Never Give Up - Part 9 of 12
Title: Never Give Up
'verse: G1
Rating: T/PG-13
Length: 50k, 12 chapters
Characters: Jazz, Prowl, ensemble
Warnings: angst, cybertronian profanity, mild Prowl/Jazz, violence
Chapter 9
"I came here under promise of ceasefire!" Starscream shouted the words, stumbling backwards and away from the furious Prime looming over him. Only then did he realise that the Autobots had never acknowledged his signal or confirmed the truce. He'd grown so accustomed to the 'bots here seizing any opportunity to avoid a fight that he'd been caught out like a sparkling, the one time they hadn't.
The laughter that rose from the gathered Autobots told him they were well aware of that.
"He doesn't deserve a ceasefire!" That was one of the mini-bots. Was it Gears? Or Cliffjumper? Starscream had never made the effort to learn their designations. He couldn't name more than half the mechs now bristling with weapons and muttering ever louder for his energon. "The Cons have to pay, Optimus! For Jazz… and now Prowl too…!"
Starscream blinked, his optics cycling through a reboot. He stole a glance at the mech who'd shouted, before turning worried optics back towards the Prime towering above him. The cry explained a lot, and, for the first time, he felt a serious terror for his own spark. Now he knew why the usually-cheerful Ironhide looked so grim, and why the Prime might show such emotion. Starscream had never known Optimus Prime to be less than noble. He'd never seen the Prime lose his second and third in command, two of his closest companions, either.
Starscream dropped his voice, a familiar whine entering his screeching tones. He held Prime's optics, scarlet to blue, with a desperate earnestness.
"Prime, be reasonable," he murmured, trying to keep his words between the two of them... although there was no avoiding Prime's scowling red shadow. "I wasn't even here. I don't know what's been going on, but I had no part in it." There was plenty else Prime could accuse him of, and they both knew it. Starscream was clinging to the hope that Optimus Prime was too decent to take advantage like that, even in the face of such loss. It said something for the situation that he was far from sure.
A warm-up cycle tickled through Starscream's thrusters. If he fled now, would Prime allow it? Surely Optimus had to see the injustice of taking a mech who'd come in good part captive. Crouched as he was, cowering in front of the Prime, he was in position to launch skywards, and for a long nano-klick he was braced to do just that.
His thrusters cycled down, his wings drooping behind him. Skywarp still tugged at the trine-bond. Thundercracker still failed to do so, and Starscream felt his vents stutter as he remembered Prime's litany. A spark system injury? Strong and insistent as Starscream's self-protective instincts were, he wasn't leaving here without at least knowing if his trine-mates were beyond hope.
Prime studied him for a long moment, before stepping back.
"We have a truce," the taller mech declared, to the general dismay of his troops. He leaned back in, startling Starscream just as the Seeker was starting to relax. "For now."
Starscream forced a sneer onto his faceplates to cover the relief. "For now."
"Sideswipe, Bumblebee, please accompany our guest to the brig."
"What?!" Starscream's null-rays charged before he could even consider the wisdom of that move. The whine of a dozen charging weapons pointed in his direction soon reminded him of it. Only Prime's raised hand defused the situation.
"I had assumed you wished to exercise visitation rights as the prisoners' bond-mate." A raised brow-ridge made the Decepticon sub-commander feel like a foolish child. It wasn't a feeling he liked. He snarled in response.
"I am their trine-leader," he stressed.
Prime gave him a far too knowing look.
"Indeed," was all the mech said.
"Starscream!" Skywarp's faceplates brightened at the sight of him. Starscream's optics scanned his trine-mate in a quick but thorough survey. The Seeker's black and lavender plating was carbon-scored and marked here and there with dried energon. All the chaos and pain of battle was written in his filthy armour, but Skywarp's red optics glowed bright in the dimmed brig, and the Seeker jumped up at the sight of him with fluent, easy movement.
Starscream stared and then put his hands on his hips, his voice rising strident above the mutter of Autobots behind him.
"What the frag did you do?"
"Shockwave! It was Shockwave!"
"Shockwave could not have achieved his aims without your compliance." That was Prime, tone unusually cold. Skywarp slumped, his optics downcast. Starscream bridled.
"Have you ever tried saying no to the mech?" he demanded, spinning on the spot to confront the self-righteous Autobot leader. "What did you expect him to do?"
Prime stood behind him, Ironhide leaning on the closed door to the brig. The front-liner twins were off to one side, the yellow menace apparently having been on guard duty down here already. The other yellow mech, the scout Bumblebee, seemed to have stayed outside the door, ensuring their privacy and perhaps holding off his compatriots. The escorted march through the Ark had been redolent with a hostility Starscream had never associated with Autobots. Even after Prime's hint, he was still far from sure just what his trine-mates had done to inspire it.
Optimus Prime gave him a look that was almost pitying. "I expect every mech to take responsibility for their own morality, and not to follow orders blindly or without question."
Starscream's fists clenched at his sides. The most frustrating thing about Prime's naivety was that it was probably genuine. He sneered, insults already gathering in his vocaliser. They never emerged.
~Star…~ He was close enough now that the trine-bond could carry words and more. Close enough that his trinemates were impossible to ignore. There was no hiding from the full force of the angst in Skywarp's spark. ~T.C….~
Starscream had avoided looking at the second cell, and the still form on the berth there. Now he couldn't resist. He turned, unable to prevent the hiccup in his vents and the whine from his thrusters as he saw his second trine-mate. If Skywarp looked battle-weary, Thundercracker looked as if he'd been swallowed by the tide of war, chewed and spat out. His beautiful blue plating was ragged and torn, hidden beneath a layer of dirt and streaked with energon where it wasn't replaced entirely by dull grey patches. The large, grey expanse spreading over his chest-plates and the bottom half of his cockpit was almost as terrifying as the low, low system activity levels Starscream's sensors reported.
"Why isn't this mech in your repair bay? How dare you lecture us on treatment of prisoners! I am horrified - horrified! - by…"
"Med-bay's occupied."
The experience of a thousand battles had made Starscream hyper-sensitised to the voices of those terrible twins. Right now though Sideswipe wasn't trying to keep his voice down or conceal his sarcasm. Ironhide slapped the other red mech upside the head, not with the violence Megatron's second was conditioned to expect, but more as a gentle chastisement for speaking out of turn.
Prime glanced at them both before nodding.
"Perhaps, Starscream, it is time we discussed the single condition under which I may be convinced to release your trine-mates into your custody."
The Seeker was still fuming, his wingtips twitching as he resisted the urge to blast his way to Thundercracker's side and to the Pit with the consequences. He glared the question at Prime, not trusting his vocaliser.
"As far as the majority of this crew know, my third-in-command, Jazz, was deactivated in an unprovoked attack half an orn ago. Prowl was seriously injured in battle after capturing your trine-mates, and remains under intensive medical care."
Starscream folded his arms across his cockpit, his analytic mind ticking over. The story wasn't any worse than the ones he'd already imagined. If Prowl had publicly identified Thundercracker and Skywarp as the killers, then it was a wonder they were even still alive.
If that were the end of the story, Prime wouldn't be talking about releasing them.
"Okay, so that's what the peons know," he agreed, waving a hand to dismiss the hoard of ground-crawling nobodies that made up the Autobot ranks. "What do the mechs standing in front of me know?"
Prime tilted his helm, one hand coming up to rub at his battlemask.
"What do you remember about what happened to the Combaticons?"
The question shocked him. His optics cycled through a reset. Then the Seeker's mouth-plates twisted into a sneer of distaste. Shockwave's idea of interesting research had always strained the bounds of taste and honour, that particular project more so than most.
"Enough to make me wish for a memory flush," he conceded.
Then Skywarp hit him with a full Earth-week of memories.
"Starscream?"
The Seeker clung to the arm steadying him, wheezing as he tried to control his racing vents. His turbines whined. His optics fritzed, images and memories he'd never experienced playing on his inner screens.
"Hoist, report."
"He looks okay physically, Prime. I think it might be a bond thing."
~Star? Star? I didn't mean to. It just kind of spilled over and I wanted to tell you about it and my coms are down and you kind of needed to know and don't be mad...~
Only Skywarp could sound simultaneously apologetic, worried and winsome. Starscream shook off Prime's hand and that of the mech beside him… and how had the Autobots' reserve medic got there so fast anyway? Wait. He had a better question. He spun on his heel thrusters to glare at his trine-mate.
"Are you fragging insane? You went along with that?"
~Ah…went along with Shockwave, or went along with Prowl?~
~Either! Both!~ Starscream snarled, not sure himself that he meant it. The image of Thundercracker's smoking chest-plates returned to him, and the memory of a helpless Autobot spark confined to a box. Would he have done the same in Skywarp's place? ~Should have called me.~
~You weren't there.~ Skywarp's wings twitched and the words burst out of him aloud as well as through the trine-bond. "You weren't there!"
Guilt flickered across Starscream's expression, come and gone in a nanoklick. It lingered longer on Skywarp's faceplates and in the slump of his wings. Starscream shook his helm, trying to dislodge the little voice that whispered that Skywarp was right. His trine-mates were fine fliers, good fighters, but not strong. He should have been there.
He was almost grateful when Optimus Prime's voice broke the moment.
"I assume we're missing something?"
"No more than usual." The snark came instinctively. He glared at the Autobot leader, his sharp processor already mapping out what was coming. "I take it they're still functioning?"
Prime frowned, glancing between the two Seekers before nodding slowly. His voice was once again that of the unreadable and angry Prime Starscream had encountered outside the Ark.
"Do not doubt: if either Jazz or Prowl is extinguished, I will ensure that Skywarp and Thundercracker pay the full penalty."
"You expect me to fix Shockwave's mess?"
"Not up to it?"
"How dare you question my competence!" Starscream met Sunstreaker's optics, sneer for sneer. He waved a single hand in dismissal, deliberately turning his back on the arrogant front-liner. Huffing air through his vents, the Seeker resigned himself to the inevitable. One way or another, he wasn't getting out of here without seeing the stricken Autobot officers. That didn't mean he had to play entirely to Prime's rules. "I need access to Skywarp's sensor scans and other data. Since you've oh-so-cleverly disabled his comms, it'll have to be a hard-line connection."
Ironhide scoffed, the tall red Autobot crossing his arms. "You expect us just to let you in with your buddy there?"
He wasn't alone in his scepticism. Prime raised an uneasy brow-ridge. "Starscream, I don't see…"
"Were any of you there when Shockwave was working? Did any of you see just what he did to your saboteur? No?" Starscream slid open a port on his wrist, a high-density data cable snaking out into the palm of his hand. "Well then…?"
"Sunstreaker, lower the energy bars on Skywarp's cell to 40%."
Prime's order was more than he might have permitted, and less than Starscream was expecting, even from this cold Prime. Skywarp winced and then shrugged, resigned. He held out one arm, flinching - both physically and in the trine-bond - as he extended the wrist through the stinging energy field between the dulled bars.
Long blue fingers intertwined with black, even so slight a touch bringing both a comfort they'd never admit to aloud. Their wrists pressed together, cables making contact with ports. Skywarp's firewalls opened to his trine-leader, the data files he'd mentioned already packaged and ready for him. Starscream checked them over and set them to download within nano-klicks. Then he set to work. There wasn't much time before the Autobots became suspicious.
~Starscream?~ Skywarp's nervousness was tangible both over the trine-bond and the hard-line. Starscream ignored it, already busy deep in the other Seeker's systems. ~What are you doing?~
~Defragging your navigation array~ Starscream frowned in concentration, dismayed by just how thoroughly Sunstreaker's impulsive action had mangled Skywarp's systems. The black Seeker could still jump to Thundercracker's side, or Starscream's, the trine-bond acting as its own beacon. With his database scrambled, any other warp could just as easily throw him outside the atmosphere, into the deep ocean, or, worse still, into Earth's molten core. Setting the recalibration algorithm running, Starscream transferred over the handful of coordinates he kept to Skywarp's level of precision: their quarters back at base, the bridge to Cybertron and a few of their more secret safe rendezvous points. It wasn't much, but it would at least give his trine-mates an escape route.
"That's long enough!" Ironhide's hand on Starscream's shoulder vent jolted him back to reality and almost jerked their joined wrists sideways into the bars. They disengaged in a hurry, Skywarp drawing his arm back to his chest and cradling the stinging plating, Starscream glaring furiously at the red Autobot.
He turned the expression into a dismissive smile. Whether he knew it or not, Ironhide was right.
~Be ready. When I give the word, grab Thundercracker and warp him out of here.~
~But T.C….~
~You saw Ratchet working on him, and Wheeljack. They have a medic watching him, and Prime's still Prime even when he's angry. I'm betting most of the damage left is cosmetic.~
Skywarp was silent for a few klicks. ~What if you're wrong?~
Starscream glanced at him, and couldn't stop his eyes slipping over to his third trine-mate's still frame. ~You'd better hope I'm not. One way or another, I don't see this going well.~
Straightening, Starscream turned a cool expression on the waiting Prime.
"Well then? Are you going to take me to your repair bay, or not?"
"Sideswipe!"
It wasn't that Ratchet disagreed with the front-liner's actions. The gleeful sneer that had spread across Starscream's faceplates as he entered the repair bay just begged for a fist to wipe it clean. Ratchet might well have obliged, if Sideswipe hadn't. Even so, there was a time and a place, and this wasn't it.
Sideswipe shrugged, flexing his finger-servos to loosen them after the blow. Starscream just scowled, all too aware of Ironhide's blaster covering him against any retaliation and Prime close behind. Ratchet glared at the group clustered just inside his domain and tried to hide his painful mixture of hope and irritation. None of this was ideal, not with Jazz weakening and Prowl once again curled tight around the box, hovering between awareness and a recharge that bordered on stasis.
"Ironhide, out!" Ratchet waited just long enough for Sideswipe to retrieve his blaster from subspace before issuing the order.
The elder mech glanced at Starscream with chagrin but didn't argue. He left, rubbing his chest-plates and casting a worried look at Prowl on his way through the door. Ratchet took the time to check on the rest before nodding acceptance of their presence. Starscream and Sideswipe were both wincing, protected by their own spark-bonds but still uncomfortable with the thick energy fields in the room. Prime was as implacable as ever. The Matrix burned bright enough to swamp outside influences, and the pain Ratchet read in his friend's expression was more emotional than physical.
Looking over at the tactician curled on his side on the med-berth, door-wings trembling, Ratchet shared it. Around Prowl, machines beeped and chimed, regulating his vents and feeding energon into his lines. The spark-support systems were doing all they could to ease the burden on Prowl's overstrained spark, but they couldn't keep it burning indefinitely.
The medic extended a single finger-servo, jerking it in Starscream's direction and then at his own pedes.
"You, over here."
"I will not be ordered!" Starscream's actions gave the lie to his words. The Decepticon's face was twisted with disgust and just the faintest suggestion of horror. He edged deeper into the energy field, his complaint dropping to a hissed whisper as he did so.
Ratchet didn't have time for pride: the Seeker's or his own.
"Stop talking slag and tell me how to fix this."
The sneer had faded from Starscream's face as he approached the berth. Prowl's optics lit with a dim glow, the tactician studying his unlikely visitor.
"Starscream."
"Prowl."
Both mechs were cool, controlled. Their optics met with a look formed in equal parts of mutual respect and mutual loathing. The Seeker's wings twitched, his arms folding across his cockpit. He studied the vulnerable mech, the thorn in his side for half an eternity. Ratchet and the other Autobots might have faded into nothing.
"Tell me why I shouldn't just kill you now."
Prowl vented slowly, his optics dimming before refocusing on the Seeker. "For the only reasons that matter, the only reasons any of us have left: to protect the things you care about most." Starscream snorted, his façade of indifference belied by the subconscious glance he threw towards the distant brig. Prowl let his helm drop back to the berth, the light fading from his optics. Ratchet was checking the medical monitors when the tired mech spoke again, optics still dimmed. "And because, despite everything you've become, you still remember why joined the Decepticons. And you wouldn't have done this."
Prowl's readings dropped, just a fraction, but enough for Ratchet to be sure he was oblivious to Starscream's indignant spluttering. The Seeker stood with fists clenched and helm tilted back, cursing Megatron, Shockwave and all their works in lyrical Cybertronian.
Ratchet didn't hesitate. His wrench swung in a smooth arc, not hard enough to do any real harm, but inflicting a blow sufficient to jerk Starscream out of his self-indulgent anger. The restless, fluctuating spark throbbing weakly next to Prowl's didn't need the conflict.
Starscream vented hard, his wing-tips flaring, but his agitated energy field pulled tight back against his armour. The Seeker scientist turned to glare at Ratchet, and at Wheeljack beside him.
"Your problem is frame rejection?"
Out of the corner of his optics, Ratchet saw Prime relax a fraction. Ratchet was careful not to let his own relief show. He held his council, letting Wheeljack answer for him. The engineer's vocal indicators flashed a dull grey.
"Even if he was stable enough to transfer, we couldn't put a spark that active in a cold frame. The shock…"
Starscream waved a blue hand, dismissing the unnecessary explanation. Ratchet leaned forward, studying the thoughtful Seeker. "How did Shockwave plan to do it?"
"What makes you think he had any interest in reframing anyone?"
Ratchet's energon ran cold. "The Combaticons…?"
Starscream's bark of laughter rang out loud in the silent repair bay. "Megatron was about to execute those treacherous slaggers. Do you think anyone cared much if Shockwave's experiments crashed and burned?"
Prime rumbled from his place near the door. To Ratchet, the distress was obvious. Starscream, looking up at the mech looming over them, must have seen anger.
"Wait! Wait! The plan was always to keep them alive. Shockwave put them all deep in stasis lock before boxing them. Assuming the sparks hold stable at that level they can go back in a frame on minimal power." Starscream's rapid explanation trailed off, the scientist frowning down at the laden berth in front of him. "This… keeping him aware… this is an abomination."
Ratchet sagged. He could hear the strained whine of Wheeljack's systems close behind him. Sideswipe took a step further into the room, his fists clenched.
"Why… why didn't he do the same with Jazz?"
Ratchet spared the twin warrior a sympathetic glance. "A spark at stasis levels wouldn't resonate strongly enough to activate the personality components or read the memory nodes. Shockwave needed him stunned to survive the initial transfer, but active enough to interrogate." He dimmed his optics, rubbing his brow-ridge with tired finger-servos. "Damn it." He glanced up towards Optimus, where his Prime stood just inside the repair bay. "It's a frame and processor that dictates when to drop a mech into stasis - the spark follows their lead. How the slag do we get Jazz into deep stasis without a frame to guide his spark down to that level?"
Perhaps it was coincidence, perhaps a reaction to the negative energy that Ratchet couldn't keep entirely to himself. An alarm chimed, Jazz's spark flaring in a restless search for someone or something it probably wouldn't know if it found it. Prowl's spark activity kicked up in response. The tactician murmured something too quiet to make out. His finger-servos flexed, their tips brushing Jazz's naked spark chamber before both settled.
Starscream studied them. He turned, shoulder-vents half-masking his expression, and scanned the two slightly-offset spark-beats on the monitor. There was no compassion on his face, only a mask of scientific interest. He nodded in Prowl's direction.
"I assume you at least had the minimal processor capacity required to consider putting him under?"
"Jazz's spark will follow just about so far, then it starts to fluctuate and break the connection." Ratchet couldn't hide his shudder, or his unease at telling Starscream these things. "Last time, we almost lost them both. We had to bring Prowl up fast to reassure Jazz."
Starscream dimmed his optics for a moment as if in thought. "So you need some way to affect his spark directly? Some method to force his spark into a minimal energy state without frame and processor mediation."
Wheeljack sighed, his vocal indicators throbbing dully. "Do you have any idea how long it'll take to invent something like that?"
Starscream stood with his arms crossed, the finger-servos of one hand tapping against the weapon barrel on the other arm in a restless motion. His helm had been bowed. Now he raised it, and they could all see the small, smug smile that played across his face-plates.
"Why, you know, I rather think I do."
And that was when Starscream spun on the spot and fired at Prowl and Jazz from point-blank range.
More tomorrow. Zea runs and hides...
'verse: G1
Rating: T/PG-13
Length: 50k, 12 chapters
Characters: Jazz, Prowl, ensemble
Warnings: angst, cybertronian profanity, mild Prowl/Jazz, violence
Chapter 9
"I came here under promise of ceasefire!" Starscream shouted the words, stumbling backwards and away from the furious Prime looming over him. Only then did he realise that the Autobots had never acknowledged his signal or confirmed the truce. He'd grown so accustomed to the 'bots here seizing any opportunity to avoid a fight that he'd been caught out like a sparkling, the one time they hadn't.
The laughter that rose from the gathered Autobots told him they were well aware of that.
"He doesn't deserve a ceasefire!" That was one of the mini-bots. Was it Gears? Or Cliffjumper? Starscream had never made the effort to learn their designations. He couldn't name more than half the mechs now bristling with weapons and muttering ever louder for his energon. "The Cons have to pay, Optimus! For Jazz… and now Prowl too…!"
Starscream blinked, his optics cycling through a reboot. He stole a glance at the mech who'd shouted, before turning worried optics back towards the Prime towering above him. The cry explained a lot, and, for the first time, he felt a serious terror for his own spark. Now he knew why the usually-cheerful Ironhide looked so grim, and why the Prime might show such emotion. Starscream had never known Optimus Prime to be less than noble. He'd never seen the Prime lose his second and third in command, two of his closest companions, either.
Starscream dropped his voice, a familiar whine entering his screeching tones. He held Prime's optics, scarlet to blue, with a desperate earnestness.
"Prime, be reasonable," he murmured, trying to keep his words between the two of them... although there was no avoiding Prime's scowling red shadow. "I wasn't even here. I don't know what's been going on, but I had no part in it." There was plenty else Prime could accuse him of, and they both knew it. Starscream was clinging to the hope that Optimus Prime was too decent to take advantage like that, even in the face of such loss. It said something for the situation that he was far from sure.
A warm-up cycle tickled through Starscream's thrusters. If he fled now, would Prime allow it? Surely Optimus had to see the injustice of taking a mech who'd come in good part captive. Crouched as he was, cowering in front of the Prime, he was in position to launch skywards, and for a long nano-klick he was braced to do just that.
His thrusters cycled down, his wings drooping behind him. Skywarp still tugged at the trine-bond. Thundercracker still failed to do so, and Starscream felt his vents stutter as he remembered Prime's litany. A spark system injury? Strong and insistent as Starscream's self-protective instincts were, he wasn't leaving here without at least knowing if his trine-mates were beyond hope.
Prime studied him for a long moment, before stepping back.
"We have a truce," the taller mech declared, to the general dismay of his troops. He leaned back in, startling Starscream just as the Seeker was starting to relax. "For now."
Starscream forced a sneer onto his faceplates to cover the relief. "For now."
"Sideswipe, Bumblebee, please accompany our guest to the brig."
"What?!" Starscream's null-rays charged before he could even consider the wisdom of that move. The whine of a dozen charging weapons pointed in his direction soon reminded him of it. Only Prime's raised hand defused the situation.
"I had assumed you wished to exercise visitation rights as the prisoners' bond-mate." A raised brow-ridge made the Decepticon sub-commander feel like a foolish child. It wasn't a feeling he liked. He snarled in response.
"I am their trine-leader," he stressed.
Prime gave him a far too knowing look.
"Indeed," was all the mech said.
"Starscream!" Skywarp's faceplates brightened at the sight of him. Starscream's optics scanned his trine-mate in a quick but thorough survey. The Seeker's black and lavender plating was carbon-scored and marked here and there with dried energon. All the chaos and pain of battle was written in his filthy armour, but Skywarp's red optics glowed bright in the dimmed brig, and the Seeker jumped up at the sight of him with fluent, easy movement.
Starscream stared and then put his hands on his hips, his voice rising strident above the mutter of Autobots behind him.
"What the frag did you do?"
"Shockwave! It was Shockwave!"
"Shockwave could not have achieved his aims without your compliance." That was Prime, tone unusually cold. Skywarp slumped, his optics downcast. Starscream bridled.
"Have you ever tried saying no to the mech?" he demanded, spinning on the spot to confront the self-righteous Autobot leader. "What did you expect him to do?"
Prime stood behind him, Ironhide leaning on the closed door to the brig. The front-liner twins were off to one side, the yellow menace apparently having been on guard duty down here already. The other yellow mech, the scout Bumblebee, seemed to have stayed outside the door, ensuring their privacy and perhaps holding off his compatriots. The escorted march through the Ark had been redolent with a hostility Starscream had never associated with Autobots. Even after Prime's hint, he was still far from sure just what his trine-mates had done to inspire it.
Optimus Prime gave him a look that was almost pitying. "I expect every mech to take responsibility for their own morality, and not to follow orders blindly or without question."
Starscream's fists clenched at his sides. The most frustrating thing about Prime's naivety was that it was probably genuine. He sneered, insults already gathering in his vocaliser. They never emerged.
~Star…~ He was close enough now that the trine-bond could carry words and more. Close enough that his trinemates were impossible to ignore. There was no hiding from the full force of the angst in Skywarp's spark. ~T.C….~
Starscream had avoided looking at the second cell, and the still form on the berth there. Now he couldn't resist. He turned, unable to prevent the hiccup in his vents and the whine from his thrusters as he saw his second trine-mate. If Skywarp looked battle-weary, Thundercracker looked as if he'd been swallowed by the tide of war, chewed and spat out. His beautiful blue plating was ragged and torn, hidden beneath a layer of dirt and streaked with energon where it wasn't replaced entirely by dull grey patches. The large, grey expanse spreading over his chest-plates and the bottom half of his cockpit was almost as terrifying as the low, low system activity levels Starscream's sensors reported.
"Why isn't this mech in your repair bay? How dare you lecture us on treatment of prisoners! I am horrified - horrified! - by…"
"Med-bay's occupied."
The experience of a thousand battles had made Starscream hyper-sensitised to the voices of those terrible twins. Right now though Sideswipe wasn't trying to keep his voice down or conceal his sarcasm. Ironhide slapped the other red mech upside the head, not with the violence Megatron's second was conditioned to expect, but more as a gentle chastisement for speaking out of turn.
Prime glanced at them both before nodding.
"Perhaps, Starscream, it is time we discussed the single condition under which I may be convinced to release your trine-mates into your custody."
The Seeker was still fuming, his wingtips twitching as he resisted the urge to blast his way to Thundercracker's side and to the Pit with the consequences. He glared the question at Prime, not trusting his vocaliser.
"As far as the majority of this crew know, my third-in-command, Jazz, was deactivated in an unprovoked attack half an orn ago. Prowl was seriously injured in battle after capturing your trine-mates, and remains under intensive medical care."
Starscream folded his arms across his cockpit, his analytic mind ticking over. The story wasn't any worse than the ones he'd already imagined. If Prowl had publicly identified Thundercracker and Skywarp as the killers, then it was a wonder they were even still alive.
If that were the end of the story, Prime wouldn't be talking about releasing them.
"Okay, so that's what the peons know," he agreed, waving a hand to dismiss the hoard of ground-crawling nobodies that made up the Autobot ranks. "What do the mechs standing in front of me know?"
Prime tilted his helm, one hand coming up to rub at his battlemask.
"What do you remember about what happened to the Combaticons?"
The question shocked him. His optics cycled through a reset. Then the Seeker's mouth-plates twisted into a sneer of distaste. Shockwave's idea of interesting research had always strained the bounds of taste and honour, that particular project more so than most.
"Enough to make me wish for a memory flush," he conceded.
Then Skywarp hit him with a full Earth-week of memories.
"Starscream?"
The Seeker clung to the arm steadying him, wheezing as he tried to control his racing vents. His turbines whined. His optics fritzed, images and memories he'd never experienced playing on his inner screens.
"Hoist, report."
"He looks okay physically, Prime. I think it might be a bond thing."
~Star? Star? I didn't mean to. It just kind of spilled over and I wanted to tell you about it and my coms are down and you kind of needed to know and don't be mad...~
Only Skywarp could sound simultaneously apologetic, worried and winsome. Starscream shook off Prime's hand and that of the mech beside him… and how had the Autobots' reserve medic got there so fast anyway? Wait. He had a better question. He spun on his heel thrusters to glare at his trine-mate.
"Are you fragging insane? You went along with that?"
~Ah…went along with Shockwave, or went along with Prowl?~
~Either! Both!~ Starscream snarled, not sure himself that he meant it. The image of Thundercracker's smoking chest-plates returned to him, and the memory of a helpless Autobot spark confined to a box. Would he have done the same in Skywarp's place? ~Should have called me.~
~You weren't there.~ Skywarp's wings twitched and the words burst out of him aloud as well as through the trine-bond. "You weren't there!"
Guilt flickered across Starscream's expression, come and gone in a nanoklick. It lingered longer on Skywarp's faceplates and in the slump of his wings. Starscream shook his helm, trying to dislodge the little voice that whispered that Skywarp was right. His trine-mates were fine fliers, good fighters, but not strong. He should have been there.
He was almost grateful when Optimus Prime's voice broke the moment.
"I assume we're missing something?"
"No more than usual." The snark came instinctively. He glared at the Autobot leader, his sharp processor already mapping out what was coming. "I take it they're still functioning?"
Prime frowned, glancing between the two Seekers before nodding slowly. His voice was once again that of the unreadable and angry Prime Starscream had encountered outside the Ark.
"Do not doubt: if either Jazz or Prowl is extinguished, I will ensure that Skywarp and Thundercracker pay the full penalty."
"You expect me to fix Shockwave's mess?"
"Not up to it?"
"How dare you question my competence!" Starscream met Sunstreaker's optics, sneer for sneer. He waved a single hand in dismissal, deliberately turning his back on the arrogant front-liner. Huffing air through his vents, the Seeker resigned himself to the inevitable. One way or another, he wasn't getting out of here without seeing the stricken Autobot officers. That didn't mean he had to play entirely to Prime's rules. "I need access to Skywarp's sensor scans and other data. Since you've oh-so-cleverly disabled his comms, it'll have to be a hard-line connection."
Ironhide scoffed, the tall red Autobot crossing his arms. "You expect us just to let you in with your buddy there?"
He wasn't alone in his scepticism. Prime raised an uneasy brow-ridge. "Starscream, I don't see…"
"Were any of you there when Shockwave was working? Did any of you see just what he did to your saboteur? No?" Starscream slid open a port on his wrist, a high-density data cable snaking out into the palm of his hand. "Well then…?"
"Sunstreaker, lower the energy bars on Skywarp's cell to 40%."
Prime's order was more than he might have permitted, and less than Starscream was expecting, even from this cold Prime. Skywarp winced and then shrugged, resigned. He held out one arm, flinching - both physically and in the trine-bond - as he extended the wrist through the stinging energy field between the dulled bars.
Long blue fingers intertwined with black, even so slight a touch bringing both a comfort they'd never admit to aloud. Their wrists pressed together, cables making contact with ports. Skywarp's firewalls opened to his trine-leader, the data files he'd mentioned already packaged and ready for him. Starscream checked them over and set them to download within nano-klicks. Then he set to work. There wasn't much time before the Autobots became suspicious.
~Starscream?~ Skywarp's nervousness was tangible both over the trine-bond and the hard-line. Starscream ignored it, already busy deep in the other Seeker's systems. ~What are you doing?~
~Defragging your navigation array~ Starscream frowned in concentration, dismayed by just how thoroughly Sunstreaker's impulsive action had mangled Skywarp's systems. The black Seeker could still jump to Thundercracker's side, or Starscream's, the trine-bond acting as its own beacon. With his database scrambled, any other warp could just as easily throw him outside the atmosphere, into the deep ocean, or, worse still, into Earth's molten core. Setting the recalibration algorithm running, Starscream transferred over the handful of coordinates he kept to Skywarp's level of precision: their quarters back at base, the bridge to Cybertron and a few of their more secret safe rendezvous points. It wasn't much, but it would at least give his trine-mates an escape route.
"That's long enough!" Ironhide's hand on Starscream's shoulder vent jolted him back to reality and almost jerked their joined wrists sideways into the bars. They disengaged in a hurry, Skywarp drawing his arm back to his chest and cradling the stinging plating, Starscream glaring furiously at the red Autobot.
He turned the expression into a dismissive smile. Whether he knew it or not, Ironhide was right.
~Be ready. When I give the word, grab Thundercracker and warp him out of here.~
~But T.C….~
~You saw Ratchet working on him, and Wheeljack. They have a medic watching him, and Prime's still Prime even when he's angry. I'm betting most of the damage left is cosmetic.~
Skywarp was silent for a few klicks. ~What if you're wrong?~
Starscream glanced at him, and couldn't stop his eyes slipping over to his third trine-mate's still frame. ~You'd better hope I'm not. One way or another, I don't see this going well.~
Straightening, Starscream turned a cool expression on the waiting Prime.
"Well then? Are you going to take me to your repair bay, or not?"
"Sideswipe!"
It wasn't that Ratchet disagreed with the front-liner's actions. The gleeful sneer that had spread across Starscream's faceplates as he entered the repair bay just begged for a fist to wipe it clean. Ratchet might well have obliged, if Sideswipe hadn't. Even so, there was a time and a place, and this wasn't it.
Sideswipe shrugged, flexing his finger-servos to loosen them after the blow. Starscream just scowled, all too aware of Ironhide's blaster covering him against any retaliation and Prime close behind. Ratchet glared at the group clustered just inside his domain and tried to hide his painful mixture of hope and irritation. None of this was ideal, not with Jazz weakening and Prowl once again curled tight around the box, hovering between awareness and a recharge that bordered on stasis.
"Ironhide, out!" Ratchet waited just long enough for Sideswipe to retrieve his blaster from subspace before issuing the order.
The elder mech glanced at Starscream with chagrin but didn't argue. He left, rubbing his chest-plates and casting a worried look at Prowl on his way through the door. Ratchet took the time to check on the rest before nodding acceptance of their presence. Starscream and Sideswipe were both wincing, protected by their own spark-bonds but still uncomfortable with the thick energy fields in the room. Prime was as implacable as ever. The Matrix burned bright enough to swamp outside influences, and the pain Ratchet read in his friend's expression was more emotional than physical.
Looking over at the tactician curled on his side on the med-berth, door-wings trembling, Ratchet shared it. Around Prowl, machines beeped and chimed, regulating his vents and feeding energon into his lines. The spark-support systems were doing all they could to ease the burden on Prowl's overstrained spark, but they couldn't keep it burning indefinitely.
The medic extended a single finger-servo, jerking it in Starscream's direction and then at his own pedes.
"You, over here."
"I will not be ordered!" Starscream's actions gave the lie to his words. The Decepticon's face was twisted with disgust and just the faintest suggestion of horror. He edged deeper into the energy field, his complaint dropping to a hissed whisper as he did so.
Ratchet didn't have time for pride: the Seeker's or his own.
"Stop talking slag and tell me how to fix this."
The sneer had faded from Starscream's face as he approached the berth. Prowl's optics lit with a dim glow, the tactician studying his unlikely visitor.
"Starscream."
"Prowl."
Both mechs were cool, controlled. Their optics met with a look formed in equal parts of mutual respect and mutual loathing. The Seeker's wings twitched, his arms folding across his cockpit. He studied the vulnerable mech, the thorn in his side for half an eternity. Ratchet and the other Autobots might have faded into nothing.
"Tell me why I shouldn't just kill you now."
Prowl vented slowly, his optics dimming before refocusing on the Seeker. "For the only reasons that matter, the only reasons any of us have left: to protect the things you care about most." Starscream snorted, his façade of indifference belied by the subconscious glance he threw towards the distant brig. Prowl let his helm drop back to the berth, the light fading from his optics. Ratchet was checking the medical monitors when the tired mech spoke again, optics still dimmed. "And because, despite everything you've become, you still remember why joined the Decepticons. And you wouldn't have done this."
Prowl's readings dropped, just a fraction, but enough for Ratchet to be sure he was oblivious to Starscream's indignant spluttering. The Seeker stood with fists clenched and helm tilted back, cursing Megatron, Shockwave and all their works in lyrical Cybertronian.
Ratchet didn't hesitate. His wrench swung in a smooth arc, not hard enough to do any real harm, but inflicting a blow sufficient to jerk Starscream out of his self-indulgent anger. The restless, fluctuating spark throbbing weakly next to Prowl's didn't need the conflict.
Starscream vented hard, his wing-tips flaring, but his agitated energy field pulled tight back against his armour. The Seeker scientist turned to glare at Ratchet, and at Wheeljack beside him.
"Your problem is frame rejection?"
Out of the corner of his optics, Ratchet saw Prime relax a fraction. Ratchet was careful not to let his own relief show. He held his council, letting Wheeljack answer for him. The engineer's vocal indicators flashed a dull grey.
"Even if he was stable enough to transfer, we couldn't put a spark that active in a cold frame. The shock…"
Starscream waved a blue hand, dismissing the unnecessary explanation. Ratchet leaned forward, studying the thoughtful Seeker. "How did Shockwave plan to do it?"
"What makes you think he had any interest in reframing anyone?"
Ratchet's energon ran cold. "The Combaticons…?"
Starscream's bark of laughter rang out loud in the silent repair bay. "Megatron was about to execute those treacherous slaggers. Do you think anyone cared much if Shockwave's experiments crashed and burned?"
Prime rumbled from his place near the door. To Ratchet, the distress was obvious. Starscream, looking up at the mech looming over them, must have seen anger.
"Wait! Wait! The plan was always to keep them alive. Shockwave put them all deep in stasis lock before boxing them. Assuming the sparks hold stable at that level they can go back in a frame on minimal power." Starscream's rapid explanation trailed off, the scientist frowning down at the laden berth in front of him. "This… keeping him aware… this is an abomination."
Ratchet sagged. He could hear the strained whine of Wheeljack's systems close behind him. Sideswipe took a step further into the room, his fists clenched.
"Why… why didn't he do the same with Jazz?"
Ratchet spared the twin warrior a sympathetic glance. "A spark at stasis levels wouldn't resonate strongly enough to activate the personality components or read the memory nodes. Shockwave needed him stunned to survive the initial transfer, but active enough to interrogate." He dimmed his optics, rubbing his brow-ridge with tired finger-servos. "Damn it." He glanced up towards Optimus, where his Prime stood just inside the repair bay. "It's a frame and processor that dictates when to drop a mech into stasis - the spark follows their lead. How the slag do we get Jazz into deep stasis without a frame to guide his spark down to that level?"
Perhaps it was coincidence, perhaps a reaction to the negative energy that Ratchet couldn't keep entirely to himself. An alarm chimed, Jazz's spark flaring in a restless search for someone or something it probably wouldn't know if it found it. Prowl's spark activity kicked up in response. The tactician murmured something too quiet to make out. His finger-servos flexed, their tips brushing Jazz's naked spark chamber before both settled.
Starscream studied them. He turned, shoulder-vents half-masking his expression, and scanned the two slightly-offset spark-beats on the monitor. There was no compassion on his face, only a mask of scientific interest. He nodded in Prowl's direction.
"I assume you at least had the minimal processor capacity required to consider putting him under?"
"Jazz's spark will follow just about so far, then it starts to fluctuate and break the connection." Ratchet couldn't hide his shudder, or his unease at telling Starscream these things. "Last time, we almost lost them both. We had to bring Prowl up fast to reassure Jazz."
Starscream dimmed his optics for a moment as if in thought. "So you need some way to affect his spark directly? Some method to force his spark into a minimal energy state without frame and processor mediation."
Wheeljack sighed, his vocal indicators throbbing dully. "Do you have any idea how long it'll take to invent something like that?"
Starscream stood with his arms crossed, the finger-servos of one hand tapping against the weapon barrel on the other arm in a restless motion. His helm had been bowed. Now he raised it, and they could all see the small, smug smile that played across his face-plates.
"Why, you know, I rather think I do."
And that was when Starscream spun on the spot and fired at Prowl and Jazz from point-blank range.
More tomorrow. Zea runs and hides...