Fic
Title: Borealis 51/80: Seeking
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: OC Strake, Thundercracker, Starscream, Prowl, Prime, Ratchet
Warnings: Angst, robot snuggling, OC
Summary: Wherein Strake emerges from his cocoon, Thundercracker has a question for Prime, and the Autobots are presented with the first Decepticon defector on Earth.
~4000 words.
BOREALIS: Seeking
2023 - February
Strake clawed his way back online. Every system was running on minimum; his body felt hot and brittle, fuel lines slack within his heavy limbs, darkened energon sluggish and thick.
The lightless cave was damp and the weight of stone above him, pressing his shoulders, had not shifted. Checking his chronometer, he found that only a handful of voors had passed since he'd fallen into stasis. Strake hated stasis. Too much could change too quickly and you onlined at the wrong end of the pecking order. If you onlined at all. There were rumors about whether Hook’s stasis trays were really that unreliable, or if some mechs ended up in clandestine experiments.
He couldn't turn or move forward. Thrashing, his sharp armor gouging the rock, he fought backward with energy reserves he couldn't afford to squander. Sunlight. He needed to get out into the air and let this boring little star replenish him. His legs kicked out into the waterfall that hid this cave. The force of the torrent had little effect, but his hands were weak, scrabbling ineffectually at the slippery rock, and his own weight pulled him over the edge. He was too depleted to transform.
Fortunately, the pool beneath the falls was deep and contained no problematic sharp rocks. The water, by no means cold, boiled around him, cooling his overheated frame only slightly. No, he thought, sinking to the bottom. He had to get out or he'd be another who knows how many voors in stasis again, covered in the green filth that teemed beneath the surface.
By the time he reached the shore it was all he could do to cling to the rocks near the pool's outlet, fading in and out of consciousness. Water had sluiced into the remaining, slowly healing rent in his armor. Nothing vital had shorted, but it was a disconcerting feeling. Sunlight pounded him, more fiercely than the water, slowly refilling his reserves. More green shimmered and waved and flickered before his optics. Gaudy planet, sporting and spouting and sprouting in weird extravagances of color and reek and raucous sound. He shut down his optics, conserving power.
He was exposed, though, and as soon as he was able, he crawled beneath the shelter of the jungle. This instinct to hide made him angry. Hone hadn't done anything improper, he'd merely been too close to Galvatron at a bad time, and hadn't dodged quickly enough. Yet, with Skyquake fled, Strake knew he couldn't return to the other Decepticons in this system - they would treat him as a deserter. Trines were always sentenced and executed as one.
Orns passed, both fleeting and interminable. Recharge claimed him most of the time and he wished he had a better hiding place, though he wondered if anyone had come looking for him at all. Certainly Skyquake hadn't. Three thousand vorns together, discarded as if it meant nothing. Strake wanted to scour this island with fire and lightning until there was nothing left but molten stone.
He searched for sign of his former compatriots, opening both common and highly encrypted channels. It was risky - Soundwave could tell who was listening and could be counted on to report immediately to Galvatron.
Over the personal trine frequency was nothing but silence, or the echoes of his own thoughts. He erased that frequency's tag, trembling. There was only a small amount of Seeker comm, and that was distant and subdued, stealthed. Where was everyone else? It took nearly an orn, between bouts of helpless recharge, but as he pried his way gingerly onto the planetary network, he found reference after reference to the Decepticons.
Galvatron had promised them an easy conquest, and now they'd been pushed back to the fourth planet. Everything was going wrong. The Autobots were supposed to be all but vanquished! How had this happened?
Three small towns, villages really, lay within his limited range, whose signals were not cut off completely by the mountainous terrain. He listened to their radio and satellite internet chatter. Much of it was incomprehensible at first. Strake had been built for battle, shortly after the civil war had started. He had no first-contact programming, and his experience was geared toward destroying other cultures, not studying them.
The humans' revolting eating, mating and recharge practices seemed to take up most of their time. No better than the animals they kept as food or pets, he thought. Yet over the orns he lay in the jungle, he noticed things about them. They laughed and fought and complained and were lazy and stupid and cruel; and they loved and hated and defended their young and created crude artforms and told each other stories.
Best not to forget, as well, that one of these insects - albeit with an unprecedented object to hand - had singly laid Megatron low. Their ground-to-air missiles were not to be trifled with. Strake could attest to that personally from previous encounters, though it had been Ironhide who had damaged him so badly this time. (No shame in that, Strake assured himself. Ironhide had been a warrior, too, even before.)
By the time he could fly again, attain escape velocity again, he had learned that his landing site was in the eastern half of Papua New Guinea. That the remaining Seeker eyries were in the Andes, the Alps, and the command trine with their two sub-wings in the Himalayas. He knew the histories of the human cultures that lived near those places, brief as they were, and had a broad understanding of the rocky-planet geological forces that had shaped the mountains. He could speak, if it became convenient, the most broadly-used human languages. He knew the names, both what they called “real” and the online computer “usernames” of everyone in the three villages.
It took four tries before his engines started properly. Transformation had been agonizing and slow. Once airborne, he fought to reach the Earth-Sun L1 point, where he could rest again, enjoying full exposure to solar rays, though he had to dodge a couple of helio-observatory satellites there. He kept his systems on standby, hoping to avoid the notice of the Autobot deep-Seekers. He couldn’t stay there long. He needed to decide what he was going to do.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
There were three active Seeker eyries left on Earth. Two in the largest mountain ranges on the largest land mass, one in the mountains of the south-western continent. Not caring what the humans named these ranges, the nine trines had nevertheless chosen iconic peaks the filthy insects were hesitant to bomb into rubble. Their shielding was more than adequate against anything but nukes, and possibly Perceptor. The other seventeen surviving trines had gone with Galvatron to Mars, setting up eyries on a spectacular volcano, rather pleased with themselves.
Thundercracker circled the eastern eyrie. The tallest non-submerged peak on this planet was puny compared to the Martian volcano, but the weather was more interesting, which made Skywarp happy. Storm-surfing gave him something to do when they weren't engaged in battle, which made Thundercracker happy.
"What took you so long?" was Starscream's greeting as Thundercracker landed.
"Had a run-in with that new deep-Seeker." He allowed Starscream to stroke his wings, then followed his commander inside to the central chamber. "He's definitely that dark jet Galvatron shot down." The one they didn't have a name for, which still bothered Thundercracker. That the Autobots had been capable of reforging someone so extensively bothered him even more. The Autobots by themselves should not have had the resources for something like that, which meant the humans had aided them. If the humans had aided in such a complex undertaking, it meant the humans were learning a lot more about Cybertronians than Thundercracker was in any way comfortable with.
"I suppose it's too much to hope that you blew him out of the sky."
Thundercracker scowled. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried. "You know what deep-Seeker armor is like." Possibly a mistake. Starscream knew very well - knew just about everything there was to know about deep-Seekers, short of being one. This wasn't a good topic of conversation. "There's still activity at the hydro-electric plant you wanted to hit, but the humans aren't pulling that much power from there."
When they'd first arrived after Megatron's fall, it had been easy to cripple huge sections of the continents by taking out one or two power generating facilities and letting their precariously balanced networks shred themselves. Since then, however, the humans had been decentralizing their grids, building numerous smaller plants whose power was used locally instead of transmitted over long distances over aerial lines that were easy to pick off. It had been a mildly amusing pastime for slow days, flying along popping the fragile towers one after another.
"Wretched Autobot interference." Starscream rubbed cheek spars with Thundercracker as an acceptance of the change in the discussion’s vector, then stalked to the holo display. "They're breaking their own rules now," he sneered. "So much for allowing young civilizations - though one could hardly call this planet's infestation by so proper a name - to grow and mature in their own way."
If their enemy was losing their honor, Thundercracker thought, not liking it at all; what did that mean for the Decepticons? He had long had the uncomfortable feeling that his faction had travelled farther astray from their ancient function than Megatron had intended. The Autobots had forced them to change, adapting to unexpectedly determined opposition.
“I want you to take a look at the nuclear plant in the desert east of the main Autobot base again.” Starscream chirped him the coordinates. The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona. Thundercracker sometimes wished Starscream and most of the other Decepticons would use the human names. The insistence upon not bothering because the humans weren’t worth the effort was getting tiresome. “We should have destroyed such targets in the beginning.” Nibbling on Thundercracker’s lateral sensory fins, Starscream seemed to have forgotten that they had made attempts, and had been viciously repulsed by combined human/Autobot defenses.
“Yes, Starscream.” Shuddering, Thundercracker took flight.
Coercing himself onto the Autobot frequencies was almost painful, it had been so long since his mind had traveled there. And the world nets were not unguarded. He slid along passively, searching for any possible point of contact. There was a public address, but each time he tried to key it in the message bounced.
Let me in, frag you! I need to talk to the Prime.
Do you really? Teletraan inquired, frosty, unfazed.
Slagging uppity AI. Thundercracker calmed himself by an effort of will, but before he could compose a civil reply, Prime skimmed neatly into the channel.
What do you want, Thundercracker?
Prime's tone was so utterly, scrupulously neutral it made a tiny, long unlooked-for part of Thundercracker's mind want to curl up in the dark far away and keen.
Those tanks and the others, the ones who appeared suddenly, not long ago. They are not drones. He hated the formal tone his transmission had taken. Not deferential, he told himself. Not really. He had forgotten what it was like to feel the Prime’s words and harmonics fill his CPU. It was a seductive lie, he thought automatically. Another Autobot trick.
No. They are not.
The humans call your First Lieutenant “Lazarus.” I looked up the mythology reference. If you can truly rekindle the dead, I want Saberfall and Novawind back. Give me my first trinemates back and I will join your faction.
Oh Thundercracker, would that it was so easy. Not everyone’s pattern remains cohesive within the Allspark. The rekindled of the Graveyard Legion are such, true. I could try to find your trinemates if you wish, but will not Galvatron do so? I suppose I need not have asked. Do not join us as a mere transaction, or to repay a perceived debt.
You won’t do it, then.
I didn’t say so. If I could bring back everyone who has died in this war… Not all are willing to return, you understand. I will look within for Saberfall and Novawind. See if they remember their names. I will inform you of the results, either way.
All right. Guess I can’t ask for better.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Even staying low, well below the most effective radar boundary, flying within Seekerbane’s range made Strake’s wings itch. Everyone knew Autobots shot Seekers on sight. Didn't they?
Except. Seekerbane could have destroyed the command trine, Strake had learned, but had not. The accounts online were all indirect, but the humans were enthusiastic in their dramatizations. There had also been one, the white-armored one who could have killed Strake before Ironhide had shot him down. Strake had considered it a disgusting display of Autobot weakness, but he was glad to have escaped. And the Prime was accepting...no, he hadn't called it surrender. Amnesty. That was it. Starscream and his command trine had ranted about subversive phrasing and more of the usual filthy Autobot lies.
North of the base…no, the Cybertronian Embassy, were mountains fringed with innumerable canyons and dry creek-beds. He could hide there, watching, prudently waiting not gathering his courage of course; Seekers were fearless. He didn’t want to make such a crucial, life-altering decision rashly. He needed all the intel he could get. It felt like the longest week of his life.
Singing jolted him out of recharge. The moon hung low and yellow in the velvet sky just after sunset. The voice was terrifying; broken and beautiful, spark-rending. Strake moved like the shadows, millimeter by millimeter, creeping, inexorable. Silently, he crouched within stooping distance, watching. The white, door-winged mech - Prowl, the very one who hadn’t killed him - didn't know he was there. Closer, closer. Strake could snatch him up with a quick swoop, drag him to the heights and drop him if he proved troublesome.
Strake suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a butylpotassium pellet gun. Prowl held it quite steady. Optics met optics, both of them weirdly calm.
"What now?" Strake asked softly, his subharmonics elaborating more than he had intended - you are white and I am black and we are both the color of death to the people of this world.
Prowl lowered his gun. “Prime?” He spoke aloud, but Strake was certain he had transmitted a query via tight-beam as well. In a few moments, the hated and reviled leader of the Autobot rebel fugitives appeared at the head of the canyon. Stately and imposing, alert yet composed.
What is your purpose? The Prime used an older Decepticon channel without hesitation. Without rancor.
For a moment, the word would not come. Strake knew hesitation could prove fatal. Optimus Prime had once single-handedly held off Megatron, Starscream and Grindor for a full breem until Ironhide’s reinforcements had arrived.
“Amnesty,” Strake whispered at last, shivering. Something was wrong inside his body. He fell more than climbed from his perch, legs collapsing beneath him, and white static flooded his CPU.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Onlining in an unfamiliar medical bay, Strake found himself unrestrained, laid out on a repair table. Empty missile launchers extended from his arms. He stared at them for a moment before retracting them, peripherally aware of several individuals in the chamber.
“Hello,” said a red and white mech, slowly approaching the table, hands conspicuously empty in a human gesture of peaceable intent. Before Strake could process that weirdness, a larger bright green mech, who he immediately recognized as Ratchet, came up beside him.
“Easy. We removed some of your ammunition as a safety precaution.”
Strake nodded. That had always been a standard procedure, he remembered. He should be terrified - captured by Autobots! In the clutches of the vile Ratchet! Prowl, Ironhide and Prime stood nearby but out of the way of the medics. Ironhide’s cannons were out but not spinning. Prime had a hand firmly on his shoulder. Strake couldn’t seem to muster the energy to be too worried about it. They would have checked him very thoroughly for bombs or other devices as well. He hoped they’d found nothing because he hadn’t knowingly been carrying anything of the kind.
Ratchet ran a scan over the rent in Strake’s armor, nearly closed now. “And I powered down those regrowth protocols - your systems have undergone enough strain lately. How do you feel?”
“Tired,” Strake said. “Hot.” He was going to have to do a lot of explaining soon.
“The overheating is due to having to regenerate without medical assistance. Your body went into high gear to mend the damage. Resilience can be costly.” The medic chuffed in irritation. “Why didn’t you go to Hook?”
Might as well drain the cube in one gulp. “We don’t know where he is. The Constructicons have been AWOL for over four years.” As had he, technically.
The mechs around him stirred uneasily. Ratchet shook his head. “I’m sorry, Strake. Never mind.” Stalking over to a row of spools suspended on a wall, he pulled out differing lengths of various wire and plaited them together. Cutting them neatly, he brought the plait to Strake. “Eat. You’re low on some basic elements, but other than that and the hole in your ventral armor, you’re in surprisingly good shape. Your core temperature should return to normal in a few hours now that you’ve been transfused and refueled.”
Strake sat up - slowly, aware of the twitch in Ironhide’s arms - and took the plait, nibbling cautiously. Ratchet nodded and the red and white mech patted Strake’s knee before withdrawing. Prime and Prowl approached as Strake finished the plait.
Prime offered an arm cable. The formalities, and interrogation, could be gotten over with very quickly if Strake agreed. Hesitation was unbecoming. He had decided. Raising his arm, he opened a port. Ironhide growled, but Prime established a careful link - Strake was a known “hacker”, participating in most of the attacks on Teletraan and Event Horizon and the humans’ net. Strake shuttered his optics. Prime’s virtual presence was, if anything, more powerful than his physical. Who could reprogram whom?
In November of 2018, I was shot down in battle. I fled to a cave in Papua New Guinea…
Strake’s report was delivered with the dispassion and thoroughness of long habit, but with greater honesty. Lying hadn’t been punished among the Decepticons, only being caught, and then if the lie was clever or entertaining the sentence would be light. Once his part was completed, Prime gave him the terms. He could join the Autobots with a minimum of one thousand local years parole under constant supervision.
"If you remain on this planet and do not join us as an Autobot, the humans will wish to capture and try you as a war criminal. We will be obligated to help them." Prime tilted his head slightly. "By your own admission, nothing binds you here. This galaxy is largely unexplored."
Strake looked down. I'm not delta. I don't want to be alone. An admission like an energon blade against his spark chamber, but it was a truth of his forging. His kind weren't built for solitude.
What of Skyquake? Prime's harmonics were kindly meant and indicated that he needn't answer if he didn't wish to. Prime was merely outlining his options.
Strake didn’t answer. Prowl approached his other side as Prime closed the link and withdrew his cable. Ratchet came forward as well and altered the color of Strake’s optics. His visual perception shifted minutely toward the UV end of the spectrum. Ratchet also gave him the file for the Autobot sigil. Strake had never taken up an Earth alt mode, so the next time he transformed his faction badge would also transform.
“You are not to leave my scanning range,” Prowl said gravely. “When I must recharge, Bluestreak will take over your supervision.”
“Bluestreak’s aim is better than mine,” Ironhide felt compelled to add from across the room.
And what’s your scanning range? Strake inquired silkily, accepting Prowl’s private comm frequency with an insouciant click of his mandibles.
You’re a smart mech, Prowl told him, leaning very close. Figure it out.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
They let him into the Autobot cloud mind advisedly. Strake already knew caution when it came to voicing his thoughts - carelessness among the Decepticons could make you dead in a hurry. Smokescreen warned him that the Autobots might not be entirely sympathetic, or polite. Would probably, at least some of them, be hostile. Strake felt a certain bravado was called for.
"Let's see what they've got," he said. It was unthinkable to allow anyone to know how lost he felt, trineless. He almost - almost - hated to fly, with no-one at his wingtips.
So much banter! Everyone was so relaxed with each other. The insults were familiar enough, but they - for the most part - lacked an edge. And the teasing of the Prime! Strake found it offensive at first, how they treated their leader. THE Prime! There were old imperatives yet imbedded in his code perhaps.
He was also discomfited to find out his approach to the embassy had not been as stealthy as he’d thought. “Perceptor spotted you the moment you entered our airspace,” Prowl told him.
“You were watching me the whole time.”
“Yes.”
“Prime suspected that I was going to defect?”
“Yes.”
Prowl, as always, answered Strake’s questions openly. These people scared the slag out of him.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2023 - April
Prowl cradled Strake close, cables seated, but he withheld the full transfer. You must be certain, Prowl told him. It must be your choice. If you continue to hold the humans in contempt then your interaction with the other Autobots will be more difficult. Prowl was in no hurry. He didn't like accessing these memories either, and this he fully admitted to Strake.
I don't scare that easily, Strake said, grinning. Nothing a puny human experienced could have much of an effect, he was certain. Prowl gave him a look. And pushed the files through.
When the screaming stopped, and Strake pulled his hands away from his midsection to find himself unchanged and whole in body, Prowl held him, stroking his helm and wings, keeping the link open and sending reassurance until the shaking eased.
The things we've done, Strake whispered. There had been more to the files than Ixchel's death; childhood days of running and play, swimming, the best chocolate sundae ever, a first bouquet of roses, the comforting feel of a favorite old velveteen blanket, a heart-lifting concerto with Spanish guitar in Berlin, the surge of emotion at the sight of a lover's face.
Undoing the programmatic inhibitions regarding attacks on civilians is one of the worst mistakes of this war, Prowl said. The Autobots, having grasped desperately at very old military programs from Ironhide and others, still retained those inhibitions, and the strong protective impulses as well, which the Decepticons had lost, or twisted. Prowl showed Strake the old programs side-by-side with the newer imperatives Prowl had received from Sentinel, which were eerily similar to Megatron's reprogramming of the Cons. I know you're conditioned to regard anything an Autobot tells you as a lie. You're going to have to decide for yourself.
A part of Strake didn't want to decide. He wanted Prowl to tell him, just wanted to follow orders. It was so much easier.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Stretched out on the mesa top, Prowl looked up at the stars. Strake lay beside him, watching him. “In 85 years, my sentence will be completed,” Prowl said quietly.
Then you will leave me, too. He hadn't meant to express that thought. Sometimes Prowl’s honesty was horrifying. And obviously contagious. Learning what Prowl had done, and what had been done to him, left Strake feeling as though all his gyros had failed at once.
Prowl approximated a sigh, imitating Blades. It's a big universe, he said. You can go where you wish, whenever you wish. I submit, however, that you will always know where to find me.
Where Prime is, Strake realized. Or wherever he sends you.
Prowl smiled. Exactly.
Strake relaxed against him. It wasn't a trine bond, it wasn't even a promise. Merely a simple statement of a fundamental law of physics. He could live with that.
Table of Contents
.
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: OC Strake, Thundercracker, Starscream, Prowl, Prime, Ratchet
Warnings: Angst, robot snuggling, OC
Summary: Wherein Strake emerges from his cocoon, Thundercracker has a question for Prime, and the Autobots are presented with the first Decepticon defector on Earth.
~4000 words.
BOREALIS: Seeking
2023 - February
Strake clawed his way back online. Every system was running on minimum; his body felt hot and brittle, fuel lines slack within his heavy limbs, darkened energon sluggish and thick.
The lightless cave was damp and the weight of stone above him, pressing his shoulders, had not shifted. Checking his chronometer, he found that only a handful of voors had passed since he'd fallen into stasis. Strake hated stasis. Too much could change too quickly and you onlined at the wrong end of the pecking order. If you onlined at all. There were rumors about whether Hook’s stasis trays were really that unreliable, or if some mechs ended up in clandestine experiments.
He couldn't turn or move forward. Thrashing, his sharp armor gouging the rock, he fought backward with energy reserves he couldn't afford to squander. Sunlight. He needed to get out into the air and let this boring little star replenish him. His legs kicked out into the waterfall that hid this cave. The force of the torrent had little effect, but his hands were weak, scrabbling ineffectually at the slippery rock, and his own weight pulled him over the edge. He was too depleted to transform.
Fortunately, the pool beneath the falls was deep and contained no problematic sharp rocks. The water, by no means cold, boiled around him, cooling his overheated frame only slightly. No, he thought, sinking to the bottom. He had to get out or he'd be another who knows how many voors in stasis again, covered in the green filth that teemed beneath the surface.
By the time he reached the shore it was all he could do to cling to the rocks near the pool's outlet, fading in and out of consciousness. Water had sluiced into the remaining, slowly healing rent in his armor. Nothing vital had shorted, but it was a disconcerting feeling. Sunlight pounded him, more fiercely than the water, slowly refilling his reserves. More green shimmered and waved and flickered before his optics. Gaudy planet, sporting and spouting and sprouting in weird extravagances of color and reek and raucous sound. He shut down his optics, conserving power.
He was exposed, though, and as soon as he was able, he crawled beneath the shelter of the jungle. This instinct to hide made him angry. Hone hadn't done anything improper, he'd merely been too close to Galvatron at a bad time, and hadn't dodged quickly enough. Yet, with Skyquake fled, Strake knew he couldn't return to the other Decepticons in this system - they would treat him as a deserter. Trines were always sentenced and executed as one.
Orns passed, both fleeting and interminable. Recharge claimed him most of the time and he wished he had a better hiding place, though he wondered if anyone had come looking for him at all. Certainly Skyquake hadn't. Three thousand vorns together, discarded as if it meant nothing. Strake wanted to scour this island with fire and lightning until there was nothing left but molten stone.
He searched for sign of his former compatriots, opening both common and highly encrypted channels. It was risky - Soundwave could tell who was listening and could be counted on to report immediately to Galvatron.
Over the personal trine frequency was nothing but silence, or the echoes of his own thoughts. He erased that frequency's tag, trembling. There was only a small amount of Seeker comm, and that was distant and subdued, stealthed. Where was everyone else? It took nearly an orn, between bouts of helpless recharge, but as he pried his way gingerly onto the planetary network, he found reference after reference to the Decepticons.
Galvatron had promised them an easy conquest, and now they'd been pushed back to the fourth planet. Everything was going wrong. The Autobots were supposed to be all but vanquished! How had this happened?
Three small towns, villages really, lay within his limited range, whose signals were not cut off completely by the mountainous terrain. He listened to their radio and satellite internet chatter. Much of it was incomprehensible at first. Strake had been built for battle, shortly after the civil war had started. He had no first-contact programming, and his experience was geared toward destroying other cultures, not studying them.
The humans' revolting eating, mating and recharge practices seemed to take up most of their time. No better than the animals they kept as food or pets, he thought. Yet over the orns he lay in the jungle, he noticed things about them. They laughed and fought and complained and were lazy and stupid and cruel; and they loved and hated and defended their young and created crude artforms and told each other stories.
Best not to forget, as well, that one of these insects - albeit with an unprecedented object to hand - had singly laid Megatron low. Their ground-to-air missiles were not to be trifled with. Strake could attest to that personally from previous encounters, though it had been Ironhide who had damaged him so badly this time. (No shame in that, Strake assured himself. Ironhide had been a warrior, too, even before.)
By the time he could fly again, attain escape velocity again, he had learned that his landing site was in the eastern half of Papua New Guinea. That the remaining Seeker eyries were in the Andes, the Alps, and the command trine with their two sub-wings in the Himalayas. He knew the histories of the human cultures that lived near those places, brief as they were, and had a broad understanding of the rocky-planet geological forces that had shaped the mountains. He could speak, if it became convenient, the most broadly-used human languages. He knew the names, both what they called “real” and the online computer “usernames” of everyone in the three villages.
It took four tries before his engines started properly. Transformation had been agonizing and slow. Once airborne, he fought to reach the Earth-Sun L1 point, where he could rest again, enjoying full exposure to solar rays, though he had to dodge a couple of helio-observatory satellites there. He kept his systems on standby, hoping to avoid the notice of the Autobot deep-Seekers. He couldn’t stay there long. He needed to decide what he was going to do.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
There were three active Seeker eyries left on Earth. Two in the largest mountain ranges on the largest land mass, one in the mountains of the south-western continent. Not caring what the humans named these ranges, the nine trines had nevertheless chosen iconic peaks the filthy insects were hesitant to bomb into rubble. Their shielding was more than adequate against anything but nukes, and possibly Perceptor. The other seventeen surviving trines had gone with Galvatron to Mars, setting up eyries on a spectacular volcano, rather pleased with themselves.
Thundercracker circled the eastern eyrie. The tallest non-submerged peak on this planet was puny compared to the Martian volcano, but the weather was more interesting, which made Skywarp happy. Storm-surfing gave him something to do when they weren't engaged in battle, which made Thundercracker happy.
"What took you so long?" was Starscream's greeting as Thundercracker landed.
"Had a run-in with that new deep-Seeker." He allowed Starscream to stroke his wings, then followed his commander inside to the central chamber. "He's definitely that dark jet Galvatron shot down." The one they didn't have a name for, which still bothered Thundercracker. That the Autobots had been capable of reforging someone so extensively bothered him even more. The Autobots by themselves should not have had the resources for something like that, which meant the humans had aided them. If the humans had aided in such a complex undertaking, it meant the humans were learning a lot more about Cybertronians than Thundercracker was in any way comfortable with.
"I suppose it's too much to hope that you blew him out of the sky."
Thundercracker scowled. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried. "You know what deep-Seeker armor is like." Possibly a mistake. Starscream knew very well - knew just about everything there was to know about deep-Seekers, short of being one. This wasn't a good topic of conversation. "There's still activity at the hydro-electric plant you wanted to hit, but the humans aren't pulling that much power from there."
When they'd first arrived after Megatron's fall, it had been easy to cripple huge sections of the continents by taking out one or two power generating facilities and letting their precariously balanced networks shred themselves. Since then, however, the humans had been decentralizing their grids, building numerous smaller plants whose power was used locally instead of transmitted over long distances over aerial lines that were easy to pick off. It had been a mildly amusing pastime for slow days, flying along popping the fragile towers one after another.
"Wretched Autobot interference." Starscream rubbed cheek spars with Thundercracker as an acceptance of the change in the discussion’s vector, then stalked to the holo display. "They're breaking their own rules now," he sneered. "So much for allowing young civilizations - though one could hardly call this planet's infestation by so proper a name - to grow and mature in their own way."
If their enemy was losing their honor, Thundercracker thought, not liking it at all; what did that mean for the Decepticons? He had long had the uncomfortable feeling that his faction had travelled farther astray from their ancient function than Megatron had intended. The Autobots had forced them to change, adapting to unexpectedly determined opposition.
“I want you to take a look at the nuclear plant in the desert east of the main Autobot base again.” Starscream chirped him the coordinates. The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona. Thundercracker sometimes wished Starscream and most of the other Decepticons would use the human names. The insistence upon not bothering because the humans weren’t worth the effort was getting tiresome. “We should have destroyed such targets in the beginning.” Nibbling on Thundercracker’s lateral sensory fins, Starscream seemed to have forgotten that they had made attempts, and had been viciously repulsed by combined human/Autobot defenses.
“Yes, Starscream.” Shuddering, Thundercracker took flight.
Coercing himself onto the Autobot frequencies was almost painful, it had been so long since his mind had traveled there. And the world nets were not unguarded. He slid along passively, searching for any possible point of contact. There was a public address, but each time he tried to key it in the message bounced.
Let me in, frag you! I need to talk to the Prime.
Do you really? Teletraan inquired, frosty, unfazed.
Slagging uppity AI. Thundercracker calmed himself by an effort of will, but before he could compose a civil reply, Prime skimmed neatly into the channel.
What do you want, Thundercracker?
Prime's tone was so utterly, scrupulously neutral it made a tiny, long unlooked-for part of Thundercracker's mind want to curl up in the dark far away and keen.
Those tanks and the others, the ones who appeared suddenly, not long ago. They are not drones. He hated the formal tone his transmission had taken. Not deferential, he told himself. Not really. He had forgotten what it was like to feel the Prime’s words and harmonics fill his CPU. It was a seductive lie, he thought automatically. Another Autobot trick.
No. They are not.
The humans call your First Lieutenant “Lazarus.” I looked up the mythology reference. If you can truly rekindle the dead, I want Saberfall and Novawind back. Give me my first trinemates back and I will join your faction.
Oh Thundercracker, would that it was so easy. Not everyone’s pattern remains cohesive within the Allspark. The rekindled of the Graveyard Legion are such, true. I could try to find your trinemates if you wish, but will not Galvatron do so? I suppose I need not have asked. Do not join us as a mere transaction, or to repay a perceived debt.
You won’t do it, then.
I didn’t say so. If I could bring back everyone who has died in this war… Not all are willing to return, you understand. I will look within for Saberfall and Novawind. See if they remember their names. I will inform you of the results, either way.
All right. Guess I can’t ask for better.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Even staying low, well below the most effective radar boundary, flying within Seekerbane’s range made Strake’s wings itch. Everyone knew Autobots shot Seekers on sight. Didn't they?
Except. Seekerbane could have destroyed the command trine, Strake had learned, but had not. The accounts online were all indirect, but the humans were enthusiastic in their dramatizations. There had also been one, the white-armored one who could have killed Strake before Ironhide had shot him down. Strake had considered it a disgusting display of Autobot weakness, but he was glad to have escaped. And the Prime was accepting...no, he hadn't called it surrender. Amnesty. That was it. Starscream and his command trine had ranted about subversive phrasing and more of the usual filthy Autobot lies.
North of the base…no, the Cybertronian Embassy, were mountains fringed with innumerable canyons and dry creek-beds. He could hide there, watching, prudently waiting not gathering his courage of course; Seekers were fearless. He didn’t want to make such a crucial, life-altering decision rashly. He needed all the intel he could get. It felt like the longest week of his life.
Singing jolted him out of recharge. The moon hung low and yellow in the velvet sky just after sunset. The voice was terrifying; broken and beautiful, spark-rending. Strake moved like the shadows, millimeter by millimeter, creeping, inexorable. Silently, he crouched within stooping distance, watching. The white, door-winged mech - Prowl, the very one who hadn’t killed him - didn't know he was there. Closer, closer. Strake could snatch him up with a quick swoop, drag him to the heights and drop him if he proved troublesome.
Strake suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a butylpotassium pellet gun. Prowl held it quite steady. Optics met optics, both of them weirdly calm.
"What now?" Strake asked softly, his subharmonics elaborating more than he had intended - you are white and I am black and we are both the color of death to the people of this world.
Prowl lowered his gun. “Prime?” He spoke aloud, but Strake was certain he had transmitted a query via tight-beam as well. In a few moments, the hated and reviled leader of the Autobot rebel fugitives appeared at the head of the canyon. Stately and imposing, alert yet composed.
What is your purpose? The Prime used an older Decepticon channel without hesitation. Without rancor.
For a moment, the word would not come. Strake knew hesitation could prove fatal. Optimus Prime had once single-handedly held off Megatron, Starscream and Grindor for a full breem until Ironhide’s reinforcements had arrived.
“Amnesty,” Strake whispered at last, shivering. Something was wrong inside his body. He fell more than climbed from his perch, legs collapsing beneath him, and white static flooded his CPU.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Onlining in an unfamiliar medical bay, Strake found himself unrestrained, laid out on a repair table. Empty missile launchers extended from his arms. He stared at them for a moment before retracting them, peripherally aware of several individuals in the chamber.
“Hello,” said a red and white mech, slowly approaching the table, hands conspicuously empty in a human gesture of peaceable intent. Before Strake could process that weirdness, a larger bright green mech, who he immediately recognized as Ratchet, came up beside him.
“Easy. We removed some of your ammunition as a safety precaution.”
Strake nodded. That had always been a standard procedure, he remembered. He should be terrified - captured by Autobots! In the clutches of the vile Ratchet! Prowl, Ironhide and Prime stood nearby but out of the way of the medics. Ironhide’s cannons were out but not spinning. Prime had a hand firmly on his shoulder. Strake couldn’t seem to muster the energy to be too worried about it. They would have checked him very thoroughly for bombs or other devices as well. He hoped they’d found nothing because he hadn’t knowingly been carrying anything of the kind.
Ratchet ran a scan over the rent in Strake’s armor, nearly closed now. “And I powered down those regrowth protocols - your systems have undergone enough strain lately. How do you feel?”
“Tired,” Strake said. “Hot.” He was going to have to do a lot of explaining soon.
“The overheating is due to having to regenerate without medical assistance. Your body went into high gear to mend the damage. Resilience can be costly.” The medic chuffed in irritation. “Why didn’t you go to Hook?”
Might as well drain the cube in one gulp. “We don’t know where he is. The Constructicons have been AWOL for over four years.” As had he, technically.
The mechs around him stirred uneasily. Ratchet shook his head. “I’m sorry, Strake. Never mind.” Stalking over to a row of spools suspended on a wall, he pulled out differing lengths of various wire and plaited them together. Cutting them neatly, he brought the plait to Strake. “Eat. You’re low on some basic elements, but other than that and the hole in your ventral armor, you’re in surprisingly good shape. Your core temperature should return to normal in a few hours now that you’ve been transfused and refueled.”
Strake sat up - slowly, aware of the twitch in Ironhide’s arms - and took the plait, nibbling cautiously. Ratchet nodded and the red and white mech patted Strake’s knee before withdrawing. Prime and Prowl approached as Strake finished the plait.
Prime offered an arm cable. The formalities, and interrogation, could be gotten over with very quickly if Strake agreed. Hesitation was unbecoming. He had decided. Raising his arm, he opened a port. Ironhide growled, but Prime established a careful link - Strake was a known “hacker”, participating in most of the attacks on Teletraan and Event Horizon and the humans’ net. Strake shuttered his optics. Prime’s virtual presence was, if anything, more powerful than his physical. Who could reprogram whom?
In November of 2018, I was shot down in battle. I fled to a cave in Papua New Guinea…
Strake’s report was delivered with the dispassion and thoroughness of long habit, but with greater honesty. Lying hadn’t been punished among the Decepticons, only being caught, and then if the lie was clever or entertaining the sentence would be light. Once his part was completed, Prime gave him the terms. He could join the Autobots with a minimum of one thousand local years parole under constant supervision.
"If you remain on this planet and do not join us as an Autobot, the humans will wish to capture and try you as a war criminal. We will be obligated to help them." Prime tilted his head slightly. "By your own admission, nothing binds you here. This galaxy is largely unexplored."
Strake looked down. I'm not delta. I don't want to be alone. An admission like an energon blade against his spark chamber, but it was a truth of his forging. His kind weren't built for solitude.
What of Skyquake? Prime's harmonics were kindly meant and indicated that he needn't answer if he didn't wish to. Prime was merely outlining his options.
Strake didn’t answer. Prowl approached his other side as Prime closed the link and withdrew his cable. Ratchet came forward as well and altered the color of Strake’s optics. His visual perception shifted minutely toward the UV end of the spectrum. Ratchet also gave him the file for the Autobot sigil. Strake had never taken up an Earth alt mode, so the next time he transformed his faction badge would also transform.
“You are not to leave my scanning range,” Prowl said gravely. “When I must recharge, Bluestreak will take over your supervision.”
“Bluestreak’s aim is better than mine,” Ironhide felt compelled to add from across the room.
And what’s your scanning range? Strake inquired silkily, accepting Prowl’s private comm frequency with an insouciant click of his mandibles.
You’re a smart mech, Prowl told him, leaning very close. Figure it out.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
They let him into the Autobot cloud mind advisedly. Strake already knew caution when it came to voicing his thoughts - carelessness among the Decepticons could make you dead in a hurry. Smokescreen warned him that the Autobots might not be entirely sympathetic, or polite. Would probably, at least some of them, be hostile. Strake felt a certain bravado was called for.
"Let's see what they've got," he said. It was unthinkable to allow anyone to know how lost he felt, trineless. He almost - almost - hated to fly, with no-one at his wingtips.
So much banter! Everyone was so relaxed with each other. The insults were familiar enough, but they - for the most part - lacked an edge. And the teasing of the Prime! Strake found it offensive at first, how they treated their leader. THE Prime! There were old imperatives yet imbedded in his code perhaps.
He was also discomfited to find out his approach to the embassy had not been as stealthy as he’d thought. “Perceptor spotted you the moment you entered our airspace,” Prowl told him.
“You were watching me the whole time.”
“Yes.”
“Prime suspected that I was going to defect?”
“Yes.”
Prowl, as always, answered Strake’s questions openly. These people scared the slag out of him.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2023 - April
Prowl cradled Strake close, cables seated, but he withheld the full transfer. You must be certain, Prowl told him. It must be your choice. If you continue to hold the humans in contempt then your interaction with the other Autobots will be more difficult. Prowl was in no hurry. He didn't like accessing these memories either, and this he fully admitted to Strake.
I don't scare that easily, Strake said, grinning. Nothing a puny human experienced could have much of an effect, he was certain. Prowl gave him a look. And pushed the files through.
When the screaming stopped, and Strake pulled his hands away from his midsection to find himself unchanged and whole in body, Prowl held him, stroking his helm and wings, keeping the link open and sending reassurance until the shaking eased.
The things we've done, Strake whispered. There had been more to the files than Ixchel's death; childhood days of running and play, swimming, the best chocolate sundae ever, a first bouquet of roses, the comforting feel of a favorite old velveteen blanket, a heart-lifting concerto with Spanish guitar in Berlin, the surge of emotion at the sight of a lover's face.
Undoing the programmatic inhibitions regarding attacks on civilians is one of the worst mistakes of this war, Prowl said. The Autobots, having grasped desperately at very old military programs from Ironhide and others, still retained those inhibitions, and the strong protective impulses as well, which the Decepticons had lost, or twisted. Prowl showed Strake the old programs side-by-side with the newer imperatives Prowl had received from Sentinel, which were eerily similar to Megatron's reprogramming of the Cons. I know you're conditioned to regard anything an Autobot tells you as a lie. You're going to have to decide for yourself.
A part of Strake didn't want to decide. He wanted Prowl to tell him, just wanted to follow orders. It was so much easier.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Stretched out on the mesa top, Prowl looked up at the stars. Strake lay beside him, watching him. “In 85 years, my sentence will be completed,” Prowl said quietly.
Then you will leave me, too. He hadn't meant to express that thought. Sometimes Prowl’s honesty was horrifying. And obviously contagious. Learning what Prowl had done, and what had been done to him, left Strake feeling as though all his gyros had failed at once.
Prowl approximated a sigh, imitating Blades. It's a big universe, he said. You can go where you wish, whenever you wish. I submit, however, that you will always know where to find me.
Where Prime is, Strake realized. Or wherever he sends you.
Prowl smiled. Exactly.
Strake relaxed against him. It wasn't a trine bond, it wasn't even a promise. Merely a simple statement of a fundamental law of physics. He could live with that.
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