We don't have the resources to take prisoners right now."

"Throw him back?" Frenzy asked.

At a wordless signal from Starscream, the ship's lift opened. The rush of simulated atmosphere escaping into wide space threatened to blow Rumble and Frenzy off their pedes. The twins rallied, shuffling closer together and gripping Bee tighter between them. 

Starscream motioned impatiently at the open lift. "Go on, we don't have the time!"

"You don't want us to just kill him?" Rumble blurted. Frenzy kicked him with a clang.

"I don't care. Do you want to?"

Rumble and Frenzy looked at each other helplessly, the silence dragging on as, Starscream could tell, they exchanged rapid-fire comms.

Starscream bared his sharp dentae. "Oh, rust and ruin. Is this another weird arch-nemesis thing like with Optimus and Megatron?"

That startled a disbelieving laugh out of Frenzy.

"What?" Rumble cried.

Primus, they were stupider than Starscream remembered. "Like it's not enough to just kill him and get it over with, you have to have the perfect, epic victory to do it?"

Frenzy laughed again. Rumble kicked him.

"Nope, not like that at all," Rumble said. "Don't even worry about it, boss. We're throwing him back now."

Rumble and Frenzy stared at Starscream, probably hoping he'd turn on his heel and leave. Starscream folded his arms and waited. He wanted to scream with every passing moment his internal clock counted— truly, they did not have time to waste.

Rumble and Frenzy kept their fields close and small. None of them moved.

"You. Are. Not. Keeping him!" Starscream shouted. "If you two actually manage to bring back a pet, if Megatron actually lets you keep him, every other sick fragger back at base is going to want their own!"

"We're not doing that!" Frenzy shouted back.

"What would Soundwave say?"

"It's just-- the fall probably will kill him!" Rumble cried. "And then what's the point of letting him go?"

"Oh, Primus. Is this your little friend?"

Rumble sputtered static.

"No!" Frenzy insisted, but he gathered Bee closer.

Starscream shrieked in wordless horror, because of course mechs didn't have the good decency to keep their problems private. Of course Rumble and Frenzy, the clumsy fools, didn't have the competency to hide their impossible little attachment and now Starscream, their commanding officer, had to do something about it.

Rumble pointed accusingly up at Starscream. "What about you and Prime, huh?"

"Excuse me?"

"There's-- you-- people say that when he sees you on the field, he stops paying attention to Megatron!"

"That's because I'm the newest and shiniest decepticon threat!"

"Prime watches you. He doesn't even try to attack you!"

"Well, I'm also the most beautiful mech anyone's ever seen. It's probably very confusing for him."

Starscream's dry sarcasm fell flat because the twins gaped at him, lit up with a new and false understanding.

"I wasn't being serious, glitches. I should throw all of you out of the airlock," Starscream spat, but he only reached for Bee. He tried to pluck the autobot out of the twins' grasp, but they hung onto Bee's arms like stubborn scraplets. Bee was heavier then he looked, bulkier than the twins combined, and Starscream grunted as he tried to heft the limp body into his arms.

"We do not have the time!" Starscream shrieked. He glanced out the lift and cursed-- figures approached on the ground below, gaining fast and already close enough to make out their autobots badges gleaming. They could shoot easily into the open lift.

"Listen to me," Starscream hissed. He shook Bee. "This one has been driving Soundwave up the wall. The fall won't kill him because nothing so far has been able to! And--" Starscream grabbed Rumble by the back of the helm, pried him off, and flung him down the hall. "--his friends--" Frenzy, true to his designation, bit down on Starscream's servos sharply enough to draw energon, but Starscream shook his hand hard and he went flying after Rumble. "--will catch him!"

Starscream, venting hard, tossed Bee out of the lift with as much strength as he dared. Bee went the distance, soaring through the air and making the autobots skid to a panicked stop. Starscream watched just long enough to see a hefty red frame-- Ironhide-- transform out of vehicle mode to dive for Bee before the yellow minibot made impact with the hard ground.

"Safe enough!" Starscream barked. "Close it up, go, go go! Retreat!"

The ship tore out of there, accelerating out of the planet's atmosphere fast enough to knock even Starscream unsteady. 

The flight back to base was very, very quiet.

Starscream did not tell Megatron. Truthfully there was not much to tell, as the mission was minor, largely unimportant, and Starscream was unwilling to entertain the warlord’s whims for the next further while— let Starscream’s success speak for itself.

Starscream did not tell Soundwave. He wrote a curt mission report and sent it off to the SIC, but in it there was no mention of anything untoward that Soundwave might have been interested in finding out about two of his cassettes.

Starscream did tell Thundercracker and Skywarp, but in this he did not even have their support. During the trine deliberation where Starscream complained about Frenzy and Rumble's foolish, traitorous attachment, the other seekers nodded along like every bit of the story made logical sense.

"Did you know about this?" Starscream demanded.

"Nope," Skywarp said. "But, uh, I guess it was another thing we missed just before the war happened. This Bee guy must've skipped out on Rumble and Frenzy before they made anything official. And to be an autobot? That's just crazy! I don't know anything 'bout how minibots find matches, but they must have really liked him to go so long without finding another third. . ."

"They're not a trine! They were never going to be a trine! They're grounders!"

"Haha! If you say so."

There was a distracted gleam in Thundercracker's optic, the one that made him go distant when he was listening to a particularly spark-rending story. "That's so sad!" Thundercracker muttered.

"Rust and ruin," Starscream vented. "Just don't tell Megatron! And don't tell Rumble and Frenzy I told you!"

"Yes, yes. Of course not-- Do you think Soundwave knows?" Thundercracker tilted his helm.

There was no definitive answer. The trine agreed, at least, that if Soundwave was going to find out, it wasn't going to be from them.

"Well, enough of that," said Starscream, once he grew tired of dominating the conversation (an occasion rare enough to be monumental). "Anything to share?"

“Yes,” said Thundercracker grimly.

Skywarp grinned. “While you were gone, me and TC went out and got a feel for what the people are saying.”

“Out?”

“Oh, we just went to the mess hall.”

It began with Thundercracker’s initiative.

“I need information,” he told Deadlock.

“How did you know where my habsuite is?” demanded Deadlock, his plating bristling, the glow of his narrowed optics dulled from interrupted recharge.

Deadlock hunched in the doorway of his habsuite. Thundercracker gazed blankly back at him a few steps away in the hall. In the depths of space there was little to differentiate between day and night cycles, but Thundercracker’s visit must have been ill-timed to interrupt the soldier’s rest, too soon after Deadlock’s return from whatever mission had taken him last.

“Ravage told me,” Thundercracker replied. “Relax, I already decided not to tell Skywarp. He is planning on getting back at you, by the way, for all that he promised on that sand planet.”

“Thanks for the warning,” said Deadlock gruffly. “What do you need to know?” He made sure to flash his fangs as he spoke, but Deadlock’s freshly-online prickliness had nothing on Starscream’s.

“It’s not really that I need information from you, specifically. It’s that I need information from everyone. I need to get a feel for what people are saying about my trine and I. Or about anything, I guess. I want news. Rumors.”

“And how is this my problem?”

“It’s not. But from our chat the other cycle, you seemed to like gossip, so at the very least there’d be entertainment in it for you. And you’re the only mech I know of who owns a deck of cards. So. Deadlock. Do you want to play cards with me again?”

Deadlock let go of his gruff posturing like a deflating tire. He scratched his nose, shifting to lean his side against the doorway and look upon Thundercracker like the seeker was a puzzle he could not begin to solve. “You know what?” he said. “Sure.”

The basics of intel gathering were long-held lessons leftover from Thundercracker’s time on Cybertron as a member of the burgeoning decepticons, when Soundwave would scrawl the net for rumors and Thundercracker’s trine would take to the streets in the meantime, mingling in crowded oil houses and around gambling tables to glean word of the hottest gossip. Rumors being what they were— rumors— were unreliable, but there was enough fact mixed in with the fiction to make the slog worthwhile. If some bit of juicy gossip was based in truth, then the trine could glean word of fresh happenings not be reported in any of Cybertron’s majorly recognized news cycles. If what they found was false, then at least the sentiment behind the rumor could be of use for gaging public opinion. Or at the very least, as Skywarp said, the trine might hear something funny.

Thundercracker planned on using much of this same old methodology in the present, but there were two major obstacles. The first was that Starscream had always led the conversations essential to those old probing missions and, even if Starscream had not been currently preoccupied with the undertaking of his new joke of a command position, Thundercracker could no longer stand to look upon him for very long.

Thundercracker was not keen on simply standing by and waiting for these averse feelings to fade so the trine could come together again, as he usually did whenever someone’s antics caused a rift— tired of sitting idle, Thundercracker wanted answers now. Deadlock was enlisted.

Deadlock and Thundercracker found a wide, empty table in the mess hall and managed to remain sitting there with continuously empty seats all around them for an embarrassingly long time, forced to keep to a modified game of two as other mechs went out of their way to veer a wide path around them.

[I don’t think this is working,] commed Deadlock. He watched over Thundercracker’s shoulder as a soldier spotted their sparsely occupied table, took a few steps toward it, and then abruptly diverted paths when it became apparent which two mechs were already seated there.

Thundercracker resisted the urge to drag a hand down his faceplate. Here was the second obstacle, unforeseen: the plain truth that between Thundercracker and Deadlock, there were no round edges or anything that could be interpreted as approachable by a stranger. Their empty table in the mess hall was where charisma went to die.

In theory, Deadlock’s presence was helpful to Thundercracker’s goals because he was a mech not obviously associated with the trine’s past, but Deadlock had a staring problem. Deadlock had a problem with curling his lip and bristling in challenge as soon as someone so much as glanced back at him. On Thundercracker’s end, a permanently resting blank expression seemed rather imposing cast in the heavy shadows and the thought of reaching out with his EM field to portray a balancing friendliness made Thundercracker so ill he could not bring himself to try.

[Alright, so we need more help,] commed Thundercracker. [Got any friends?]

[Ha!] was all Deadlock said.

Reluctantly, Thundercracker replied, [I can call someone to join us.]

Instead of calling Starscream (who at that moment was away on his doomed mission, hotly debating over a set of red and blue wires), Thundercracker called Skywarp, who did not direct his words with precision but certainly was good at filling a silence with extroverted chatter.

Skywarp did not delay. He arrived (on pede, thank Primus) with a flourish and a bow before Thundercracker and Deadlock.

“Hey! What’s going on here?” the purple seeker asked cheerfully.

Too cheerful, Thundercracker thought. So much of Skywarp’s cheerfulness as of late was pasted on, showy, bordering on a parody of the real Skywarp’s usual carefree irreverence. And as much as Thundercracker wished Skywarp would not bother with the posturing, he understood. They were in public.

“Skywarp, you remember Deadlock,” said Thundercracker. “Deadlock, you remember Skywarp.”

“Hmm,” said Deadlock.

“Hmm,” imitated Skywarp through an unfriendly grin. “Yes, I do.”

“Come over here and sit down,” said Thundercracker, exasperated already. He waved Skywarp over into the seat on his other side.

Curling forward, Skywarp propped his chin up against a fist and drummed his servos against the tabletop, surveying Deadlock and Thundercracker like a pit manager overlooking gladiators. “Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm.”

“What?” Deadlock asked.

“Well, obviously we’re going to need more players.” Skywarp swiveled around in his seat, craning his neck cables to peer into the active busyness of the wide room around them. Thundercracker could not pick out the individual target, but Skywarp perked up and evidently spotted someone he knew. “Hey! Ramjet!” Skywarp called.

“Who’s Ramjet?” Thundercracker muttered.

Skywarp replied, “Oh, he’s one of the coneheads. He’s crazy, have you seen him fight? He just full-on crashes into anything he can see!”

Thundercracker had witnessed many a collision and crash-landing on the battlefield thus far, but none of them had ever seemed intentional to him in the way Skywarp spoke of. But forget Thundercracker— the idea of Skywarp approaching random decepticons did not bode well because Skywarp was always just as eager to throw himself into a fight as he was to strike up a friendly conversation. He would take the slightest excuse to participate in either activity. . . but unlike Starscream, thus far Skywarp had largely managed to stay out of the medbay, so Thundercracker supposed he was content to leave it be for now.

Thundercracker turned his attention towards searching for whatever mech could be Ramjet in the surrounding crowd. No luck. “Where is he?”

“Oh, I’ll get him.” Skywarp swiped some cards off of the table and held them up over Thundercracker’s pauldron. “Ramjet! You play?” he shouted.

A seeker, gunmetal gray with red accents, half-turned towards their table with a startled flick of his wings. Ramjet was pressed from a slightly different mold than Thundercracker’s trine, so Thundercracker understood immediately what Skywarp meant by ‘conehead.’

Skywarp waved Ramjet over, but quickly ducked behind Thundercracker’s silver wing and dialed down his volume to mutter, “Come on, Deadlock, stop with the glaring!”

“I’m not glaring,” Deadlock muttered back, ducking his own helm. “I’m just looking.”

“Well, stop opening your optics so wide,” said Skywarp. “You keep staring, he’ll think you have a problem.”

“I do have a problem. That clunker flew so low over me he almost took my helm off—“

“— Okay, okay, shut up, he’s coming over!”

So Skywarp, Deadlock, and Thundercracker welcomed a curious Ramjet into their midst, settling down to limp doggedly along in their quest to farm the rumor mill.

It was slow going at first, but a few other morbidly curious mechs eventually did seat themselves at the table and take up their share of cards. Gossip was alive and thriving in the decepticon armada, as anyone could have guessed. But mechs, to Thundercracker’s irritation, were as curious about him as he was about them. Most of the answers he gleaned came from an upfront exchange.

“No, I was never Megatron’s lover,” Thundercracker told Ramjet. “Who in the pits gave you that idea?”

“Oh, no one in particular,” said Ramjet. “But between you and me, there’s a. . . small betting pool. Everyone’s saying it was you, but the smart money’s on Starscream. How about it? Am I right?”

“None of us courted Megatron.”

“Okay, okay. I know how it is,” replied Ramjet, amusement pulsing in his field like it was a patient inevitability that the truth would come out eventually.

The truth, as it were, burst at the forefront of Thundercracker’s processor— That lover was Optimus Prime!— but the burden of proving that claim would have even further entangled him in this mess. He held back.

Skywarp was fighting an uphill battle against a laugh. “Scrap,” he wheezed, fumbling his cards. “Oh, scrap.” Under the table, Thundercracker stepped on his brother’s pede before Skywarp could get it in his helm to try and be funny and end up feeding into more unsightly rumors.

Was Ramjet being serious? The truth was so obvious, so blatant, but if there was room for an entire betting pool over which elite trine member might have warmed Megatron’s berth three million years ago, then it must not have been so obvious or blatant of a truth to the average decepticon. And Megatron would, Thundercracker realized, have reason to hide the nature of his past relationship with the current autobot leader.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” was all Thundercracker could say in exasperation. “Sorry to disappoint.”

That should have been the end of it— Ramjet glanced down at his cards in order to take his turn— but Deadlock decided to chime in.  “Actually, Ramjet,” offered Deadlock, “my money is on Skywarp.”

“You— you can’t say that!” Skywarp laughed so hard he doubled over, cards slipping from his hands, rendered insensible and disqualifying himself from the round. “That’s— insider information!”

Thundercracker booted Ramjet out of the game and away from the table entirely, and though Skywarp whined about setbacks and keeping up an inviting atmosphere, Thundercracker could not be convinced that the forceful goodbye was not worth it.

When Swindle, one-fifth of the Combaticons, swanned over to the table with an optic on Ramjet’s vacated seat, Thundercracker made sure to look up at him under his brow-plate in a way often scolded by Starscream as too intense, too likely to give off the impression that Thundercracker was about to break out into random violence.

[Cut that out. We can’t be picky about our sources if we want sources at all,] commed Skywarp. [People are only going to tell us stuff if they can relax around us!]

Swindle’s cajoling grin did not falter as he approached near enough for conversation. “Why the long face? I thought there was a friendly game happening over here!” he said.

Deadlock glanced at Thundercracker, wry.

“If you’re here for the betting pool,” said Thundercracker, “don’t bother.”

Swindle stroked his chin-guard. “The betting pool? There’s always ten or twelve happening at any given time. Any one in particular grinding your gears?”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re dead broke.”

“What hostility, gentlemechs. I knew we got off on the wrong pede. Was hoping to clear the air between us.” Swindle made a point of taking a seat next to Deadlock, raising his hands in surrender under the watchful gazes of the other mechs at the table.

Loyalty won out over Skywarp’s sense of strategy. “You jumped Starscream,” said Skywarp with a raised browplate, “like, yesterday.”

“That was nothing personal. Just business. If you had seen Vortex and Starscream beating each other’s brakes off, you would’ve jumped in, too. Don’t pretend.”

Skywarp grumbled.

Thundercracker tilted his helm. “Vortex said—“

“—How would you know?” said Swindle. “You weren’t there.”

Thundercracker rolled his optics. “Fine. Starscream said that Vortex said that he had done something to Slipstream. Is that true?”

Swindle kept grinning. “What’s something?”

“Your engine’s going to be something on the floor if you don’t hurry up and answer the question,” said Deadlock. “I want to play the game.”

Loudly, Swindle pulled air through his vents. “Like I said. Got off on the wrong pede! Okay, okay, let me be frank, gentlemechs. I come here to humbly offer my apologies. And perhaps a mutually beneficial agreement. A show of quiet support.”

A powerful processor ache pulsed behind Thundercracker’s optics. “What is it?”

“I wouldn’t be so terribly upset if Vortex wound up disappearing under mysterious circumstances.”

“We’re not killing him for you,” said Thundercracker dismissively. “Actually, it’d probably be better if we didn’t kill him at all—“

“— Ha! Tell that to Starscream,” said Swindle.

Thundercracker could only be so annoyed because Swindle’s words rang true. His annoyance was multiplied tenfold at the reminder of Starscream’s reckless, uncontrollable, wild-card foolishness. It was multiplied a hundredfold at the reminder that it was nonetheless from Starscream’s example Thundercracker was trying to learn boldness and ambition. . . and though it would be for the best if Vortex died eventually, there was no way to kill him now that would be worth the cost. Thundercracker stared blankly at Swindle, saying nothing, well aware of Deadlock and Skywarp biting back their own wry amusement on his either side.

“Haha! I jest, I jest,” Swindle added in the space left by the lack of response. He winked at Thundercracker.

Thundercracker’s processor ache thrummed with all the weight and force of an acid hurricane. There was a stray thought of concern for the integrity of his remaining memory files— the last thing Thundercracker needed was further damage from conversation. He said, through gritted dentae, “And Slipstream?”

“Ah, her. I haven’t seen her,” Swindle admitted. “Of course, if she’s missing then she’s most probably dead, but I don’t know if it was Vortex who did that specifically. His tastes are. . . distasteful to me, so I ignore them as much as possible. Why does it matter who dealt Slipstream’s killing blow? Whatever autobot shot her out of the sky killed her as much as Vortex might have.”

“Since we’re all here,” said Skywarp to a table full of mechs, “did anyone want to fess up to freezing us in ice? Yes? No? No, then? Okaaaay. . .”

Thundercracker tried not to sit up too obviously in attention when a small cassette-sized mechanimal flitted over and settled himself on the opposite edge of the tabletop with the air of vague challenge. The mechanimal was winged like a boltbat and darkly purple, with oversized triangular ailerons and cruel needle-teeth he was careful to enunciate his squeaky words around.

“The name’s Wingnut,” said the tiny mech, but that couldn’t be right. Thundercracker knew it couldn’t be right.

Thundercracker shrunk his EM field small. Skywarp sent him a questioning ping over comms, but seemed to accept the quick, answering reassurance without a second thought. Retreating behavior was not unusual from Thundercracker’s end because he seldom enjoyed being touched by the fields or frames of strangers.

“Got anything juicy?” Skywarp asked Wingnut. “A little guy like you has got to overhear things.”

“Maybe,” said Wingnut. He had that smarmy drawl Ratbat had, except his small voicebox was thrice as squeaky.

“I’ll tell you a secret, then,” said Skywarp. He leaned in close, hands cupped around his mouth. “I never shacked up with Megatron.”

Wingnut snorted. “Any two-bit mech could see that. He doesn’t give you or Thundercracker the time of day.”

“So,” said Deadlock, “you think it was Starscream?” Over comms, Thundercracker shot him with a betrayed ping.

“Starscream wishes!” Wingnut laughed.

“No, he doesn’t,” said Thundercracker flatly.

“If you wanna hear a real tragic romance,” hummed Skywarp, “then you should see the way Knockout’s been carrying on. His conjux went missing.”

“Breakdown?” squeaked Wingnut. “I don’t think I’ve seen him since that big battle everyone came back sand-blasted from.”

“Who do you think did it?” Skywarp leaned forward. “I heard it wasn’t an autobot.”

“I heard Starscream is close with Knockout.” Wingnut’s focused optics were large in his helm. “Would have to be, the way he’s in the medbay all the time. Do you think he got jealous of Breakdown taking up all Knockout’s extra time?”

Skywarp’s grin went tight. “I don’t know if you’ve ever met Starscream, but he and Knockout are so similar they can barely get along as is. It’s all sniping— it’s taken away all of my jokes about Starscream conjuxing himself if he ever had the chance.”

“Still. Starscream’s a wildcard. They say that’s why he joined up with the decepticons in the first place, back when it was all new. It looks like even Lord Megatron can’t control him,” said Wingnut. “And we’ve all seen what Starscream does to those who get in his way. If you two reasonable mechs aren’t careful, Starscream might go for Lord Megatron next.”

Thundercracker thanked his lucky stars for his own immovable faceplates. The mech he was before the descent from Vos would not have been able to look Ratbat in the optic and evenly say, “Don’t be ridiculous. Lord Megatron is too strong.”

“There’s a part shortage because Shockwave is slacking on the recycling,” grumbled Wildrider. “He’s been busy going off to this one dirt planet the autobots like— Urth or something like that— to find organic stuff to pick apart.”

“Really?” asked Skywarp, leaning in. Thundercracker knew well Skywarp’s fascination with anatomy, organic or mechanical. “He gone a lot?”

“Oh, yeah. I heard he’s there right now. You’d better try your best to stay out of the medbay until he’s done with this fixation, because I needed a new knee strut the other day and Knockout said I took the last one.”

It wasn’t long after that Skywarp said, “I’ve got to blast off. I’ve been sitting here too long.”

“Come on, stick this one out with me,” said Thundercracker, but Skywarp was already antsy and would not be swayed. The novelty of their objective would only have kept him grounded for so long, but Thundercracker hoped tensely Skywarp would not try and make fresh entertainment out of trouble.

“I’ll be in the training rooms doing the flight sims,” continued Skywarp, standing up from his seat and fluttering his wings in a luxurious stretch. “I’m not gonna answer my comms, so don’t get in too much trouble while I’m gone.”

“I’m not planning on it.”

“See ya, TC. Watch out, Deadlock.”

“Come on, I’m helping out your trine again,” replied Deadlock, re-shuffling the deck and appearing rather unconcerned. “Haven’t I restored my honor?”

“Takes more than that! Ta-ta!”

Deadlock and Thundercracker did see some friendly faces eventually.

Knockout waltzed into the mess hall and slid into the seat next to Thundercracker. “Who’s winning?” he asked, craning an elegant column of neck to peer over at the faces of Thundercracker’s cards.

“Me, soon,” replied Thundercracker, “if Deadlock stays true to his word about not cheating anymore.”

“That means I’m winning,” said Deadlock, grinning wolfishly.

“So we’ve got two sore losers,” said Knockout, but his spark wasn’t in the jibe. He thrummed the length of his servos against the scratched tabletop. There were specks of blood under the trim points of his claws and in the seams of his knuckle joints.

Thundercracker held himself with some of that same uneasy restraint, but that was because rumor had spread that Starscream, and by extension himself and Skywarp, had killed off Breakdown. Wingnut— Ratbat said it. Wildrider said it. Thundercracker realized that Swindle and Ramjet must have heard the rumor, too. He did not even want to broach the subject with Knockout.

Deadlock cast a questioning glance between Thundercracker and Knockout and, mercifully, filled the silence. “You think Starscream’s still alive?”

“Oh, yes,” said Knockout darkly. “And still himself.”

“No word on Breakdown,” Thundercracker forced himself to say.

Knockout shrugged one shoulder. “No useful word, you mean— you wouldn’t believe the things some of my patients have been saying to me when you and your trine are out of the room. But don’t worry. I find it difficult to believe that you three are capable of killing my conjux without my help.”

Later still, when the numbers were whittled back down to only Deadlock and Thundercracker, Ravage melted soundlessly out of the darkness beneath the table. She slipped into the gap between Deadlock and Thundercracker’s hunched frames and the two mechs quickly made space for her by shoving themselves aside in fright, startled at the intrusion of what at first seemed like a sleek cloud of living shadow.

Ravage settled calmly and folded her tail neatly around her paws. She did not bother with small talk— she was too much like Soundwave in that way. “I hear you two are performing some of the most blatant information-gathering anyone’s ever seen,” she said, low voice soft.

Thundercracker recovered faster than Deadlock did. “Anything to share?”

“Deal me in,” said Ravage. “I was with Frenzy the other day, and he said Rumble overheard Hook talking to Astrotrain.”

“Bad news, Star,” Skywarp said later, in the convergence of that cycle’s trine deliberation. “Word on the street is that you’re. . .

“. . . Starscream’s a total nutjob,” reported Jazz, the length of a few galaxies away. Sole head of the Spec Ops division, his efficiency in the field spoke with undeniable results, giving him the leeway he needed to hold fast to irreverent levity in the face of autobot high command. And this case was an especially fun one— Jazz cackled, “The decepticons are all talkin’ about how insane and unhinged he is. Killing commanders, fighting in base, friendly-firing— And I heard he’s got rust-fleas!”

“Thank you, Jazz,” vented Optimus Prime.

CMO Ratchet huffed, “He’s certainly wasted no time fitting himself right in with the rest of the decepticons.” For how much Ratchet usually fussed and griped about taking any time away from the med bay, he had gone to attend this debriefing with surprisingly little resistance when it became clear that the decepticons’ mysterious elite trine would be a topic of discussion. “I’m sorry, Optimus, but maybe there’s some kind of mix-up. Either that ice story isn’t real or you didn’t know your old friend as well as you thought.”

“No, this really is Starscream. He’s always been like this,” said Optimus. “Though I mean to say— I’m sure many of these rumors are exaggerated.”

“Which ones?” Jazz was having too much fun.

“I doubt he has rust fleas,” said Optimus stiffly.

Chapter Text

The atmosphere of the command room was darkened, not from a lack of light, but from the miasmic influence of Lord Megatron’s wildly fluctuating EM field. SIC Soundwave was ever-sensitive to his lord’s moods, but Megatron did not often make it difficult to parse his feelings. Megatron wore his anger uncovered for all to see— the question, then, was usually what that anger would drive Megatron to do.

Soundwave stood in place like a led column, letting the weight of Megatron’s wayward EM field crash against him like waves. Megatron could not be still. He paced and paced with his scarred, silver hands clasped behind his back.

“I don’t trust Starscream,” Megatron said at last.

Of course this had something to do with Starscream. Thundercracker was not nearly as troublesome and Skywarp was not as specially vexing.

“We must eliminate him,” Megatron continued, and in a flash Soundwave’s emotion-suppressing protocols bore the brunt of some strange, internal push-back.

“Starscream: head of elite trine. Fundamental to Skywarp and Thundercracker’s functioning trine dynamics. Passable battle capabilities. Efficient strategist, if consulted. Creative scientist and engineer, if given lab space.”

“He’s far more trouble than he’s worth. Time and distance must have made my memories fonder than they had any right to be— I have no idea why I used to put up with him. He’s brash, he’s reckless, and he openly disobeys me.”

There was that push-back again. Faulty code.

So. . . Without entirely knowing why and without consulting the careful hierarchy of his own priority trees, Soundwave took the merciful initiative of saving Starscream’s fool life with the boldest, most bald-faced lie he could come up with on the spot.

“Challenges towards leadership authority: outdated Vosnian courting ritual among seekers.”

Megatron stopped pacing. “You’re fragging joking.”

From anyone else Megatron would not have believed it, but Soundwave was not usually given to lies in the face of his sworn leader, whatever personal folly befell Soundwave as a result. And as far as Megatron was concerned, he was never, ever given to jokes. Soundwave said, “Negative. Starscream: historical attraction to power. Methods: adaptable.”

Megatron tilted his helm with an incredulous half-sneer, studying Soundwave’s visor. But Soundwave worked well under pressure. Whatever bit of unsteadiness Megatron searched for was not found, and so Megatron snorted and said, “I see.”

Soundwave did not say anything else. Megatron did not ask. When Soundwave was dismissed, he turned and left the command center in no sort of outward hurry, braced for no sort of possible blow to the back, and with no sort of emotion leeching through his impossible EM field.

But Soundwave was moving on autopilot.

The forefront of Soundwave’s processing power focused inward, through lines and building blocks of knitted code that had stood strong and unmuddied for centuries. There was a new type of numbness within Soundwave, now— unrecognized— diagnosing— recognized— hell.

It was slack-jawed, rug-pulled, axis-tilted surprise. Soundwave efficiently tucked the emotion away.

Starscream had quite thrived in academia. The networking, the drama, the class rankings, the backstabbings, the constant threat of falling behind, of expulsion, of having to prove one’s worth— the Vosnian academy was the perfect pressure cooker of a practice ground for making a living within an organization like the decepticons, where the stakes were much more assertively life-or-death. Starscream couldn’t help but miss his academy days in the same way a blade might miss the forge. And oh, how he missed Vos.

His time among the new decepticons trickled by like the melting of a glacier. Slowly, and then all at once. Starscream followed Megatron’s orders (making some room for creative interpretation) and participated in skirmishes with the autobots (making some dark muttering over talents wasted).

Megatron was constantly leading the decepticons towards some new obstacle: some new battle to be fought, some new planet to set pede on, some new source of energy to squabble over. Still, it was amazing how quickly all of it turned to drudgery. Perhaps some large part of Starscream had always been hard-wired for conflict.

"I want Slipstream on my next team," Starscream said, "with Thundercracker and Skywarp."

Bored, Megatron replied, "She doesn't play well with others.”

"Practically no one here does. But this mission you want us on is sending us to a planet one hundred percent covered in water. A team fully capable of flight is what we need!"

"Choose a different seeker."

"Why not Slipstream? She's not trined. For most of the other seekers, if I bring one I have to bring all three, and I would much rather have a single disagreeable personality to deal with over the dynamic of a whole different trine."

"You will choose a different seeker," said Megatron in a tone that, for anyone else, would have brokered no further argument. "Slipstream hasn't been answering her comms. It's assumed she was a recent battle causality."

So there was Starscream’s final confirmation. It sat in his tanks with a sour taste, but he folded it up and set it aside.

On the subject of of disappearances, Knockout did not seem to be taking his conjux’s absence very well. It was reflected in Knockout’s dulled shine, his sudden fixation upon his work, the slackening of a strict beauty regimen melting into a slackening of basic self-maintenance. Knockout’s pursuit of a new and deeper education surrounding Cybertronian neural processes was taken to borderline obsession, but this new drive came at the cost of the coolly confident mech Starscream once knew.

These were not the sort of observations Starscream wanted to be making while he strapped to a reclined medical chair with the plating around his helm stripped away, Knockout’s servos feeling around the delicate, humming machinery beneath.

“Don’t get too carried away, now,” warned Starscream, scratchy voice an octave higher than usual.

“Oh, relax. These are just diagnostics,” said Knockout. “It’s hardly anything more than the scans I’ve been doing.”

Starscream and Thundercracker resigned themselves to Knockout’s ‘diagnostics’ out of grim need, but when they expected Skywarp to go raring for his turn after Starscream, the black and purple seeker squirmed and stalled like once he sat in Knockout’s chair, he might not get back up.

“Come on, Skywarp,” Thundercracker said, ever the mediator. “Starscream already went and he’s fine. I can go next and you can watch. It will be very disgusting. You’ll love that.”

“I’m not sure,” said Skywarp jovially, as if he weren’t clasping and unclasping his claws together in frenetic nervousness. “I dunno if there’s anything to even see in that helm of yours, TC.”

“Never mind,” said Starscream. “Knockout, let’s go ahead and do the empurata.”

“No empurata,” muttered Knockout, helm bent to rearrange a bundle of small, sharp tools on a rolling cart. “I promise.”

Skywarp took in a rush of air through his vents and then expelled it all at once. “Fine!” he said, clamoring into the chair. “Make sure you admire my fat processing power, doc. Not many get a chance.”

Skywarp’s helm opened up under Knockout’s tools and (Will wonders ever cease, thought Starscream) the casing was not empty inside. The glow of Knockout’s optics and the low purr of the medic’s vocalizer were fuzzy throughout the examination, but Skywarp survived the poking and prodding and so inevitably did Thundercracker.

“Don’t cross my wires,” Thundercracker told Knockout as he lay back.

“I’ll drop a wrench in there and weld it shut,” Knockout hissed.

Thundercracker covered his face for a moment so he could laugh— a quick, “Ha!” which was the most anyone could get out of him since his faceplates froze.

Starscream hovered by the operating chair like a shadow, ready to berate Knockout at the first sign of shoddy work, but one after another Skywarp and Thundercracker’s helms were closed up and sealed with no flaws for even Starscream’s judgemental optic to point out.

“Great, great,” said Knockout, reviewing a scrolling list of apparent findings behind his slanted optics while the seekers found their shaky footing.

“Well?” Starscream prodded.

“I said it was great,” said Knockout. “Lots of things for me to look at later.”

“After some recharge?”

“Don’t grind my gears, Starscream. Some of us have real jobs to do.”

“You tottering fool. Your batteries are going to run themselves out and—”

“— Anyway. I have some other things for you three. Hold on.”

Knockout blundered behind a curtain and reappeared with the over-sized cylinders of two identical null rays threatening to tip out of his awkward under-arm hold. Starscream looked on in quiet appall. Knockout never blundered.

The edges of Knockout’s EM field were blurry with exhaustion, but every few seconds he seemed to whip it back into shape through sheer force of will. He looked terrible. He looked mad. He looked quite pleased with himself.

“Finally Shockwave found it in himself to send me a few parts,” said the CMO. “We can get to your weapon upgrades!”

Starscream asked, “When was the last time you recharged?”

Knockout ignored him, sweeping over to an empty worktable, trusting the others to trail behind. Thundercracker stepped forth to help steady Knockout’s burden, but Knockout shrugged him off and hefted the guns onto the tabletop with perhaps less care than the dangerous equipment deserved.

“When was the last time you buffed?” Starscream tried again.

That garnered a reaction. “Don’t say that!” Knockout glared, but when he gave a momentary glance down the back of one red arm, he seemed a little more like himself.

Skywarp ran the tip of a servo along one of the gun barrels. The specs were nothing on the hulking weight of Megatron’s energy cannon, but these guns were sized to match the length and width of a seeker’s entire leg.

“These are too much,” said Thundercracker, peering over Skywarp’s pauldron. “I wouldn’t be able to lift my arms.”

“That’s funny. Usually everyone wants to go bigger. Bigger guns, swords, everything,” said Knockout. “But I can also rig these to transform down and out of the way when they’re not in use.”

“Really?” Skywarp’s optics sparkled like rubies. “What’s the power output on these?”

“Three times what you’re using right now.”

“Oh, my spark’s plenty strong enough for that. I’ll take ‘em.”

“Are you sure?” Starscream ran a critical optic across the guns, lifting one off the table for closer inspection. It was like raising the heft of a drainage pipe. “These don’t look as though they’d lend themselves well to stealth. They’re cumbersome.”

“I’d say stealth is up to the skill of the wearer,” said Knockout, and when Starscream and Thundercracker still had their criticisms, he ended up wiring one of the null rays to a separate power core for an impromptu— and explosive— demonstration. The remnants of a broken medical berth were sent flying in all directions across the med bay in itty, bitty pieces like bullet shrapnel.

“Shiny!” Skywarp cheered. His optics glinted, hungry, and Starscream knew he would not be swayed. “Put them on me, doc.”

“Give Thundercracker and I something more reasonable,” Starscream ordered Knockout.

Knockout hummed, tired optics distant with calculations and anatomical diagrams occupying the forefront of his processing power. “I’ll check back with Shockwave later. Plenty of dead mechs, but not a lot of new parts coming through.”

“Right. Recycling,” said Skywarp. The edges of his EM field seemed to tremble once, spiking outward, but the shudder passed so quickly that Starscream could not be certain if the responsible emotion had been excitement or something far more unpleasant.

“I’ll let you have the best of what I can find,” said Knockout, “so long as Starscream can manage to go five cycles without picking any more fights.”

Starscream sniffed haughtily. “I don’t know what you could mean.”

“And Thundercracker— a faceplate for you!”

Thundercracker’s wings twitched. “What?”

Knockout stooped to rummage around in a bin below one of the worktables. Starscream had a cold, instant suspicion he knew which seeker’s face would appear among the spare parts.

“Oh, rust,” said Starscream, wrinkling his nose distastefully. “If it belonged to someone we know, Knockout, don’t bother showing us.”

“You’d feel differently if it was your face in need of repair,” said Knockout over a shoulder, “but, no, this one’s been laying around for ages. If I can just find it.”

Skywarp folded his arms, torn between turning away or leaning in for a closer peek.

Knockout finally stood, triumphant, with a seeker’s chiseled faceplate in his grip. The living metal was dormant, gray, and still. It’s only a spare part, Starscream told himself. And it was indeed a true match to Thundercracker— and, in turn, a match to Skywarp or Starscream— but perhaps that was the source of Starscream’s dark unease. He gave into the urge to smooth the tip of a servo over the side of his own black faceplate, just to reassure himself everything was in proper place.

“Here,” Knockout said, presenting the faceplate to Thundercracker for inspection. “I actually know what I’m doing now, all the proper little attachments and wires. I can fix that hack job I did and get you back to a full range of expression.”

Thundercracker looked at the recycled part for a few long moments. He raised a servo as if to run a claw along the angled brow, but changed his mind to make a fist at his side. “Thanks, Knockout,” Thundercracker said. “But I’m still attached to the one I have."

Starscream did not hang around what were considered public areas in home base— the rec room, the mess hall, the multitude of empty corners and unused rooms mechs got up to all sorts of unruly business in. But he did deign to show himself at the training rooms whenever he was certain Megatron would be elsewhere. Skywarp practically lived in the flight sims, but Starscream always seemed to just miss his trine-mate being there.

Once, Starscream stepped into the simulation room with its banged-up hologram screens and came upon the real Soundwave, laying in wait like a statue against a backdrop of fake gray sky.

“Thundercracker: seeks out my company,” said Soundwave abruptly.

Starscream said, “Awww, have you made a friend?”

“Negative. Explain.”

“How the hell should I know? I don’t tell him to do everything. Did he say something strange to you?”

“Negative.”

“What do you two even do together?”

“Card games.”

Starscream eyed the other mech, perplexed. “I highly doubt Thundercracker is enchanted by you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Thundercracker was a mech of standards. Otherwise, he would not be trined to Starscream. “It’s more like he’s trying to get away from Skywarp and I every once in awhile. Or trying to spend time with the cassettes, to whom you just happen to be stuck to like glue at all times.”

Soundwave’s visor flashed. “Acknowledged.” And without so much as a goodbye, the blue mech took his leave.

Later, Starscream casually and subtly broached the subject with Thundercracker: “What the hell goes on in Soundwave’s habsuite?” he asked him.

Thundercracker remained with the one blank look for a faceplate, but he was a master of tilting it by degrees it to make it express all sorts of complicated and nuanced emotions when he wanted it to. The blank look Thundercracker turned on Starscream then was unimpressed. “Don’t say what I think you’re going to say,” said Thundercracker flatly.

“What am I going to say?”

“Me and Soundwave.”

Starscream flapped a hand. “No, of course not. But I am curious, I can’t help it. You spend so much time over there, but it’s hard for me to imagine you two making small talk.”

“To be honest, we don’t. I speak with the cassettes. Sometimes when they aren’t there, Soundwave and I sit next to each other and work on our own projects.”

“In silence. For hours?”

“Yes. It’s nice.” Thundercracker tilted his helm in consideration. “But we do play cards sometimes, all of us together.”

Starscream could be genuinely pleased that Thundercracker was rekindling friendships— and more so, that he was rekindling friendships putting him adjacent to the decepticons’ stiff second in command. That connection might help shield Thundercracker from Megatron’s wrath if the need ever arose because Soundwave remained Megatron’s darling favorite, subject to no form of censure and, through Megatron’s view, incapable of any wrong.

If Thundercracker grew closer to Soundwave, Skywarp grew noticeably more distant— passive aggressive, snippy, a nuisance past the sake of his usual personality. But whatever reaction Skywarp was trying to garner from Soundwave, Soundwave never gave it. Starscream and Thundercracker poked and prodded Skywarp for an explanation, but none was forthcoming.

“His dislike for Rumble and Frenzy must have transferred over to their carrier,” Starscream told Thundercracker.

Thundercracker’s red optics flashed. “I thought Skywarp liked Rumble and Frenzy.”

“He likes fighting them. I doubt he likes losing to them. Primus, they’re each hardly bigger than his helm and Rumble toppled him in a scuffle the other day.”

“Skywarp doesn’t have to be so difficult.”

So Thundercracker’s coddling for Rumble, Frenzy, and the cassettes at large must have transferred over to their carrier. Starscream found it difficult to believe anyone could have strong opinions about Soundwave on his own. The SIC continued to have the forthcoming personality of concrete and Starscream continued to ignore his existence unless necessary.

Not long after, Starscream found himself accompanying a stealth mission quite unlike his last one with the cassette twins. This was an energy run to Cybertron, headed by Megatron himself. The decepticons were trying to revive Cybertron by stealing energy from aliens, converting it to energon, and dumping it bit by bit in an electric flow towards its dead core.

It was just as well Starscream was assigned to go; nothing would have stopped him from accompanying the mission once he found out it was happening at all.

The decepticons could hardly rule the galaxy if they did not rule their own home planet— and while technically Cybertron was under their control, the planet was a dead, inhospitable husk not worth much of anything without the huge amount of energy needed to jump-start it back to life. The planet no longer transformed. Natural energon production had come to a screeching halt. It was a long slog ahead towards galaxy domination, but the restoration of Cybertron was the only planet Starscream cared for.

No autobots crashed the mission this time. Starscream, Megatron, and a handful of other decepticon grunts were free to touch down on Cybertron’s marred surface and begin unloading their precious cargo.

It was one thing to be informed of Cybertron by a misleading Optimus or an impersonal, dispassionate Soundwave. Cybertron was another thing to witness with one’s own optics. It was a wasteland like none other. Starscream fancied himself above useless sentiment, but what had become of Vos stopped him in his tracks behind the rest of the party.

The floating city of Vos had fallen, half of it collapsing in gray, shattered ruins along the coastline and the other half breaking away to crumble like an avalanche into the Rust Sea. The wreckage was visible between snatches of dense chemical fog moving fast across the water, a strong wind behind. The famous windows, arches, and shining spires were totaled. Titanium was stripped for salvage. Polished steel lay abandoned and corroded by the famously poisonous cocktail of chemicals making up the Rust Sea.

Starscream did not react when Megatron came to a stop next to him. Together, they gazed out at the ruins on the opposite shore.

“You said you wanted to go back one day,” Megatron said.

“Hm,” said Starscream, flicking a wing.

“I could never understand why. Vos seemed like a terrible place, even when you spoke fondly of it.”

“Don’t you miss Kaon? You spent so long there. You never hated it like I did.”

“No. Almost everything I learned was wrong with the world, I learned in Kaon.”

Don’t you miss who you were? thought Starscream, but that was insanity.

“I can’t make you understand.” Starscream wrenched his gaze away from a spire leaning crookedly out of the chemical sea. “Vos was my home. It made me.”

Starscream had given in and caught something from the early decepticons that must have melted his processor and stalled his reality matrix. Delusions of grandeur: of returning to Vos as WingLord and wiping the slate clean. Look, I have changed. Everything was worth it. You will change, too, and no one will ever be turned away from here again.

Starscream clasped his hands behind his back and paced, restless under Megatron’s stare and the million-year outdated map in his HUD superimposing a floating lost city over the polluted sky above him. “The autobots— this is flashy, even for them. Seekers filled the prime’s air armada for centuries, fighting, dying— and Vos only kept the brightest minds, for learning and research— there was no reason to do away with it all. Just like that.”

But the council knew a flight-frame city so pinned under the draft would be sympathetic towards the decepticons. Vos was eliminated before it could turn. Then only the prime’s air armada was left, and the remaining seekers’ loyalties were swayed easily from the primacy, no matter if it was Zeta or Optimus holding it.

“It was a long day,” said Megatron. “I can tell you of it.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“This is everything we are working towards. Restoring Cybertron. If it seems like the decepticons have changed, Starscream, it is because our mission has.”

“We’re restoring Cybertron so we can all fight over it again.”

Megatron’s red optics gleamed. “It will be ours. We will raise Vos again.”

Starscream vented— and gave in again. He wanted Cybertron. Since the moment he left it, he had always wanted to return to Vos.

“You drive me up the wall,” said Starscream. Megatron bristled, but Starscream went on, “You always have! You’re stubborn and ham-fisted and you don’t listen to me! But I’ve already thrown my lot in with you. My whole trine. I’m here now, and there was that extended break, but I have returned. Damn you. I’ll see it through. We will win and then we will go home.”

“We’ll win,” agreed Megatron. “Infernal creature. Speak to me like that again and I might have your glossae removed.”

I don’t have to like you, Starscream thought. You don’t have to respect me.

Well, he could handle Megatron at his worst. It was basically all the time.

Once on Cybertron, Thundercracker witnessed a train wreck in the cargo district of Helex. A truck with a loaded trailer failed to clear the tracks in time for an oncoming train. The train was fine, but the truck was batted aside like an aluminum sheet, trailer wrenched almost in two against the oncoming, unstoppable force.

Watching Starscream go about his business in the new decepticons was like watching that truck. Starscream never let fear rule him, and so he would never let Lord Megatron do so, either.

Starscream toed the line of Megatron’s patience on the battlefield and in front of the rest of the decepticon troops. Behind closed doors, he and Megatron fought viciously, with fists more often than not. There was a sense of indulgence Thundercracker suspected from Megatron’s part— he could see, easily, Megatron dangling that title of Air Commander in front of Starscream’s nose, baiting Starscream with the power and recognition Starscream always reached for in the end.

“It’s really Starscream’s age-old enemy at play,” Thundercracker muttered to Ravage. “Common sense.” But that was one of his darker, moodier moments and Thundercracker could be glad later that no one else had heard.

Ravage lounged against Thundercracker’s leg. They sat together on the floor on the blue seeker’s habsuite, Thundercracker hunched over his data pad and Ravage cleaning her front pedes.

“If Starscream will fight, he will fight,” said Ravage. “Perhaps it is not so bad.”

“How could you say that?” Thundercracker bit out.

“Soundwave doesn’t fight at all.” Ravage moved on to nibbling the back of a black wrist joint.

“Why do you not fight for him?”

Ravage stopped at last, folding her paws to regard Thundercracker with her even stare. “The same reason you haven’t lifted a servo to defend Starscream. I know I can not.”

“I should, though. I should.” It came out flat, hoarse. “If Starscream asked me to help him, I would in a sparkbeat.”

“Starscream will not ask you. I hope he does not.” Ravage’s red optics were so cold. “If Lord Megatron crushes you, you will be no good for anyone. We bide our time, Thundercracker. I wish to see us all alive.”

Skywarp was never the plan-maker, the leader, or the doer, but he took every possible precaution when he broke into Shockwave’s lab all by himself. Starscream and Thundercracker thought he was in the training rooms doing flight sims. Starscream was with Knockout and Thundercracker was with Soundwave or the casettes. Shockwave himself was absent, gone with an expedition on another planet entirely, Urth or Earth or whatever, and that was too good of an opportunity for Skywarp to waste.

It was too much to ask for that Buzzsaw might be happy to see Skywarp, but Skywarp could have gone without all of the screaming and the cursing and the throwing of objects. Somehow, blind as he was and as limited to the bareness of his reduced frame as he was, Buzzsaw retained an incredible throwing aim.

As soon as Buzzsaw understood Skywarp was there, he wriggled off of the table and into a bin of loose, sharp parts. He started hurling them towards the sound of Skywarp’s voice with a furious and reckless abandon. Skywarp much preferred this fight and fire to the despairing listlessness of their last meeting, but the seeker’s spark spun with more anxiety than it was built to handle every time a random part went flying and threatened to roll away and be lost to the open, dark depths of the lab, where Shockwave would surely find it out of place later.

“Oh, Buzzsaw, come on—!” begged Skywarp, scrambling to catch a steel coil before it could bounce off of his cockpit and hit the floor. The fresh welds along Skywarp’s arms smarted with every sudden move, new null rays transformed down and out of the way.

“Can-n-n-n I have nothing?” demanded Buzzsaw through a storm of static. With his scraping beak, he hefted an entire severed hand out of the pile of parts and flung it, limp claws outstretched, towards Skywarp’s face. “No wings? No frame? No say in anything that happens to me?”

“Buzzsaw, I swear Shockwave’s busy right now— but we really shouldn’t be making all this noise—“

“I told you not to come back-k here! Idiot! I’m not going anywhere!”

“I just came to see you!”

“Get out!”

“I have something for you!” Skywarp held up the data pad he had nicked from Thundercracker’s quarters, just to borrow. Ever since Starscream had fixed it up, Thundercracker was constantly crouched over the device’s screen, servos typing endless lines of script, dialogue, and snippets of half-written scenes.

Belatedly, Skywarp remembered Buzzsaw was blind. “Thundercracker’s started writing again.”

Buzzsaw paused, vents heaving. The stillness might have only resulted from a lack of ammo within immediate reach, but Skywarp would take what he could get. “I can read it to you,” he offered. “And then go. Promise.”

“Shut up,” Buzzsaw said. “It’s so hard to think.”

“Did Shockwave— take something else—?”

“No, it’s just your voice,” Buzzsaw said irritably. But he seemed, with some effort, to calm himself down. His beak clacked. Once, his plated feathers would have settled. “Where is Shockwave?”

“Another planet.”

Buzzsaw coiled up and then went limp on the floor, expended. “You won’t tell Thundercracker.”

“Of course not, he’s off playing cards with Deadlock—“ Or Soundwave, Skywarp cut himself off from finishing. “He’ll be busy for ages.”

“Fine, then. Let’s see if it’s any good.”

Skywarp allowed himself to smile, all pointed dentae but all real glee.

Chapter Text

Skywarp kept his word about not telling his trine-mates about Buzzsaw’s imprisonment, but he did continue breaking into Shockwave’s lab to visit Buzzsaw and keep him company. Buzzsaw begrudgingly allowed it, and Skywarp liked to think it was because he enjoyed Thundercracker’s work-in-progress updates instead of the lack of any better options.

“Suddenly, Goldcoil collapsed, falling forward, and Exearm still caught her no matter what dark bitterness had boiled over between them. Goldcoil grunted, making as if to push away, but Exearm held her tight. The femme felt her own servos come away from Goldcoil’s plating slick with hot blood-energon.

“‘You’re injured. What happened?’ Exearm vented, all harbored bitterness vanishing in an instant — and see,” said Skywarp, breaking away, “that’s where they’ve lost me.”

“Where are you lost?” grunted Buzzsaw.

“I don’t know. If I knew where I was lost, then I wouldn’t be lost.”

Buzzsaw made a mechanical squawk like a reluctant laugh, the quality of his voice-box ringing tinny. “What’s wrong with Goldcoil getting stabbed? She’s been stabbed for a whole chapter now.”

“No, she had it coming. But Exearm just forgiving her because of it. . .”

“It’s romantic. They’re in each other’s arms and slag.”

“Come on.”

“They probably think Goldcoil is going to die.”

“Because of a little blood?”

“We don’t know how much blood there is!” Buzzsaw made an impatient noise. “What does the story say next?”

Skywarp peered down at the data pad in his hands, squinting to find his place on the screen. “Uh— bitterness vanishing in an instant— okay, ‘It’s just a little mesh wound,’ chuckled Goldcoil—”

“Ugh,” said Buzzsaw.

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Skywarp. “I say that all the time.”

“Yes, that’s probably where Thundercracker’s drawing some inspiration,” said Buzzsaw in disgust. “And I remember some of your so-called mesh wounds. They were horrific.”

“Nooooo they weren’t,” protested Skywarp, but Buzzsaw kept shaking his blind helm. “Bleeding always makes everything look worse than it is.”

“I remember you came back to us from tangling with enforcers once, so gashed up you were almost broken through in a few in different places. And you looked at us and said, ‘At least I’m still in once piece!’”

“If nothing is missing, then I’m still in one piece. Goldcoil’s a wimp,” said Skywarp, and then he remembered his current company and became so suddenly sick with his own guilt it boggled the processor.

“Goldcoil is a wimp,” agreed Buzzsaw easily. “Keep reading.”

As Skywarp obeyed, Buzzsaw shifted a little but did not interrupt again.

Thundercracker appeared to be experimenting broadly across different formats and mediums for his writing. The short story, the novel, the theater script, a few scattered lines of poetry. He wrote in sections and did not always label his files, either, so Skywarp took a grumbling pause as he came to the end of Goldcoil and Exearm’s current adventure and tried to follow the thread to the next one.

“Looks like that’s it for now,” said Skywarp. “What did you think?”

“I think it’s abundantly clear we’re reading a first draft,” said Buzzsaw lightly. “It’s not fair to judge it.”

“I know you’ve got judgements anyway.”

“It’s a bit clunky. I can’t tell the difference between the actual writing and what’s only you stuttering, but there’s too much repetition. It’s hard to follow along with.”

“Hey, now!” Skywarp protested. When he came across a difficult word, his language banks had a tendency to buffer and come up empty-handed, so he often had to struggle through pronunciation at a guess.

“But like I said. It’s not fair to judge,” said Buzzsaw. He stretched the coil of his neck out as far as he could reach and then let go with a shake to flex the segmented joints. “Hey, I have something for you.”

Skywarp sub-spaced the data pad. “Oh, yeah?”

“It’s a program. You’ll have to wire it from me. My file-sharing capabilities are shot through.”

“Is it a dictionary?”

Buzzsaw huffed. “No, you can get that from anyone. I have a program for you. Emotion-blockers. You’ll need them if Shockwave ever gets you.”

Skywarp stilled. “Doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

“Soundwave uses them.”

“Really?” said Skywarp, but the next instant he supposed it made sense. “Huh. Well— that’s Soundwave. That’s not me. I need to be able to fight.”

Emotion-blockers were what the autobots employed for prisoners and experiments and mechs they wanted boxed into a drone’s existence. Skywarp couldn’t conscience it, confining the vibrant parts of himself like that. It reeked of danger, too, of losing himself.

Buzzsaw said, “If you ever end up here with me, you’re going to want to be rid of as much feeling as you can.”

“Seems to me like you have plenty of emotion, though,” said Skywarp.

“I can turn them off whenever you come back to bug me. But, hmph, they fail a lot. The program’s old. There’s only so much it can hold back for so long.” Buzzsaw’s optic sockets were black, black, black. “Still, it’s something. I wouldn’t be alive without it. I can’t let you go on without having it, either, because you are a reckless fool and I know I can’t give you anything else.”

Skywarp frowned. He pinched the head of a wrist cable in hesitation, but he knew already it wasn’t in him to refuse a request from Buzzsaw phrased like that. “Alright,” he said.

“No more games,” said Megatron, but he made Soundwave project his voice with so much bass and volume that it sounded more like, “NO MORE GAMES.”

For the decepticon leader’s grand address, the throne room was packed to the brim with standing frames bristling with weaponry and bulked out with armor. At the urging of Megatron’s orders (and the presence of his energon cannon) every able-bodied decepticon came forward as best as they were able to give show as an attentive audience, but the crowd spilled out the door and left a number of stragglers lingering awkwardly out in the hall. Starscream wished that he and his trine had been wise enough to delay— inside the throne room, there was hardly enough room to shuffle, let alone to kneel or prostrate oneself before the throne as Megatron usually preferred.

“I have a master plan,” Megatron continued, “To end the autobots once and for all in pitched battle. There is a doomsday weapon within my sights and soon it will be in decepticon hands!”

Starscream straightened, interest piqued as he exchanged glances with Thundercracker and Skywarp. Grandstanding aside, that sounded promising.

“At last, the autobot weaklings will be crushed. Under us, they will know the power of true strength and they will fear it—“

[I see that look on your face, Starscream,] Thundercracker commed the trine line. [Now is not the time for questions.]

[All of this grandstanding!] Starscream complained. [And none of the facts! A doomsday weapon is not just something you gloss over, especially if it could apparently win us this war!]

Skywarp commed, [He has to rile up the troops.]

And the troops were riled, growing rowdier with each call to action from Megatron. There was a sea of fists raised towards the ceiling, mechs cheering over the blast of fans working overtime against the computer heat of packed frames. Deadlock, though, Starscream spotted from across the room with his arms crossed. The black and white racer did not seem to move except when the crowd jostled him.

Soundwave stood a little behind Megatron, to the right. His visor flashed once, drawing Starscream’s gaze, but Starscream did not know for certain whether or not it had been an intentional signal until Soundwave pulled him aside after the speech was over and the crowd was allowed to disperse.

“Well, what is it?” asked Starscream, but Soundwave’s field jabbed with warning.

Starscream allowed Soundwave to corral him along the edges of the dispersing crowd, covert in the shadows and almost anonymous except for the fact that Starscream could not help but carry a bit of flash and glamor wherever he went. At last, Soundwave turned a corner and stopped in the blanket of shadow under a busted wall light.

A file-share request blinked on Starscream’s HUD. It was a chronological report of every failed ‘doomsday weapon’ and ‘last battle’ Megatron had led the decepticons towards over the most recent millenia.

“Rust, Soundwave,” Starscream whispered in glee. “Is this criticism of our glorious leader?”

“Negative. Starscream: must manage expectations. Reckless action in the field: unnecessary.”

“I swear on my spark I don’t have anything planned,” said Starscream sweetly.

Soundwave lapsed into a silence that was almost hateful until he said, “Frenzy: eject.”

Frenzy folded out of Soundwave’s cassette dock and regarded Starscream with an unimpressed sneer. “Hey, Screamer. Soundwave thinks you’re going to get yourself and everybody else killed so you should stop doing crazy stuff on the fly.”

“What if we need something done on the fly?”

Soundwave said, “Chance of mission success: 16.03%.”

“Yeah, so don’t bother being a hero,” said Frenzy.

Starscream shuttered his optics. “So— what? There’s an overwhelming chance we die?”

“Negative. Chance of survival: 40.43%.”

Frenzy added, “Those are really good odds.”

“Inclusion of factor ‘something done on the fly’ decreases survival odds significantly.”

Starscream crossed his arms. “Alright, alright. I see your point. No improvising. We should go back and rehash the plan so it’s got an actual shot, then.”

Soundwave replied, “Negative. Battle formations drafted and finalized by Lord Megatron. Lord Megatron’s decisions: invariable.”

Perhaps the issue was Starscream’s self-inclusion— the seeker knew well he was never welcome at any high command meetings to begin with. “Soundwave. If you alone edit the battle formations, is it possible we might increase the odds of victory?”

“Lord Megatron’s decisions: invariable.”

Starscream lost whatever thin patience he had mustered. “It’s preposterous for us to waste our time just because Megatron won’t take any suggestions. I’m not an idiot and neither are you!”

Oh, if Soundwave and Frenzy wanted Starscream to take a hands-off approach, he did not think he could do it. He was always one to shoot for the stars, and while he was eager for any opportunity to criticize Megatron’s leadership, Starscream would fall like a mech starving upon any opportunity to win this war once and for all. This alien weapon could be it.

Frenzy cast a look about the hall, visibly nervous. He shuffled to hide behind one of Soundwave’s tall legs. “Shut up. Someone might hear you.”

Starscream forced his plating to lie flat. He vented. “I imagine you won’t want me sharing any of this,” he said quietly. “So I’ll make us even and say something I don’t want repeated— Have a little faith, Soundwave.”

Soundwave’s EM field rippled once, like a drop of water in a bucket — for him, Starscream guessed, the equivalent of a loud gasp. “Faith,” he repeated tonelessly.

“In us!” The seeker motioned between them. “You and I will be there.”

“Holy slag,” said Frenzy hopelessly.

“I am not suggesting anyone has any faith in you, Frenzy.” Starscream looked up at Soundwave once more. “Or Lord Megatron. When his plan inevitably goes wrong, we’ll just have to make something happen regardless. We can make our own plan. What would you—”

On wordless signal, Frenzy flipped up into a transformation, Soundwave catching him mid-air as a cassette and bundling him away in his chassis. With a distinctly dangerous silence, Soundwave turned down the hallway and marched away.

On a distant planet made of salt and flesh, Skywarp stood with his limbs heavy on the battlefield of a deserted city. It was unlike any city he had ever seen, grown instead of built, every structure made out of a veiny, organic flesh that was either squishy or calloused. It bubbled under blaster fire and smelled putrid when burned. When it collapsed into bloodless mush, strings of goo separated the chunks.

Standing alone where he was, Skywarp started to laugh, deep from the chassis, something true and not malicious and which he would not have been able to hold back if he tried.

From helm to pede, every inch of his living metal baked a supernova from the inside, and Skywarp thought his frame must have been as white-hot as the day the pieces were forged. The heat poured out of his vents in waves that made the air shimmer. He felt volcanic. Exerted. Unstoppable.

His shiny new null rays weren’t so shiny anymore. The smoking barrels, black with ash, weighed down Skywarp’s arms and made his shoulder pauldrons sloop with a pronounced ache, but Skywarp’s spark was light in his chassis. He knew what to do in battle, more than anywhere else, and there was a deep satisfaction in a job well done. His corner of the battlefield was so thoroughly blasted he might have been the only mech standing, though Skywarp was finding it difficult to muster the energy to lift his chin or the wherewithal to look around with urgency. Most of his opponents would get up again— he thought— but it would take some doing, slumped in smoking and shot-through heaps as they were now. The autobot medics would curse Skywarp’s designation to the pits.

“Heheh.” Skywarp took another step, not quite knowing where he was going but assured he would get there eventually. His trine would find him. “Heh. . .”

There was a surly ping from the trine comm line. Thundercracker. [Where the hell are you two? I sound like a rewound tape!]

[Uhhh,] commed Skywarp. [East flank?]

[I’m there now, with Soundwave! I don’t see you!]

Skywarp was fairly certain he had started at the east flank after a hasty landing, but the battle kept him going and. . .

[Yeah, TC, I dunno.] Skywarp listened hard, in case he could hear an exasperated blatt of static from Thundercracker in the distance, but there was nothing. [Can you ditch somewhere out of sight so I can warp to you? I’ve got some juice left in me.]

[How much?]

[. . . Quarter tank.]

[Hellpits. I’d tell you to warp anyway, but if you come here you won’t be going somewhere safe. Hunker down somewhere.]

[No way.] Skywarp wished TC would ditch Soundwave, that faithless piece of rusting slag, but he could prioritize. [Nowhere’s safe. Let me have your back. Give me a landmark.]

[Big flesh tower? With purple veins? It’s raining down organic muck because some gunfire nicked it and it’s wounded, I suppose. It’s horrible. I had to shut my olfactories off.]

Skywarp shaded his optics and squinted at at the lumpy skyline. [Is it the biggest one in the middle?]

[Second-biggest.] A pause. [A fire just started. It’s burning wet, lots of smoke.]

Skywarp honed in on the second-biggest and most-disgusting flesh skyscraper in the distance, half a city away. Too far away to walk to in any reasonable amount of time, but Skywarp reconsidered to using his outlier ability to shortcut. From that distance, a single warp would eat up half of what little fuel he had left, and the last thing he needed was to keel over unconscious in the middle of a swing.

Flying it was. He started to compose a comm reply, I’m coming to you, but a red blur flew in from the side and nailed him in the jaw plate so hard his helm snapped back and his optical feed went white.

Skywarp darted backwards, swinging blindly and missing. His opponent ducked nimbly and darted backwards, too, so they could get a good look at one another. Skywarp reset his optics, vision clearing harshly, and knew on sight that the stranger was an autobot. Two autobots— there was a friend standing off to the side with a glare. Two sports cars. One red and one yellow with their paint-jobs scratched all over, but both mechs wore the wear and tear like it was recently earned. Skywarp could see patches of gleaming polish in between the rough scoring.

It was the red one that hit him again while Skywarp was distracted. Skywarp didn’t spit any of his dentae out, but there was an ominous shifting as he ran his mesh tongue over his front chips. He grinned.

“You can teleport, right?” barked Red.

Skywarp’s brow plates shot up and that grin vanished. “Huh?”

“You’re Skywarp?”

They know, thought Skywarp with an old rush of dread. How could they know?

But Skywarp swore his processor ran smoothest in battle and his thoughts skipped nicely over the face of his ingrained fear (Theyknowtheyknowwhataretheygoingtodotomenow?). His logic unit could surface enough to function, and it told him that however secretive Skywarp and Thundercracker had been over their outlier abilities for all of their functioning, they had told Megatron, and Megatron at one point would have had every reason to confide in the mech that became Optimus Prime. Even for secrets that were not his own.

Skywarp, suddenly, straightened and raised his nose to look primly down upon the autobots. “Of course not,” he said. “Get off my tailpipe and I might tell you where he is.”

Red squinted. “No? No, it’s you. You look exactly like him!”

“Imbeciles,” said Skywarp with appropriate screech. “We’re seekers. We swapped paint.”

Red’s intake fell open. He exchanged a quick look with Yellow.

“Then who’s this one?” asked Yellow, voice scratchy.

“Starscream! Of Vos!” Skywarp tamped down a giddy smile, but a hint of it quirked his mouth at the side as he spoke— Starscream would hate this, but Skywarp remembered this stupid flourish Starscream used to do in the academy before Thundercracker told him it looked like a malfunction. Skywarp bowed elaborately and then posed. “My idiot trine-mates are flying around as Novastorm and Ionstorm— but you’ll never catch them. They’re too fast, too mean, and too clever for the likes of you.”

Starscream was the only one of the trine without an outlier ability, but the autobots did not lose interest like Skywarp had hoped.

“Oh, sweet,” said Red.  “That’s even better.”

Skywarp pressed, “Why?”

“Prime’ll be happy,” said Yellow, without sounding too happy, himself.

“I didn’t and I will not give that—“ Skywarp paused, searching for a word, ”— weak-willed slanderer the time of day.”

And Skywarp liked to make Starscream the butt of a fair few jokes, but he couldn’t let autobots walk around under the impression that they could just corner Star alone and ferry him back for recruitment to their undead monster of a prime. Skywarp raised both arms to shoot.

There was a click from the barrels, a quick flash of light like a guttered spark, and then nothing. Skywarp kept trying the triggers— click, click, click. The new guns were spent.

“Frag!” he spat, readying his bare fists just as Red and Yellow converged on him.

The autobots looked like a set and they fought like a set, matching snarls drawing lips back from dentae. The categorization registered in Skywarp’s processor comfortably. He was used to groupings of three and five, but perhaps the lesser numbers meant Primus was smiling down on him with some sort of fondness— it was difficult to manage these autobot twins as they were. Another fighter to join them, just as ruthless, and Skywarp might have fallen.

But the other two went down first.

Red scrambled to his knees, but went no further because the butt of one of Skywarp’s guns caught him under the chin guard.

“I think my cooldown’s up,” said Skywarp teasingly, daring the twins to challenge otherwise.

“Kill us, then!” said Red.

Skywarp tilted his helm, long shadow tilting with it, but he did not need to consider for long. There might have been something poetic to say, something memorable or outrageous, but Skywarp only said, “No!” and cheerfully brought a fist down onto the top of Red’s helm. The mech went out like a light, a fresh dent marring his forehead. Yellow was dealt the same treatment without ceremony.

Skywarp winced and flexed his shoulders in their joint sockets, turning away, already on to the next thing. Perhaps the guns specs were a little too far out of his size class. . . He seemed to have broken the damn things, anyway, as fun as they were. Skywarp was tempted to rip them off like chains, but he found that when he closed a hand around the tip of a sizzling barrel, he could not muster the strength. Oh, well.

A hand closed around the thruster of the seeker’s heel.

“Oh?” Skywarp laughed, just as his pede was tugged out from underneath him. Yellow, snarling, leapt upon him from all fours. Skywarp twisted on the ground to bring up the shield of his forearms.

“Haha! Who are you?” said Skywarp.

Yellow revved his engines aggressively and swung for Skywarp’s helm, but Skywarp caught his fist and bucked him off, rolling quickly away to duck a blaster shot that grazed the sensors of a left wing and scored the ground black.

Red had found his footing and a blaster rifle, likely from one of his downed comrades. Autobots on the whole did not seem to use integrated weapons often, sparks too weak to supply the energy demands.

“It’s Sideswipe!” said Red, jabbing a thumb at his own chestplate. “And that’s Sunstreaker! Don’t you forget it, con!”

Well, he wouldn’t. Were they gladiators? They must have been gladiators. Skywarp recognized a brutality he had seen often in the pits of Kaon. He hadn’t had a fight this good in astro-years. “Have either of you seen the pits? You seem too shiny, but. . .”

Sideswipe’s optics flashed. “Yeah. We’ve seen ‘em.”

“What’re mechs like you doing with the autobots?” Skywarp wondered out loud. It earned him a pepper of blaster-fire to dodge.

Exhilarated as he was from battle high, Skywarp knew the fight needed to be over, soon, in the same way a mech might know to stop drinking high-grade before blackout.

“Hey, now!” he said breathlessly, smiling, straightening even though his aching back struts wanted to hunch. “Hey, now, don’t get distracted— look over there!”

With immense effort, Skywarp stuck an arm straight out, pointing to a random spot over the horizon. Bless their sparks, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker actually turned their helms to look.

Skywarp was gone with a warp in the next instant.

When Thundercracker turned to see Skywarp, he swore.

“I feel great!” said Skywarp. Hot steam poured out of every armor seam. His vents ran ragged on high blast. Smiling looked like torture on the jaw plate, crooked as it was, but smile Skywarp did. He was covered in dents and rapidly-drying blood-energon.

“You got your aft handed to you. You needed backup, not us,” said Thundercracker. “Lean on me, now. There you go. How bad was it over there?”

“Not bad at all. There were lotsa mechs that didn’t matter and then there were two at the end who totally did. Wicked moves. You know what they called it?” asked Skywarp, grin so wide but voice so fuzzy. An impending shutdown loomed. “Jet-Judo. Haha!”

“Jet-Judo,” agreed Thundercracker distantly, far more preoccupied with scanning the area. His helm swiveled on the peg of his neck like a watch-light.

However well Skywarp had done for himself, it was difficult to tell how the rest of the battle fared. An autobot charge had divided the standing decepticon army in half like a knife and everyone scattered in different directions across the strange, maze-like territory of the flesh city to save their own metal. The air armada had not shown any greater unity— Thundercracker often heard stray seekers shoot by overhead, and his decision to stick by Soundwave had placed Thundercracker in as much missile danger as the enemies actually targeted.

From the proximity of their EM fields, Thundercracker noticed some of Skywarp’s cheer dim when the purple and black seeker’s optics settled on Soundwave’s turned back. Through the delicate lines of several data cables, the SIC was plugged into an abomination of a computer interface that, like everything else on the planet, looked nothing like it should. All guts and mush.

Suddenly, Soundwave reeled back from the console with a jerk, spooling in his data cables so quickly they flicked organic gunk onto the seekers’ armor. Pinkish fluid streamed out of the tiny holes they left behind in the slab of flesh.

Thundercracker’s field laced with concern. “Can’t connect to it?”

“Incompatible hardware. Inaccessible data streams,” droned Soundwave. “Solution: reliance upon field data from cassette agents.”

Rumble, Frenzy, Laserbeak, and Ravage had gone off to scout long before Thundercracker had reunited with Soundwave. There continued to be no sign of Ratbat and Thundercracker did not ask after the missing agent.

“Let’s get out of the open,” said Thundercracker, shouldering Skywarp’s burden.

The seekers limped along like a three-legged race with Soundwave in the lead. The SIC could scan some distance ahead for enemies, but they encountered few. The autobots they did encounter, Thundercracker dealt with, but dealt with too heavy of a hand— to disastrous effect upon his own team.

Some plucky autobot half Thundercracker’s height darted out of the space between two craggy lumps of smoldering flesh. On frayed, inelegant instinct, Thundercracker let a startled, “GAH!” become a sonic boom that took care of the autobot, two of his friends crouched in hiding nearby, and also Soundwave and Skywarp.

A sonic boom from Thundercracker was all force and forward motion. Every mech standing within range, caught off guard without the opportunity to deaden their senses or brace for impact, felt a a clap of disorientating static and were abruptly cut off from the world. Audials whined and equilibrium tipped wildly, but the effects were not purely restricted to the senses— Soundwave and Skywarp were knocked clean off their pedes. Poor Skywarp was flung head-over-heels backwards and into a fleshy wall that did not break but molded into an impression of wings like a design pressed into tin.

There was a beat with Thundercracker stood alone, digits splayed in confusion, optics cycling rapidly at the frames fallen in a radius around him.

“Slag!” he burst out, barely able to hear his own voice. “I’m sorry—“

Soundwave’s EM field came down on the area like a poison fog. Thundercracker jerked like he’d been electrocuted and pressed his palms against his audials like it would help— it felt like Soundwave had wormed his unhappy way into the space between Thundercracker’s circuits, worse than any processor ache. One of the autobots thrashed on the ground, wailing, and Thundercracker brought a pede down on his helm as an act of mercy more than vengeance— the mech went quiet and still, but the decepticons were not so lucky.

“Soundwave!” shouted Skywarp, wrapping his arms around the top of his own helm.

“Soundwave!” Thundercracker shouted, stretching out in agony.

Soundwave had the most sensitive sensors of anyone in the decepticon armada, and the loss of even one of them was debilitating. Blind and deaf, his systems crashed and rebooted again and again while the anomaly of his EM field thrashed wildly out of control.

The doomsday weapon Megatron wanted stolen belonged to an advanced alien civilization that grew hive cities out from the surface of their gooey pink planet. The aliens themselves were slow-moving masses of green gelatin without obvious faces of orifices, but they apparently communicated with one another through a psychic connection facilitated by proximity and touch. Starscream had not personally seen one of the planet’s denizens and had no desire to— the capital city of salt and flesh, where the weapon was displayed and the battle raged on, was totally evacuated thanks to a well-timed warning from the Autobots.

Starscream refused to touch the ground for as long as he could, but other than a cry for help from his trine, there was only one other thing that could have landed him: a cry for help from Megatron.

Not that Megatron would ever characterize it as such. Starscream received a personal comm with a set of coordinates and a terse demand for backup, and seeing as how Thundercracker and Skywarp had become separated once again, Starscream answered it by himself.

In jet-mode, Starscream pivoted in the air to follow the coordinates and then crashed through a netted lattice window of pink string that stretched with a wet sound before it broke. Starscream transformed to land in a roll, scrunching his face in terrible upset at the feel of the ground beneath him. There was a slight sink wherever he stepped. Every surface was so oily.

A temple, Soundwave said this place was, but Starscream never could see what made any such place holy. He did see the sought-after weapon caged in a floating forcefield above a pool of bubbling slime. And he did see Lord Megatron and Optimus Prime doing their best to strangle the lights out of each other on the raised platform surrounding the slime pit like a U.

“Starscream!” shouted Megatron. “The weapon!”

Optimus Prime’s helm turned to follow Starscream from across the room, a motion as predictable as a moon cycle. He caught a fist to the side of his battle mask as consequence.

“Alright,” Starscream vented, hands on his hips, casting quickly around for any sort of control console. There— in the corner by the wall, a rectangular slab glowing with several fuzzy blobs of light shining from underneath a layer of translucent skin. They looked enough like pressable buttons for Starscream to start towards it.

Behind, Megatron and Optimus collided head-on. The sound of steel fists against steel armor rang terribly. It was just as loud to beat metal out of shape as it was to beat into shape.

Starscream, inspecting an alien interface he had almost no hope of connecting to, muttered a distant, “Good job, my lord,” or, “Keep fighting, my lord,” whenever Megatron let out a scream of rage or pain.

Going by what Starscream knew of how these aliens communicated with other, he had the grim suspicion that interacting with this lumpy control console involved some sort of gooey, organically tactile connection outside the realm of any mechanism. He gave it a fair try anyway, stabbing a claw at one of the glowing buttons with his faceplate scrunched like a mesh rag in disgust.

Starscream’s honed claw stabbed through the layer of skin and into a bubble of fluid. The little glowing light died as it poured itself out in a jet of red water aimed directly towards Starscream’s face.

Starscream squealed, stumbling back with servos wiping desperately at the film over his optics. He leaned forward and began to dry retch with his hands on his knee struts as Optimus Prime and Lord Megatron drew their weapons out of subspace and began hacking away at each other.

“Wretched piece of castoff junk,” said Starscream, knowing he would try again. “Wretched planet.”

The wretched planet chafed at intruders and burned under the crossfire of a conflict it did not originate or invite. Its citizens, absent out of strategy as much as safety, readied to bring down the defensive hammer.

Across the capital city, several things happened in quick succession:

Thundercracker, immobilized with the reflection of Soundwave’s pain, tried to ping Soundwave. The comm bounced.

A deep blare of garbled noise shook Starscream down to the metal bones of his frame, reverberating through the temple floor below his pedes and making the city architecture jiggle. It sounded once, twice, in demanding bursts.

Skywarp ran a program that neatly excised all worries and ugly emotions from the forefront of his processor. They existed, but they were unimportant, and the space left behind was numb clarity. He was able to stand.

“What was that noise?” demanded Megatron.

“The people who live here,” said Starscream.

Thundercracker tried to ping Rumble, but the comm bounced. He pinged Frenzy, but the comm bounced. He pinged Laserbeak, Ravage, and in his confusion, Buzzsaw.

Skywarp grabbed hold of Soundwave’s forearm, brought their hands together, and tapped out a line of clumsy hand-speak— I’m single and freaky— some of the only hand-glyphs he knew, entirely unrelated to situation at hand and enough of a non-sequitor for Soundwave’s processor to latch onto instead of how badly he was in pain.

Ravage answered her comm line— [What’s going on?]— and, were she less of a professional, she would have flinched at the garbled, near-unintelligible pack of crushed glyphs Thundercracker responded with.

Ravage commed Rumble, who commed Frenzy, who commed Laserbeak, who did not comm Ratbat. The four conferred quickly in the seconds-long understanding of friends long intertwined, but not quickly enough. By the time each of them took the first step in a veered path towards Soundwave’s location, Soundwave the consummate professional had already shoved Skywarp aside and, more or less, recovered.

There was that noise from earlier to untangle— a translating comm from Soundwave came through, broadly shared across the Decepticon channel: [Threat announcement: native warships will bomb the area indiscriminately. No lifeforms will be spared.]

There was a shadow cast outside, blocking out the planet’s sun. Starscream poked his helm out of the temple window he entered through and gogged at a legion of misshapen pink warships floating above the city. He whirled towards Megatron and Optimus, screeching, “Did you hear that? We have to retreat!”

The shout was Megatron’s folly— the warlord turned his helm to admonish Starscream and Optimus got a hit in that knocked Megatron off of the U-shaped platform and into the pool of slime.

“Get out of there!” Starscream shrieked at Megatron, darting backwards to put more distance between himself and Optimus. “No doubt it’s corrosive!”

Megatron scrabbled at the lip of the pool. “What,” he gritted out, “Do you think I’m—”

Optimus leapt down from the platform, seized Megatron two-handedly, and hauled him roughly onto dry land. Megatron tumbled face-first towards the ground, twisting at the last second to rip a flail out of subspace and lash out at Optimus with it. Optimus hopped backward, letting the flail graze the paint of his lower chassis, and then summoned the axe to bring down over Megatron’s spark.

The glowing blade stuck to the score it wrenched into Megatron’s chest plates. Megatron grabbed at what handle he could reach, but Optimus ripped the axe away and brought it down again and again.

Megatron’s optics erupted around the edges with orange sparks and then he went motionless. Not dead— Starscream knew Megatron’s spark must have been encased in at least five layers of cold titanium dura-steel and nothing short of a hydraulic press would open his chest plates by force. Not dead— unconscious. Stasis lock.

Starscream and Optimus waited, staring at Megatron’s still frame in case the stasis lock was only an act. Then, as one, the autobot and the decepticon looked up at the coveted alien weapon still hovering its strange forcefield, a lumpy and misshapen wand of pink flesh alternatively squishy and hard.

No matter if the security defenses were still up— Starscream could fly. Thrusters firing, he leapt into the air, wove around Optimus’s helm, and shot towards the force field. Resigning himself to whatever the consequences, he grabbed for the wand. Starscream’s sensors burned like magma. His optics sparked with pain. His entire arm plunged through a slow, churning ooze of the force field, but his servos closed around the skin-calloused handle of the weapon and yanked it free completely dry.

Starscream’s pedes landed on the platform. He had no time to be disgusted at the feel of the wand in his hand— the entire thing disintegrated into chalky dust, taking with it all of Starscream’s forward momentum. He halted, dumbfounded, staring at the coating of white flakes in his palm as Optimus came up behind him to stare, too.

“It’s a fake,” said Starscream.

“Ah,” said Optimus. “They must have moved it.”

There was a beat of utter silence, and then Starscream’s blankness was overcome by fire. “. . . Which of course would happen, why on Primus’s steel Cybertron would anyone leave such a weapon laying around in the open like that, temple or no temple. . .!”

Which left Starscream alone with Optimus, Megatron out cold at their pedes. Optimus did not do the wise thing and execute Megatron on the spot— probably some notion of a trial rattling around in that noble processor, the opportunity for a media circus too good to pass up for anything like a secure end.

Starscream shook the dust off his hand. The last mechs standing looked at each other.

“I see you’ve gotten over your initial shyness,” said Starscream just as Optimus took a vent of breath in. “Goodness, you’re so chatty.”

Optimus blustered— Starscream seemed to have interrupted the flow of some speech he had planned, but with a little grace, the prime recovered. “Megatron has fallen.” Optimus drew the blade of his axe— flattering, that he pulled it for Starscream so soon. “Surrender, Starscream.”

“Good job. You got him. Call your autobots and go up to reason with those warships before they blow us sky-high!”

“You would stand down while we take your leader hostage?” Optimus asked.

“Sure! If you can multitask! Because I am not going to stand here and get blown into atoms if I can help it. Now, I know you must have a contact line with the native leadership here. Use it.”

Optimus gave Starscream an exasperated look but straightened, optics focusing for a comm. “If you think I will leave without securing you or Megatron, you are mistaken.”

“Oh, certainly. Waste our limited time. Bring stasis cuffs, a cage, all the ceremony you like.” Starscream crossed his arms and tapped a pede impatiently. In his processor he mapped out a cursory escape plan as a matter of course— he could grab Megatron and make for the window even if he had to cut off Megatron’s arms to make the burden flight manageable— but there was no point in escaping Optimus’s clutches if the city itself could not be escaped in time (and Optimus’s clutches were laughably loose, even if Starscream’s guns had proven demonstrably ineffective against the prime’s armor upgrades. If their situations were reversed, Starscream would have already reached over and ripped out Optimus’s comm system and one of his main energon lines to boot.). Starscream doubted Optimus’s security would hold him for long.

“Er,” said Optimus. “There is no one able to assist us in a timely manner. There have been reports of a. . . purple monster. . . wiping out fifteen squadrons.”

“I’m sure the squadrons were small,” said Starscream with a pointed smile.

Starscream wanted so badly to see what kind of expression Optimus made underneath that mask, but Optimus continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I will attempt to contact this planet’s powers and go forth with negotiations myself— that is, with you and Megatron. As my prisoners.”

“Ugh.”

“I have ordered my autobots to retreat for their lives, in case we are unsuccessful.”

“There is a ‘we,’ now?”

“It did not even cross my mind that you might stay silent. We don’t have much time. These will be peaceful negotiations, Starscream.”

“Hm,” said Starscream, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He commed Soundwave while he still could, before Optimus could remember a comms blocker or the like floating around in his subspace. [CALL A RETREAT!]

Soundwave’s reply was immediate, though laced with a strange, halting static. [Negative. Lord Megatron’s acting orders: upheld. Weapon will be retrieved.]

[The weapon’s not where we thought it would be.]

[Report acknowledged. Search: in progress.]

[Forget it. We retreat or we die!]

[Insufficient time for retreat. Obliteration of ground forces: imminent. Best hope of survival: securing weapon to use against enemy fleet. 0.134% of success,] commed Soundwave.

That was a desperate option and a race against the clock, most likely resigning everyone to death anyway. Luckily Starscream had an option slightly better: [I’ll delay the bombs. Provide distraction. That’ll give you time.]

[Negative.] And it was telling that Soundwave didn’t even bother sharing the percent chance of success for that one.

[You don’t have all the information. I’m right where I need to be: next to Optimus Prime.] Soundwave sent a garbled ping that made Starscream roll his optics. [We’re being held hostage, by the way.]

[Query: ‘We’?]

[Megatron and I.]

[Query: Starscream, Megatron: held by autobot forces?]

[That’s what I said. Congratulations, you’re promoted from Second. Anyway— since Optimus is short on mechpower at hand, he’s got no choice but to take his hostages with him when he goes up to negotiate with the aliens. So it’s the autobots’ metal on the line, too, but even if their negotiations do succeed, they’ll let these aliens blow us up without a second thought. I will do my best to prevent it, so if all this effort is going to be worth anything at all, the decepticons must begin the retreat now!]

There was a long pause. [Affirmative. Thundercracker and Skywarp: remain behind, continue weapon extraction. Soundwave: remain behind to scout location, maintain wired connection to compound database and circumvent security systems. Will remain: on call.]

Megatron twitched on the ground like he might re-awaken. Starscream kicked him in the helm, lights out, before Optimus could finish drawing his axe.

“Why so rough?” Optimus sputtered.

Starscream said, “Megatron allows me one small betrayal per astro-hour to stave off one large betrayal when he least expects it.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am. Pick him up.” Starscream turned swiftly towards the temple exit.

Optimus’s logic center seemed to have a rare flash of activity; as Starscream turned his back, he felt a sudden press between his wings, a firm touch that was gone before Starscream could truly register it.

What Starscream did register were his wings stiffening at the hinges, his flight systems locking up in a freeze. In a panic, Starscream found he could make his thrusters fire, but only in short bursts that couldn’t even lift his pedes off the ground.

“Wing-binds!” Starscream spat, whirling around with a swipe.

Starscream’s claws only caught empty air. “A necessary caution,” answered Optimus apologetically. “I know who I’m dealing with.” Wisely, he had backed away out of immediate reach.

The wing-binds were a smaller and more sophisticated model than Starscream had ever encountered before; the binds he faced in the past were bulky collars fitting around the neck, slow to set up and easy to see coming. Starscream swore, straining to reach around and remove the square device he felt clinging to his back plate, but he could only graze it with the tip of a claw. In self-defense, the binding device sent an electric jolt throughout his entire frame.

“If you cooperate, I will remove it soon,” said Optimus. “But first— saving everyone’s lives, yes?”

“Rust-licker,” Starscream spat. He closed the distance between them in a few furious strides and flattened a hand against the autobot emblem on Optimus’s right shoulder. As Starscream suspected, the emblem was not simply painted on— it was a metal cutout welded to Optimus’s outer armor and smoothly painted over. Clever blue claws found the smallest hairline gap in the welds and dug in. Mercilessly, Starscream ripped Optimus’s badge off in one downward yank.

“Ah!” Optimus gasped.

“Mine, now,” Starscream said, and tried to satisfy himself with the petty sacrilege of pocketing a prime’s personal effects until a less dire situation allowed for better revenges.

Optimus rubbed the bald spot on his pauldron like a sting. “What could you even want with that?”

“You take something of mine, I take something of yours,” Starscream said. He jabbed an imperious claw down as Megatron’s slumped frame. “Now pick him up! We have somewhere to be!”

Optimus obeyed, but not without some of his strange wryness peeking through. “Forgive me for needing assurances,” he said, hefting Megatron over his shoulder, “That we will all be going there.”

Soundwave said, “Systems: re-calibrated. Soundwave: recovered. Target has seventy-five possible locations.”

Skywarp and Thundercracker received a file each, a list of locations ranked in order, complete with coordinates on a sparse map gathered from the cassettes’ data.

“That was fast,” said Skywarp. He was walking on his own again, mostly thanks to a cube Soundwave had surrendered from subspace. As the group prepared to part ways, he began stretching his struts to transform after so much wear and tear.

“Soundwave: superior.”

Thundercracker shrugged a shoulder and said, in a tone that might have brokered a wry smile, “Soundwave knows everything that goes on around here.”

Lightly, Skywarp asked, “What goes down in Shockwave’s labs, then?”

In the lead, Soundwave stopped walking. Over a shoulder pauldron, he turned his helm to aim a blank red visor at Skywarp. The seekers waited, but there was no reply. After a long moment, Soundwave simply faced forward and then continued walking, leaving Thundercracker and Skywarp to scramble in pursuit.

This was not idle curiosity on Skywarp’s end, Thundercracker knew at once. Whatever it was, Soundwave must have been privy, but Soundwave never shared anything with anyone— but how could it be that Skywarp knew something and had not told Thundercracker?

Thundercracker asked, “Why are you interested in the labs?”

Skywarp said, “We’ve all heard some wild rumors.”

“Active battlefield,” admonished Soundwave without turning again. “Time-sensitive mission.” And it wasn’t as if he was wrong.

A breeze whistled between the buildings and some of the fog in their path cleared. Suddenly, the three mechs were facing down a tunneled archway with steam pouring out in hot clouds. It looked like a huge pink smokestack tipped on its side and Soundwave didn’t wait long before starting towards it.

“Begin search.” The SIC inclined his helm once and disappeared into the steam.

“That aft,” muttered Skywarp in the newfound, relative privacy. He leaned against a crumbling building and paid no mind to the sheen of oil rubbing off onto his plating.

Speaking fast, Thundercracker muttered, “Is this related to Vortex again? You’re worried about the Combaticons?”

Skywarp shook his black helm, biting his lip. “Not exactly that. I have a secret and I can’t tell you.”

Ridiculous. Thundercracker shuttered his optics once and digested that with the pang of another helm-ache coming on. Ridiculous, because: “Me, too.”

Skywarp’s brow-plates shot up. “Really? Are you sure?”

With a flare of impatience, Thundercracker hissed, “It’s important.”

The other seeker met his gaze evenly. “So is my thing.”

“. . . Okay.”

“Okay.”

“So we will have to trust each other,” said Thundercracker.

“We can’t tell Starscream,” said Skywarp.

There was a beat of mutual consideration. Starscream would never, ever be content to let anything lie.

Thundercracker nodded. “I know.”

Skywarp shot a quick smile, a promise. The seekers transformed and carried on.

Outside the temple, Starscream pointed a claw directly up towards the alien sky-fleet. “Well?” he prodded impatiently. “Are you contacting them? Are they picking up?”

Optimus said, “They know full well we are here.”

“Oh, joy. Do they mean to keep us in suspense or do they mean to blow us up regardless of whatever we could say?” muttered Starscream. It was a question posed as a statement and Optimus had the grace not to answer it.

Instead, inexplicably, Optimus said, “Nervous?”

Starscream shot him a nasty look. “We go forth to negotiate with aliens still holding onto the weapon of mass destruction I failed to steal. It could be better.”

“It’s not a weapon of mass destruction. It is The Masterwork of Bobbin and it is a tool used for building.”

“It’s a wand used to raze cities, I know.”

“Not in the way you’re thinking. It’s really quite fascinating.” There was a pause like Optimus might have continued that line of thought, but he changed tracks and said instead, “We ought to leave it alone.”

Starscream remembered the archivist that was. He found himself saying, “Tell me whatever anecdotes you’ve compiled about this disgusting city, in case it kills us. I should know where Starscream of Vos made his last stand.”

Optimus shifted. Starscream thought he might refuse, just to be petty, but the prime said, “The organic material grown into this planet’s architecture naturally decays over time and its life span is quite short. The entire city is ritualistically built, destroyed, and then re-built at once.”

“Hmm. Everything here seems like it has a tendency to break apart and melt under heat,” Starscream muttered. “Though under far less temperature than metal. The weapon— the Masterwork— I figure, must be like some kind of heat ray or laser with an insane range to make demolition on such a scale feasible.”

“Under far less temperature than metal, you say,” offered Optimus. “Perhaps the Masterwork won’t be strong enough to be of use to the decepticons.”

Starscream grinned. “That won’t work on me twice.”

“We’ll see.”

In a ray of violet light that swam around Starscream’s wings with an odd viscosity, Optimus, Starscream, and Megatron were beamed up to one of the alien ships.