Undercover

Cleargold

A/N: The backstory mentioned for the first time in this chapter is woven around some of the events of the very excellent Megatron: Origin, written by Eric Holmes, with Alex Milne's excellent artwork.

[ ] denotes communication via an internal digital channel.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Mirage Shinkiro for betaing for me, and Angelina Ballerina for listening as I read this chapter aloud.

To all of you who received an erroneous message that I had posted Chapter 2 on March 31st, I'm really sorry about that (and especially if you were disappointed!) – I just hit the wrong button by mistake while trying to make some changes to the original Chapter 1! And to all of you who've stuck with it, reviewed, faved or set up alerts on it, thanks for doing so. Here it is.

Chapter 2: Curious

The screen above Teletraan 1 was filled with human faces, for the most part scared or weeping, and occasionally angry.

"And now we return to our headline story, the eruption of the Magdalena volcano in Paratina. At just after 8 p.m. two days ago, the volcano erupted explosively. Following this, mudflows have occurred in the area, blocking surrounding river valleys, probably triggered by glacial ice melting at the summit.

"The small town of Aralia has been completely overwhelmed, killing about 25,000 of its inhabitants. The scientific community apparently warned the authorities, but accusations have been made that no evacuation plans were in place to deal with a natural disaster of this magnitude..."

Heh! Humans – they're so disorganised, Starscream thought. If their authorities can't even agree on how to deal with natural disasters, they'll be easy victims for us!

"Can't we help them?" asked Bumblebee, looking up at the screen as he walked into the control room with Bluestreak.

"I don't see how we can," Bluestreak said. "Ratchet and co. still have several patients, and the rest of us are busy with Project Aurora –"

Bumblebee jabbed an elbow against his side and pointed to Starscream. He raised his voice, probably for Starscream's benefit, and said, "Phew! Weren't Ironhide and Jazz late? I thought that shift was never going to end."

Starscream saw the gesture. "Don't point at me, Autobot!" His processor had snagged on the words, 'Project Aurora', and he sequestered it at the back of his data banks for later reference. I need a distraction from that, so I can pretend I didn't notice. "What is it with you Autobots, anyway, that you have to go around helping the flesh creatures all the time?"

"What's it with you 'Cons that you consider yourself too superior to help anyone else at all?" Bluestreak's tone was indignant. "With your attitude you're very lucky Optimus took pity on you."

Starscream just chuckled in his driest way.

"I happen to agree with you, but for Primus' sake, don't let him wind you up!" Bumblebee said. "Both of us have better things to expend our energy on. "

"Slaggit, you're right!"

Evidently Bluestreak's forgotten that it was his gaffe that had started the argument, Starscream reflected.

"Well, I'm for a bit of R and R." Bluestreak stretched and crossed the control room, heading down another corridor. Bumblebee followed.

Starscream looked around the control room, trying to relax back against the bulkhead. Evidently the Autobot casualties were as bored as he was, because Teletraan I had been hooked into human TV most of the time he'd been in the control room. He'd viewed it with some curiosity at first, since watching human transmissions, other than news and mission-interest programmes, was strictly forbidden back at Decepticon HQ. But the only programmes Starscream found any real interest in were news bulletins, current affairs programmes, and sometimes the satirical comedy shows that mocked fleshling politicians.

I wonder what Bumblebee and Bluestreak were doing on their shift? Although he wanted to know why Chromia and her friends were on Earth he was uncertain when he'd be repaired and couldn't settle to forming any kind of plan to find out. And, he realised, there'll only be a narrow window of opportunity to learn what Project Aurora is between being repaired and leaving.

He tried to shift forward again to stretch his arms and flex his wings to relieve the growing stiffness in his joints. But the dizziness and sensation of losing his balance, painful to a Seeker who was used to soaring or diving at a whim without fear of falling, flooded into his circuits and made him slump back against the bulkhead. At this rate, he thought, I'm not going to be able to get up ever again, and won't discover anything! The only bright spot on the horizon was that Ratchet and his assistants had managed to fix two of the Autobots by mid-morning, which brought his own repairs a little closer.

Later in the day there was some excitement when a femme's voice rang out on the intercom calling for Inferno to help put out a fire in the construction laboratory. Starscream's audio-receptors pricked up at that. It didn't sound like Chromia, but he couldn't identify just who it was until Optimus Prime responded, "Inferno's on his way, Elita. Evacuate the lab."

She's here too, then, Starscream thought, as Inferno thundered by in fire truck mode. He decided Optimus must have forgotten about his presence to say anything so revealing.

"Where do you want us to wait?"

"Come into the control room, but leave the – project outside."

Starscream intercepted Optimus's glance in his direction.

"I'll bring some others to help with the evacuation. We must protect our work."

"Agreed. Thanks, Optimus. Elita out."

Perhaps it was just as well I did get injured in that skirmish! Starscream's curiosity was piqued again, but he didn't want Optimus to see him craning for a better view. But damn these injuries for stopping me from moving about! He decided against pretending to doze again on the grounds that it would look like a suspicious strategy in an emergency. Instead he did his best to appear alarmed. If anyone asks I can say I'm worried about getting caught in the fire. So when Optimus approached with several other Autobots, including Bumblebee, Bluestreak, Mirage and Hound, Starscream asked, "What's happening?"

"There's a minor fire in another part of the Ark. We're evacuating that area for safety reasons."

"Will – Will I have to be evacuated too?"

"Unlikely," Optimus said. "We hope Inferno will soon have everything under control."

"Typical, Starscream – always thinking of your own safety!" muttered Hound.

"The evacuation's the vital thing at present," Optimus said. "Let's go!" and they set off down the corridor. Soon the squeak of wheels on the metal floor of the Ark could be heard. They stopped in the corridor, and Starscream cursed his injuries again. They got me in here but won't let me get any closer to whatever this "project" of theirs is. But as Chromia and three other femmes, all of whom he recognised, walked into the control room, he forgot about the injuries. Before him stood Chromia, Elita One, Moonracer and Firestar.

"I thought he was a prisoner?" Firestar stabbed a finger at him.

"He is," Ratchet put in, "but he's awaiting major system repairs, or he'd have been in the brig."

"Why are we repairing him?" Moonracer was indignant.

"Optimus has his reasons," Elita answered.

"As Chromia pointed out, the last time we saw him, he was shooting at us. He and his friend Rumble destroyed our headquarters so we had to relocate. Both you and Optimus nearly died, and we were trapped –"

"That's enough, Moonracer!" Elita said.

Starscream leaned back against the bulkhead. They're so uptight, it'd be fun to wind them up a bit, he he grinned in the most superior way he could. "Well, girls, don't all fight over me!"

"Don't flatter yourself, Starscream!" Firestar flashed. She despises me, he thought. The others, including Chromia, probably felt the same way about him.

He was mildly surprised to find her beside him with his energon. He hadn't heard her approach. As he took the cubes from her he looked sidewise at her. "Nothing to say?"

"Someone's got to behave with a bit of restraint," Chromia replied.

That figures. She hadn't joined in with the others, probably because she was their troop leader, and it occurred to him that her straight-forwardness made her even more likeable; perhaps because he would never attain that quality himself. Perhaps it's true that opposites attract.

"Stay here, all of you," Elita said, "and take five, in turn. Optimus and the others will complete the evacuation and deal with the fire. Chromia, you can take the first break."

Chromia let her gaze roam around the room and stop on Starscream. "Elita, why don't you take the first break, and Firestar, Moonracer and I can go after you? I'll look after my – er – other charge, and there can be two out in the corridor at any one time."

Elita agreed to this and walked towards the corridor Bluestreak had taken earlier. Moonracer and Firestar went and stood by the entrance to the other corridor. Chromia looked down at Starscream, apparently considering something. Eventually she dropped down beside him.

"Let me guess, your first priority is to distract me from working out what your project is!" Starscream was so used to the confrontational relationship with the Autobots that he fell into it automatically.

"Close!" she acknowledged. "I appear to have acquired some sort of responsibility for you, so I figured I'd better start exercising it."

A burst of music from the huge screen announced the start of a new programme. "'Women Rule: A History of Feminism'," Chromia read. "What's that about, Spike?"

The young human was carrying a wrench, which, presumably, he'd been sent for. "It's to do with Women's Lib," he said. "Apparently us men have been holding women back!"

"Lib?" Starscream asked.

"Short for liberation." Spike grinned.

"Why liberation?"

"Watch the programme and you'll find out!" Spike set off across the Control Room, intent on delivering the wrench.

"The flesh creatures have some strange ideas," Starscream observed.

"Yes, but then it's even stranger to make a complete new person inside yourself. It must be hard work – so perhaps that's why the women needed liberating," Chromia suggested.

"Yet the human males and females need each other equally to complete their sex cycle," Starscream said. "Presumably they don't want liberating from that particular dependence!"

Starscream watched Chromia as she watched the programme. She seemed to find it fascinating. He shrugged and settled into watching as well. It wouldn't do any harm to find out what the silly fleshling females thought they needed liberating from...

One by one the others took their breaks. Chromia stayed where she was, engrossed in the black-and-white photos and early footage of women chaining themselves to railings in support of their cause. She seemed to admire the human Suffragettes, as did the other femmes when they returned and became interested in the programme. Starscream couldn't find it in himself to feel the same way about them, but he remembered the circumstances which had led to his involvement in the Decepticon movement, and understood the passion which sustained the Suffragettes during their fight for equality. On Cybertron femmes had generally been treated the same as mechs, but as Chromia pointed out, if one sex had not just responsibility for new humans but major personal involvement as well, perhaps things were unequal for human females.

"Time for your break, Chromia." Starscream looked up to see Elita One towering over him and looking between Chromia and himself and back again.

"I don't really need one – I've been watching this programme," Chromia confessed. "It's quite interesting."

"Yes, I've seen some of it as well," Elita said. "I think the others have, too."

"Reminds me a bit of the early days of the Decepticons," Starscream commented. "Their zeal made them keep on trying in a way that's admirable, even for such a weak organic race – maybe their females deserve more respect than their males."

Optimus reappeared from the corridor. "All right, Autobots. The fire's out, and we're just finishing clearing up and...replacing everything."

The hesitation shouted of secrecy. Starscream was alert for every oblique mention of whatever this mysterious project was, and again cursed his inability to move about.

"We'll get back to work, then," Chromia said, standing up.

He watched the four femmes enter the corridor again, his optics lingering on Chromia.

Just what are they doing in that lab? he wondered again. It required the presence of femmes, obviously, or these four wouldn't be on Earth. Optimus must be up to something, but Starscream couldn't for the life of him imagine what the Autobot leader was planning.

*

Starscream drifted back into consciousness just as a familiar blue form strode into the Ark's control room. "TC! Am I glad to see you!"

Optimus Prime and Ratchet flanked him. "Can we help you with that?" Optimus gestured toward the chip Thundercracker had removed from his cockpit.

Polite as ever, Starscream thought, but it's plainly a security move. He watched as Thundercracker handed over the chip.

"You can speak with Starscream, if you wish," Optimus told Thundercracker.

He nodded. "I did want to see him, while I'm here."

"Gears, you're on security duty," Optimus said, and to Thundercracker he added, "You have five Earth minutes."

Thundercracker nodded and came over to Starscream. "Are you okay?" he asked, seating himself beside him and leaning back against the bulkhead. "Megatron wouldn't let Hook fix anyone else up till he'd finished working on him."

[Megatron said you and Skywarp were being repaired as he spoke when Prime called him,] Starscream pointed out via their private channel, not wanting any of the Autobots to hear. [Was he lying again?]

[You know he always gets repaired before anyone else!]

"You know why he kept me waiting, don't you?" Starscream was very aware of Gears standing nearby, trying not to give away the fact that he was listening to their conversation.

"Something to do with your latest scheme to undermine him, I suspect!" Thundercracker quirked his upper lip in the lopsided half-smile that was a mirror image of his own grin. "Why do you do it? Aren't you satisfied with being Air Commander?"

"I don't know why, something just drives me on," Starscream admitted. "I suppose I just feel confident that I'm the superior officer."

"One day you'll go too far," Thundercracker warned. "It might be good to stop before that happens."

Starscream met his optics with a level gaze. "Like, you think I could?"

"Like, I think you should seriously consider it."

"Hey, listen!" Starscream pointed across the control room to where Firestar had just entered. "There are femmes here."

"What?"

"It's true. Autobot femmes. One of them's assigned to 'look after' me." Starscream remembered the shock he'd received when Chromia had touched him, and instantly decided he wasn't going to mention that. He pointed again, this time at Prime. "I've seen Optimus Prime's girlfriend here as well."

"Wonder what they're doing here?"

"I don't know – yet...But it'll be several solar cycles before I can be repaired, as I'm last in the queue, so..." Starscream paused. "Though I can't move around much."

"Okay, you two – time's up!" Gears growled. "I'll escort you to the exit, Thundercracker."

"Thanks, TC," Starscream murmured.

Thundercracker stood up and made as if to transform to simply fly out of the control room, but nothing happened, and it was then that Starscream noticed that he too wore one of Wheeljack's transformation-inhibitors. "Augh, I forgot about that thing," he muttered, and followed Gears with a wave to Starscream.

*

Starscream onlined to find himself still leaning back against the bulkhead. He'd slipped into recharge mode a few times that evening from sheer boredom. The control room was deserted apart from Ratchet, the human, Sparkplug Witwicky, and their diminishing queue of patients. Wheeljack was apparently offshift, and it looked as if the others were preparing to follow them once they'd finished dealing with their current patient.

Starscream hadn't seen Optimus Prime for groons; he'd disappeared with the femmes and a couple of uninjured mechs some time ago. Whatever the rationale behind the femmes' presence, Starscream reasoned, it has something to do with them being female or they wouldn't be here. But beyond that, he had no idea what was going on, and no idea how he could find out more while his injuries prevented him from moving about.

"I'm bored - let's see what's on TV," Tracks suggested, mimicking a human yawn. Starscream had noticed, in the trailer on the way to the Ark, that Tracks had lost part of one leg, but he managed to crawl to where the remote was stored, and switched on. He flicked idly through the channels, stopping for a few moments on one or another if they seemed interesting, but for the most part moving quickly on. "Hey, Formula 1 racing! That's cool –"

Ratchet groaned. "That racket does my head in while I'm operating! Isn't there anything else?"

Reluctantly Tracks hopped channels again. "Cool! Check it out – Tina Turner!"

"Well, you're not gonna be dancing to that for a while!"

"True," Tracks switched channels again. "Well, what about this Late Channel?"

The screen filled up with bizarre images. Once he'd worked out what they were, Starscream realised they were ones he'd never have expected to see in the Ark's control room.

"Whatever's that?" Ratchet put his head first on one side, then the other, trying to work out what he was seeing.

"Looks like an X-rated movie," the fleshling, Sparkplug, replied. "Good job Spike's not here right now! I wouldn't let him watch anything like that."

"Why not?" Ratchet asked.

"Too young."

"How d'you mean?"

"We try to protect our youngsters from seeing things that are...inappropriate to their age group." He explained the ratings system. "This is a movie about sex."

"Human sex?"

"Obviously!"

Tracks scanned the screen curiously. "Is that – real?"

"Nah – they simulate it in films," Sparkplug said. "I still wouldn't want Spike to watch anything like this."

Starscream's thoughts turned back to his conversation with Chromia the previous solar cycle. So male humans could be as protective of their offspring as females. I'm confused.

"Not so different from us, really," Tracks said after a few moments of turning his head this way and that to check from different angles.

Starscream was watching with some curiosity as well. The images were beginning to make some sense to him in the context of the flesh creatures. Tracks was right: human sex mirrored Transformer sex, at least superficially. He felt mentally alert and was beginning to feel slightly aroused, and wondered whether Tracks, or any of the others, were similarly affected.

"I'd turn that over if I were you – sounds like Optimus and the femmes are coming back!" Ratchet said.

Tracks hurried to comply – looking a little disappointed, Starscream thought.

Tina Turner, belting out a raw-sounding live version of Private Dancer, replaced the writhing humans on the bed just in time to avoid serious embarrassment for all of them.

*

The next solar cycle Starscream decided he must focus on finding out why the femmes were on Earth or go crazy with boredom. For much of his time he was aware of a growing impatience, but wasn't sure exactly what he was so eager for, until Chromia approached him with his energon; on the dot, twenty-four Earth hours after the last time.

"Thanks, Chromia," he said, unwilling to drink the contents of the cubes while she was there and waste time he might spend talking to her. He decided a direct approach might yield more information than an oblique one, and at least his curiosity need not be feigned. "Er – I've got to ask; why are you ladies here on Earth?"

Chromia looked surprised, then annoyed. "What's that got to do with you?"

"Just curious, I guess," he murmured. "Can you blame me? I'm sat here bored out of my mind all day, so what am I going to think about? I can't even get up and walk about, get some exercise so I don't stiffen up too much. After all, it's pretty unusual for any femmes to be here instead of on Cybertron!"

Chromia's scowl vaporised. "Of course – you must be bored. Well, it's no secret. My friends and I wanted to see our boyfriends, and they wanted to see us. Don't you Decepticons need a bit of female company sometimes?"

Starscream didn't know how to answer that. He was as interested in femmes as the next mech, but he'd never discussed such a thing with any other Decepticon since he had no wish to ruin the image he'd built up of himself as a cool-headed and vicious warrior. Besides, there hadn't been enough females to go round before the war, so there certainly weren't now. Eventually he said, "I...guess so."

"Well, then, you know how we felt."

"Er – yes." Starscream's chain of thought took him back to when he'd first met Megatron. Femmes had made up a higher proportion of the population then, and the successful gladiators he'd so admired – what had first drawn him into the beginnings of the Decepticon movement – had been rewarded with regular visits from the local brothel. When he and his flightmates had joined Megatron, they'd been included. But that had suddenly come to a grinding halt shortly afterwards, without explanation. At the time they'd just accepted it in the heady excitement of the escalating war. I must ask Megatron why that was, he thought, when I get back to base.

"I'm sorry you're so bored, Starscream, but you must know that that's part of being a prisoner, and in your case it's part of being injured as well!" Chromia retorted. "We're taking care of you, which I'm sure wouldn't happen were the positions reversed, so I don't think you ought to be grumbling!"

"I'm not complaining," Starscream said quickly, "I'm just –"

"It sounded a lot like complaining." Chromia looked round. "Sorry, Starscream – my presence is required!"

Starscream caught sight of Optimus Prime standing by one of the exits from the room. Whatever the femmes were really doing on Earth, the project had Optimus's official sanction and personal involvement. "Okay," he said. "See you later, Chromia, and – don't be too cross with me!"

For answer, she flashed a mischievous smile at him and strode off.

*

Starscream was still bored. He sprawled against the bulkhead, elbows balanced on his knees. For several solar cycles he'd either sat in a similar position or lain on the floor, with nothing to do but watch either Ratchet and Wheeljack's repair schedule or human TV. Nobody had spoken to him for groons. But at least I haven't got Megatron grumbling at me, he thought. He was focusing so hard on Ratchet that he didn't hear anyone approach.

"You look fed up – are you willing Ratchet to fix you?" Chromia asked.

Starscream looked round sharply, then managed a grin. "I'm not used to having nothing to do," he said. "You're the only one who talks to me – apart from Wheeljack, and he's too busy –"

"Are you missing your Decepticon cronies?"

"Not really," Starscream confessed. "It was good to see TC the other day, but I'm not very close to anyone there and Megatron treats me like slag."

"It can't be pleasant to be left for dead."

"You know about that?"

"Optimus told me."

"I wouldn't be here otherwise – and I haven't forgiven Megatron for abandoning me." Her sympathy was balm to his resentment. "I haven't seen much of you today, Chromia," he said, "and since Ironhide's been in here the whole time since you disappeared to whatever you're working on, your wish to spend time with him obviously hasn't been met!"

"No," she agreed. "Not today. Some days are like that."

He'd been hoping to needle her enough to get her to reveal where she'd been all day. No such luck, he thought. I'll have to try something else.

"Well, here's your energon." She dropped the usual three cubes into his outstretched hand.

As she did so, her fingertips brushed the palm of his hand, and a tingle flowed through the sensors there. It's that sensation again, though it's not an electric shock. But his core temperature was rising, and his awareness of his attraction to her was becoming so strong that he had to look away from her gaze.

"Are you all right, Starscream? You look – a bit strange."

"I'm – okay. Just dizzy."

"D'you need to lie down for a while? I'll get Wheeljack and –"

"No!" He didn't want her to touch him in this sensitised state. She'd know from the sudden heat of his frame. "I'll be – fine."

A shadow fell over them. "Chromia, you hadn't forgotten, had you?"

Starscream looked up to see Ironhide standing waiting, and glaring at him. He put the energon cubes down beside him and folded his arms in a self-defensive gesture.

"No, of course not!" She turned back to Starscream. "Got to go now. Got a date with my boyfriend. Finally!"

He gritted his teeth against the sudden stab of jealousy as they left the control room holding hands. And he knew why Ironhide had come over. He's jealous of me. Somehow he knows about my attraction to Chromia, and he thinks I'm trying to take her away from him.

He leaned his head back against the bulkhead in an attempt to let the chill of the metal steady him. You idiot! he chided himself. You've let yourself get involved with an Autobot femme, and worse still, she's with someone else. Megatron would call you a fool, and this time he'd be right!

*

"Right, Starscream – your turn!"

Starscream had been dozing, but he jerked back online at Wheeljack's exclamation. "Am I going to have to get up and go over there?"

"'Fraid so, but we'll help you, won't we, Chromia?"

"Of course."

Starscream allowed the two Autobots to help him up. His sensors registered the tingle that had become so familiar as soon as Chromia put her hand under his arm to lift him. But he'd grown stiff from lack of movement, and it hurt to pull himself upright. His vision blurred and he felt dizzy and disoriented, but he was so close to being repaired that he gripped his lower lip between his teeth and made the enormous effort required to get himself across the room and onto the operating table.

"Stiff and sore, eh?"

He grunted an acknowledgement.

"Don't worry, we'll get you oiled up and back to normal in no time!"

As he subsided onto the table Chromia let go of his arm and excused herself. Starscream didn't know whether to be glad or sorry that she'd gone.

"I bet you'll be glad to get home, won't you?" Wheeljack asked, carefully removing the broken glass of the cockpit windshield.

Starscream shrugged as best he could with his cockpit open. "Sort of." But I won't see Chromia after I go. "I've been a bit bored some of the time. I don't enjoy inactivity."

Starscream watched as Wheeljack lifted his diagnostic probe and began to work. He had a good look inside his cockpit, examining the area around the equilibrium chip from different angles. Then he did the same for the navigation pod, including the gyros. He noted the external damage Starscream had received, including the burns on his chest from the percussion which had knocked out the chip and nav gear. He checked the extent of the stiffness in his joints by carefully flexing his legs at the hip, knee and ankle, and investigated the oiling points. Starscream began to worry that he'd try to use the examination to work out potential weaknesses to use against him in battle. Finally, he examined Starscream's radio unit to gauge the extent of the damage.

"Right, well, we'll start with that."

"Aren't you going to replace my equilibrium chip first?" Starscream asked. "It's making me feel quite peculiar lying here."

"I need to do that last, when everything else has been fixed, so I can make sure everything else works properly before I re-integrate it to the rest of your systems. "

Starscream could have ground his teeth together in sheer frustration. I sat there for five solar cycles, waiting to get that chip replaced and he's not even going to do it yet! Making his voice as light as possible he said, "Optimus's orders?"

"Not really – it just needs to go in last. Now, do you need a low-intensity EMP for pain relief? We've been working on developing a delivery method for a while now."

"No."

Starscream wondered, not for the first time, why Optimus had been so generous towards him. He must want something in exchange. The thought sustained him through the repairs and maintenance, right up to the point where the damaged equilibrium chip was removed, and although he never did manage to work out what Optimus might be after, he was sure that it must be connected with the mysterious project Chromia was involved in.

"This is the offender," Wheeljack said, lifting the chip out.

"Just as well I'm lying down," Starscream muttered, as Wheeljack placed it to one side of him. "I feel like floating away, or falling over. Perhaps I should have had that EMP."

"Too late now," Wheeljack said. "Here we go with the new one." His hand descended into Starscream's chest.

Starscream felt the connection click into place, first at one end, then the other. As the new chip came online, the sensation of vertigo evaporated.

"Right, now I can replace your cockpit glass."

Wheeljack spent some time checking his systems, to the point that Starscream was beginning to feel anxious and insecure. "Is there a problem?"

"No. I just wanted to check everything. Are you still getting that electric shock sensation you had when you first came here? Because I never really did get to the bottom of it, did I?"

"I'm sure it wasn't anything serious."

"Evidently not, since I can't find anything wrong with any of your systems."

Starscream wondered what Wheeljack would say if he knew the truth: I've got the hots for Chromia. He decided he didn't want to find out. "No, you didn't," he agreed, mentally adding, and you're not going to.