Evening The Odds Chapter 1, a transformers fanfic

Evening the odds.

Disclaimer: All characters used in this story belong to DreamWorks/Paramount and Hasbro, and I make no claim of ownership, nor do I profit from this.

Continuity: Bayverse/Movieverse but with elements of G1. After the first movie, but 2 and 3 never happening

Main Characters: Ratchet, Starscream, various Seekers.

Rating: Probably G, but T for safety.

Synopsis: While reviewing his medical files, Ratchet has an idea that might even the playing field between the Autobots and the Decepticons. But how do you take out their entire Air Force without a single loss of life?

A/N: Based on an idea of Sanjuno's I have written around before and prompted by one of Sanjuno's reviews to a chapter of "Protectors Of The Young."

This was meant to be a one shot, but ended up writing itself into such a whopper I thought it best to split it. I originally thought it might go well into three, but for dramatic effect and natural conclusions to be taken into effect, it has been split into four parts.

Cybertronian time unit translations: 1 orn=about 2 human weeks. 1 vorn=about 86 human years.

Evening The Odds.

Chapter One.

Starscream led his wing brothers in the aerial dance they performed when out on free flight time. This was not by his connivance: if either Thundercracker or Skywarp wanted to leave and go on solo flight, Starscream would have let them go without comment. However, there were only a certain few places that were safe to fly in without getting shot at, and anyway, they all agreed it was nice to have company while out flying. They too often had to fly singly while on duty to mimic human planes, and enjoyed this opportunity to fly together.

He looked at the Autobot base resentfully as they passed it. Once, they had been able to sometimes sneak in and out and pilfer energon, thanks to the handy ability that had earned Skywarp his name. However, one day the inventor Wheeljack had arrived on Earth. This had not before been seen as a problem: Wheeljack's experimental machinery had a tendency to violently self-immolate, even if that was not its intended function. However it appeared that, as statistics suggested one day must happen, one of Wheeljack's contraptions actually functioned as planned without ending in a loud bang with clouds of smoke. Less than two orns after the Autobot inventor's arrival, Skywarp had attempted to warp past the Autobot Base's usual force-field on an energon-stealing/spy mission, and failed, due to the force-field having mysteriously acquired an anti-warp component running through it.

Starscream angled down towards the Autobot Base and the shimmering field domed over it, its visibility the only advantage the anti-warp field gave them. Before its addition, the force-field had only been visible very close up, so close, in fact, that the few times it had been down, they had only realised too late that they were being ambushed as the Twins leaped up to practice their jet-judo.

'At least,' Starscream thought to himself, 'with the anti-warp field added to the force field, we will know if it's down, and be suspicious enough to avoid it. Not that it's ever happened since the addition of that thrice-slagged sheild!' For three years now, the Seekers had been unable to access the Autobot Base, and even cracking their codes and deciphering their communications hadn't given any of the Decepticons any idea why they had added the extra layer of security. 'I suppose they got fed up with us stealing their energon,' Starscream thought. 'Maybe if they were willing to share, we wouldn't have had to steal it!'

Executing a somersault over the highest point of the Autobot Base, with a jet-scream sure to draw the attention of anybody inside, Starscream flipped any watchers the bird, following it up with a hand gesture just as obscene in Cybertronian culture. Starscream angled up sharply, casting a quick glance over his shoulder to observe his wing brothers doing the same, in near-perfect synchrony, before angling up behind him.

'It's about all we can do when they're in their Base now,' the Seeker thought bitterly, as he continued his upwards flight, increasing the speed with a quick blast of his foot-thrusters. 'At least we can draw them out for battles, and aren't hampered by their conscience and concern over the squishy natives of this world. And as the Aerialbots have yet to put in an appearance, we have that advantage, too.' He vanished into the cloud cover, the best place for he and his wing brothers to fly, in the cloud and hidden from human sight. Yes, the satellites the humans had up might be able to pick up their heat signatures, but most of those were transmitting their data via Soundwave now, and those that weren't would not allow the humans to react fast enough to find them with any craft.

Even if they did, Starscream knew that he and his trine could take out at least a squadron of planes between them, Starscream having personally turned several human F-22 planes to confetti single-handed at Mission City several years ago.

As his wing brothers moved into formation behind him, Starscream cleared all thoughts of the Autobots from his mind. He wasn't going to spoil the enjoyment of free-flight by thinking of them.

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Ratchet was jolted rudely out of his perusal of the medical flies he was studying by the loud, building-shaking jet scream that sounded as if it originated just a few millimetres above the roof of the med bay. "What the frag?" he cried, his eyes instinctively looking at the screen visual of the outside of the Base, in time to observe the Seekers, and notice both hand signals they made. He understood them both too, and decided that sometimes being multi-lingual in the cruder terms of over a hundred different sapient species was sometimes a disadvantage. He had to wonder, however, if Starscream knew that the order he used the gestures in was telling him to do something highly illegal in twenty-two of those cultures, and anatomically impossible in all but two of the rest.

He also wondered if he could let such an insult go unanswered, but also realised that by the time he reacted that the Seekers wouldn't be in sight or weapons range, and that all the responses he could think of were unorthodox, not to mention un-Autobot.

Not that the few times he'd needed to worry about that, that he'd ever let it stop him...

He muttered something uncomplimentary, loud enough to make him feel a fraction better, but not loud enough to wake the small slumbering form curled on his lap, and went back to studying the medical files.

Ratchet possessed most of the sum of Cybertronian medical knowledge, much of it forgotten or obsolete, and had, in fact, downloaded it from the main data storage in Iacon just before the city had fallen. Not having the time to sift through it for what was relevant, he had instead chosen to download it all, a monumental task that had slowed the Autobot group he led considerably, and had almost destroyed Ratchet in the process. He had planned to go through it and cull anything irrelevant at intervals of two vorns, but at that time he'd not realised how long this wretched war was going to last. However, now they had a Base, Ratchet had begun taking what opportunities he got to go through and index what he had.

He had recently come to the conclusion that what might seem irrelevant might actually serve a purpose under different circumstances, so had decided to preserve all the data he had, copy it all onto several back-up drives, and delete from his processors anything that seemed irrelevant in the current situation. He had also chosen to arrange it and index it, so that if circumstances changed and he needed to re-download anything he had deleted from his processors, he could find it easily.

And if something went wrong, and Ratchet himself was killed, the knowledge he had wouldn't die with him. This was why Ratchet had first copied everything he had onto storage as it was, in case he was killed before he finished indexing.

He sighed, and settled back to his task.

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"Elita, Firestar, do either of you need to be relieved?" Optimus asked as he walked into one of the three rooms that had been converted into nurseries.

"No, we're good, and we have volunteers," Elita replied, using her free hand to indicate Cliffjumper and Mirage, who were moving from one sparkling to another to first feed them formula, and then to release gas from their systems, using the little valve built into each sparkling body for that very reason.

Optimus nodded, absently stroking the sparkling Elita was holding in her other arm. It was good for them, he supposed, that the femmes who had landed had, upon learning that the AllSpark had been destroyed, happily taken the work of producing sparklings onto themselves with a vigour and willingness that surprised most of the mechs. Ratchet had, in fact, had to impose limits on how many they could each safely bear a year.

Optmus moved over to pick up his and Elita's latest. The femmes who had arrived – Elita, Firestar, Chromia, Flareup, Arcee, and Moonracer – had, if they had partners, had a sparkling with those partners first. Then they had chosen to divide up the remaining mechs who wanted sparklings between them and bear a sparkling for each mech who wanted one. Then they would go back to their partners if they wanted another, and have another.

"We are adding to our numbers," Optimus said as he ran his engine to calm his mech, Alpha, into recharge. 'So are the Decepticons, through landings, and all are fighting adults,' he thought but did not say. Perhaps the Autobots had had fewer landings than the Decepticon, but he knew the Autobots had been lucky with their arrivals, and now had some of the faction's best fighters and scientists on Earth. Unfortunately, with the arrival of first Starscream's wing brothers, and then just four orns ago, the Coneheads AND the Rainmaker trines, the Autobots, currently with no air support at all, were at a serious disadvantage. They had received communications from Silverbolt that he and all of the other Aerialbots were alive and on their way, but still had months at least to wait before they could make Earthfall.

Technically, Optimus could order all the sparklings put into adult bodies, and have battle techniques and fighting styles downloaded into them, but not only could Ratchet not make enough adult bodies in time, but Optimus found the idea of using their offspring in this way quite repugnant, and suspected many of the other Creators, both mech and femme, would feel the same.

"Once we finish bearing, we can go back to fighting," Elita said. She and all the other femmes had been incredibly annoyed when Ratchet put a ban on any femme who was carrying from fighting if the Autobots had to battle. As it happened, on each of the four occasions the Autobots had been forced to go out and fight the Decepticon forces, all the femmes had been in one or another stage of carrying. "We will have the advantage of surprise, as they will not be expecting us," Elita clarified.

"Indeed," Optimus said, and he had to admit that the femmes and their individual, unique fighting strengths and styles would be a help. He did not think any of the femmes had been spotted as such when they landed and came to the Base, and had taken pains to ensure the information stayed a secret. "However, as they now have an Air Force nine Seekers strong, we will have to create an anti-aircraft unit. One with what humans would call "strong stomachs'." He winced. Ratchet had told him about the grounding-madness that took over Seekers who were prevented from flying. "Any in that group will have to go after any Seeker they shoot down and make sure he does not live long after being downed." His voice was strained. As Firestar and Mirage both shot him shocked looks, he said "Ratchet tells me it is preferable to the insanity they will suffer if unable to fly."

"Couldn't we keep them captive?" Mirage asked.

"They will still need to fly. We would either have to repair and then release them – assuming Ratchet could replace severely damaged wings - and risk them turning on us as we release them – or find some way to allow them to fly in captivity, and we do not have the space. The force-field is at full extension now, we could not increase the height to allow flight. Wheeljack and Blaster are working on extending it, but with the limits we have with the technology available to us, even taking into consideration we do have a craft mech and an inventor to make some parts the humans cannot provide, there is little chance of any significant improvement in the near future."

"Surely there is some other way?" asked Firestar.

"I can only hope that someone can find a non-lethal method of taking the Decepticon Air Force out of commission," Optimus said. "Any ideas would be very welcome."

Putting Alpha - who was now deep in recharge – back into Elita's free arm, Optimus walked out of the room as if he carried all of Cybertron on his shoulders.

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Ratchet had paused in his indexing to read some information on Seeker programming. Optimus had confided his plans to Ratchet an orn ago, and asked if he could find a non-lethal way of tackling the issue of Decepticon air superiority. Ratchet had told Optimus to hope the Aerialbots landed soon, before the extreme measures became a neccessity to make things more even, but as he read on, he noticed something that might possibly be what Optimus was looking for.

Fifteen minutes later, Ratchet sat up, shifting his still-recumbent sparkling to his shoulder. He saved what he had catalogued and commed for the Twins. If what he had read was true, if that bit of programming was undeletable, unalterable, and overrode everything else, then if his plan worked, there would be no need for that anti-aircraft unit. He allowed himself a small smile. "It could be child's play," he murmured to himself, as Sunstreaker and Sideswipe peeked in the med bay warily. He spotted them and crooked his finger at them.

They spotted Ratchet's small smile, and looked at each other nervously, When Ratchet was scowling or throwing wrenches, they knew what to expect, but a smiling Ratchet was completely beyond their ken. Wondering what they'd done wrong, or perhaps if they had something terminal, they walked over nervously.

Ratchet put a hand on a shoulder each and said "You two, I have a task for you both." He paused as they both wondered what awful task he'd ask of them.

"How would you like to practice your jet-judo?"

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Starscream was on patrol when Soundwave forwarded him a message he'd intercepted and decrypted. It was from Optimus to Bumblebee, asking him to come to the Autobot Base in an hour to help unload some air fuel.

Starscream knew that when the Autobots got fuel deliveries, they dropped the force-field to let the tankers of fuel in. Starscream had never bothered about it much, as two or three of the grounders had readily available sources of fuel they could visit and usually shared what they had. Air fuel was a different matter, however. It was getting more and more difficult to land and fuel at Nellis, and he was worried his tail fin numbers would be remembered and that one day he'd be recognised, and worse, shot at with sabot rounds. Starscream had to assume that this air fuel delivery was an indication that the Aerialbots were on their way, which could louse up their big advantage against the Autobots. But this could be an opportunity, he saw, and called his wing brothers.

Relaying the message, he said "Skywarp, you hide in the clouds. Thundercracker, you and I will distract them. When distracted, Skywarp, drop down and warp the tanker to our Base."

"What if it's a trap?" Skywarp asked.

"It's in the same code the Autobots have been using for the last month, the one Soundwave cracked an orn ago. If it was a trap, they'd have to know we cracked their code, and if that was the case, Soundwave would have picked up other communications in a code he hadn't decrypted yet. I asked, worried about the same thing, and he said no, they're sending out the same old orders and comments as usual on the same code. They have no idea we've cracked it and no reason to think we have. It'll be fine, and we can't pass up this opportunity for air fuel."

Skywarp was forced to concur, for he knew the air fuel situation could change at any moment, and took his position above the clouds, as Starscream and Thundercracker flew around, planning to "buzz" the Base and the Autobots when the tanker was waiting to go in.

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Everything appeared to go to plan, at first, Starscream reflected bitterly. The tanker driver got out of the cab of the tanker and walked to the gate. After a word with the soldier the force field dropped. Starscream and Thundercracker streaked down, and the soldier and cab driver dived into the Base, as Skywarp dropped down and got ready to grab the tanker and warp it away.

Before he could get a secure hold, however, the Twins suddenly leaped out from their hiding places, grabbing Skywarp and spinning him down and into the Base. Starscream still wasn't over-concerned, expecting Skywarp to warp out of there, the Twins could never hold onto him for long.

But someone must have been watching and waiting, because the anti-warp force field flickered up suddenly, and Starscream realised that Skywarp was trapped inside, and they were stuck outside. It seemed that the Autobots did realise the Decepticons had cracked their code, just not changed it as they'd had nothing so important to say that it needed any new encrypting.

With a howl of rage, despair, or both, Starscream and Thundercracker took flight, heading back to their base, calling for Soundwave and begging him for his help.