A/N: Ahh, first reviewers! /beams/ I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Chapter 2
Starscream felt firm ground beneath his wings, discovering he lay on his back in robot mode. He was confused for an astrosecond, his neural nets not cooperating, but then a realisation struck. It had been just a dream after all! A nonsensical apparition caused by his central processor switching to recharge mode. In moments like these he really hated the unnecessary program. After all, it was completely pointless and only disturbed the energy replenishment.
His exostructure plating was nicely warm. Obviously he had been so tired of following Skyfire on his never ending quest to see one or another rock formation that he had fallen asleep somewhere in the open, under the direct rays of planetary system's star. Starscream grimaced imagining the amount of dirt he would find in his joints after the improvised nap and the time it would take to clean it out. Skyfire was such a friend. Why hadn't he woken him up? Was it because he wanted to humour him and his grinding servos later?
"Ahh, slagger…" Starscream murmured to himself in a mildly annoyed tone. Actually he didn't care much at the moment. The heat waves on his chassis felt so nice, and he was so incredibly exhausted all of a sudden. He couldn't even be bothered to switch the optical or the audio receptors back on. The black, warm silence was so much better than the barren, rocky landscape and the howling wind throwing washes of sand against his armour plating.
The jet was already drifting back into recharge mode, as he felt something light hitting his left arm, then pulling it aside.
"Skyfire, stop it!" he growled. "It's not funny at all, whatever it is…" his voice trailed off as the tiredness and need for recharge took over.
Silence.
"Oh, right…'' Starscream drawled after a brief moment of waiting for a reply, voice low. "Audio and visual sensors: on."
His optics flickered and then a distorted and pixelated silhouette of a mech leaning over him came into the view. Starscream couldn't distinguish the mech's face – it was but a black shadow in front of a light slice of sky. For an unknown reason, he sensed uneasiness taking over his spark, making it pulse against its casing errantly. His audios were full of the never-changing hiss of static, but, as astroseconds dragged on, he started to hear rippling sounds in the background. They sounded familiar to the jet, reminding an expedition to a region covered by a mass of see-through, liquid substance that made such noises when moved by wind. Same sounds, same planet, but why did the mech's face in front of him seem so strange?
"Sky?... Skyfire?" he questioned the silhouette. "Where am I?" He winced at the sound of his own voice. Although he had never had the most melodious of voices, now it sounded garbled and grating beyond recognition. What had happened to all of his systems, why was he damaged?
"He-ee-y, prettyface," the dark mech responded cheerily, "welcome back to the operating!''
''Now that was one bad fall, wasn't it?" he inquired, voice strong and optimistic. The broad-shouldered green groundling lowered his face to stare right into Starscream's puzzled and unfocused optics. He was so proud of his basic medical training that had helped bringing the unfortunate flyer back from stasis.
"Where am I?" Starscream repeated, tone twice as shrill in panic, as the reality finally dawned on him. Hazy and vague with glitched images and missing parts, the recordings of just few breems ago replayed on his central processor.
He could recall switching off the functioning left thruster to buy few precious hundredths of an astrosecond against the pull of gravity. His structure had slowed down just enough to allow transforming, yet his logic circuits still deemed the idea insane. There was a brief black-out, and then, when his optic receptors reset themselves, all he could see was walls of multi-storey buildings running by in smudgy lines, enclosing him. Starscream didn't think anymore, he acted on impulse and hoped for the best. A square, flat area among the roots of the sky-high towers was already dangerously close, as he went into transformation sequence, stretching his left leg downwards and reigniting the booster. It must have coincided with the instant the electrolyte hit his mainframe, as there was no memory of what had happened next.
"Shh," the other mech answered, putting a finger in front of his mouth as an emphasis and completely ignoring jet's question. "Save the fuel, there's not much left." He gestured to the left as if to explain what he was worried about.
Starscream's sensors had been slowly readjusting themselves to their normal settings, and once the visuals became clear he noticed the skyscrapers he had seen whilst falling, blocking almost all of the yellow sunlight, except for a little stretch of sky right above the square. He also saw a layer of air move quite peculiarly over the surface of his structure, bending the image in the background. He had taken the paint-melting heat for warm rays of a foreign sun. An odd bitterness wormed its way to his spark.
The sounds of waves also explained themselves, as his audios picked up the dull clamour of a crowd. Many bots of different shapes, sizes and colour schemes were stood around the place of the accident in a sloppy circle, chattering amongst themselves happily. Starscream frowned and looked back to the green mech, who still had his gaze locked on some spot at the jet's side.
"What do you think you are doing?" He used the right elbow to prop himself halfway up and take a suspicious glance at the left arm, panels of which had been removed to accommodate six tiny tubes of shimmering purple liquid, connected to a small container sitting at his side, now almost empty.
The groundling shook his head sadly, unable to believe he was being mistrusted.
"Saving you from an overall energy drain," he explained timidly. "I believed you would want to be functional before the medics arrive."
"I do not require any medical attention," Starscream cut the mech's explanations, now sitting up and twiddling with the energon tubes, trying to unplug them. "As you may have noted, I did not crash, therefore I am not damaged." He growled when one of the tubes didn't give in to his shaking fingers. He hated feeling so vulnerable and detested the idea of being made indebted to someone whilst unconscious. Even if that someone had been correct about the energy levels, he still did not have the right to play a hero and demand gratitude.
"Now then," having pulled out the last of tubes with much more force than necessary, Starscream returned his attention to the first row of the noisy crowd, "can anyone tell me the designated name of this place, or is it too much to ask for?"
"Please calm down," the green mech interrupted. "The medics should be here in a breem, and you are still very low on energy. Shouting will not help in any way." He put his arms on jet's shoulder plating, trying to push him back down gently. He certainly didn't expect the injured flyer to react the way he did.
"Get off me!" Starscream cried, shoving the groundling with such vigour that he lost balance and landed on his aft. The jet used the short moment of confusion to get up on his feet, trying to look imposing, but failing miserably. The portion of energon had helped to get most of his systems back on-line, but he still felt weak, trembling visibly. His mind - disoriented and perplexed, at a complete loss over what to do next.
He could wait for the medics, but then he would not reach the Institute in time. They would not let him go until he was fully repaired, and they would need explanations. Explanations took time. The jet was not sure if he was going to stay online for long in this state, but he knew there was not a single astrosecond to be wasted at the cost of Skyfire's life.
Having arrived at a resolution, Starscream fixed his gaze on one of the bots in the crowd standing close to him.
"I believe you can tell me the name of this place," he asked wearily, pleadingly. The mech turned away to look at the ground, not daring to argue with the evidently delusional flyer.
"The name," jet repeated, staring at the rows of onlookers, ''please?''
"Hexataar." He heard a muffled answer coming from the back of the crowd. Many turned their heads to give the source of the reply a disapproving glance.
"Hexataar," Starscream affirmed to himself absent-mindedly, still testing the strength of his legs. "And the central shuttle station – which way?"
Half a dozen arms stretched out to point in the same direction, as loud murmur erupted in the middle of the crowd. A part of them was of the opinion that the jet's neural nets had short-circuited during the fall, thus making him a hazard to himself and others. They insisted on capturing the flier and holding him down until the medics arrive and take care of him. The other half of the crowd, however, thought letting him go would be a better idea, because only Primus knows what he would do if anybody tried to stop him by force.
"Thank you, thank you," Starscream repeated quietly as the crowd separated to let him pass through, words strange and foreign to his vocaliser. He saw them looking at his dented wings, scratched chassis and peeling paint with a silent pity, and realised how bad his structure must look for complete strangers to do so. This was something new. He had never been felt sorry for before, but it was so surprisingly close to being cared for. Starscream almost liked it… almost.
Only when the sleek winged figure had disappeared between the buildings and into the bustle of busy streets, did the crowd start to disperse. Still taken up with analysing the event they had just become part of, bots were leaving to return to their safe and predictable everyday routines. Some of them, however, were going to find it hard to forget a certain red and white flyer, spending time trying to make sense of the situation. They had seen arrogance, no doubt, but they had also seen spark-tearing despair. What had happened to the mech before he fell? If only they had had the struts to step out of the flock and offer help…
ooo
Starscream slowly staggered in the direction where he hoped to find the shuttle station. The flying was out of question now. Even if both turbines were functional, he wouldn't have the courage to test if the fuel would or wouldn't run out before reaching Iacon.
The jet stopped from time to time to take a look for any signs showing the way to station, but there weren't any. Of course, in a small town everybody was expected to know everything. Irritated, he still didn't consider the idea of asking someone, especially after he had noticed the distance many passers-by were keeping as if trying to avoid him at all costs.
This is ridiculous, he thought. Sure, I'm not the best looking mechanoid at the moment, but they seem to be frightened rather than repulsed by my appearance. Maybe my model has been discovered to have a dangerous malfunction or something. I'll have to find out after I get Skyfire back.
To test the theory, he turned to a yellow femme coming towards him and raised one hand to stop her. Theory passed the practical test as femme shrunk back and let out a high-pitched cry. Stepping back until she was against a wall of a building, she weakly raised hands as if to shield her head from a blow, optics wide in fear. Starscream backed off a little, curious to see how she would react, and the femme used the moment to turn and rush away with a speed that made her structure a bright streak against the grey metal of the street.
The clang of her frantic steps had already faded when Starscream glanced around and found the walkway empty. In a split astrosecond everybody seemed to have disappeared around the corners of side-streets. He might have found it unnerving before the ill-fated expedition, but right now he really needed something – anything - to lighten the mood.
"Ha!" the jet smirked with glee. This was weird, but fun nonetheless.
He had no idea of how things had changed on Cybertron during the time he and Skyfire had spent happily travelling from one planet to another. He was oblivious of the energon crisis, the decline of industries, the machinations carried out by senators of the High Council to insure their companies seized monopoly over their respective markets whilst situation was unstable. He hadn't heard of the sky-rocketing crime rate and the notorious gangs of Kaon, who, as the news said, knew at least twenty ways of distinguishing one's spark.
Created and raised in peaceful times, the jet couldn't have imagined he had been taken for a criminal, but that was exactly what they saw when looking at the scorch marks on his chassis. Those were one of the tell-tale symbols speaking of dubious places, dark deeds, illegal weapons, black market, robbery and murder. No city was safe anymore - crime had spread like a disease, taking old and young, strong and weak, and rich and poor in its ever-welcoming embrace.
Starscream didn't try to scare anybody else on his way to the station, one shrieking femme was enough entertainment for the day. He also knew he shouldn't attract attention because medics and police would be for looking him after being informed of the fall and his reluctance to be repaired. They would hunt him like an unstable, malfunctioning drone, therefore he had to be careful, very careful, until he reached the Institute.
ooo
Meanwhile in the Head of the Iacon Institute's office a great change was taking place.
The new director was leaning back in his chair, scrutinising the cracks running along the ceiling. How pathetic to have one's office in such a state, whilst shuffling all money into student holiday trips. The room has to be re-decorated… urgently!
He let out an annoyed sigh, and stretched an arm before his optics to check if all finger joints were perfectly clean.
Yet, the director smiled to himself, for once I possess a tap on the great pipe of education budget. I always knew this day would come. His thoughts wandered on and on. A new apartment in a better area, servants instead of maintenance drones… Maybe an exostructure upgrade? He had never enjoyed being short.
The daydream was interrupted by a knock on the door, which then slid aside to reveal an imposing black and silver mech with emotionless yellow optics. Ahh, the secretary – punctual as always.
"Sir, have you come up with the official announcement yet?" the black mech asked slowly and quietly, like weighing the meaning of every word.
''Yes.'' The director sat up straight in his chair to look professional. "Firstly, we focus on the damage professor Stormbolt has done by misappropriating the funds. Then we explain the reason why all course programmes have to undergo a revision." There was a glint of hungry greed in his optics as he imagined where the credits, saved on cutting the course expenses, would go.
"Of course, nobody likes to hear the old drill about energon rationing over and over again, hence we will put the main emphasis on the positive prospects of exploring the world within every-bot's reach." A wide grin stretched over his faceplates. He was a genius!
"Why should we waste energy on long distance missions, which never succeed in finding anything to help alleviating the energon crisis?" the director swung his arm animatedly to emphasize the thought, looking as if he was delivering a speech in front of a hundred-strong audience.
''Moreover, the reason why they go, the possibility of another race of sentient beings existing on one of those Primus-forsaken exoplanets is laughable to say the least. The general public does not like such pointless goals wasting their precious tax money. They will be on our side,'' he finished, leaning forward and crossing his fingers on the tabletop contentedly.
''I see,'' the secretary nodded approvingly. ''However, sir, I must remind you there are five exploration teams that haven't returned yet. What are your suggestions for the general actions to be taken when they arrive?" The mech produced a datapad and stylus to take notes. He always did it. Precision was important.
"Simple," the director answered, smirking a little. The secretary was so unbelievably predictable. „Tell them Stormbolt was acting without the approval of the City Council, completely ignoring the guidelines of how allocated resources should be put to use.'' His optics dimmed for a moment. He knew how to put them to use with much better results.
''The programme itself was a failure on the Ministry of Education's part. It should have never been accepted in the first place, since the new rules of energon rationing were already being reviewed at the time.'' He was a smart mech, who knew his contacts well.
"I see." The secretary sounded impressed, even with his slow manner of speaking. "I would think the exactness of this information has been affirmed by the source, yes?" He raised his optics from the datapad to take a brief glance at his superior's face.
"Yes." The director felt his good mood being dissipated by the blank, calculated gaze of the apathetic optics. "Try to explain peacefully that the inappropriate course programmes have now been deleted and are no longer carried out, for the Council has been keeping a watchful optic on us ever since the incident with Stormbolt. You should also mention we're not running budget courses anymore, as we can't afford it given the decrease in funding," he told the mech taking notes, the expression on his face becoming one of a mocked sadness.
''As for the final level students,'' he continued with even more self-satisfaction, ''for whom the exploration trip was a part of their project, offer to return to the Institute the next stellar cycle, when their chosen programme has been revised and updated.'' The director slumped back in his chair, no longer concerned about keeping up the image. All of the secretary's attention was on the datapad anyway.
"Be careful, though, to mention the fact that they will have to pay to finish the course. Better leave it for a later date, when they have taken in the rest of the news,'' he added almost as an afterthought.
"I see," the secretary answered, ''you do not wish to deal with problems in a direct manner, sir.''
The director pondered for a brief moment if it was an observation rather than sly sarcasm coming from the black mech's vocaliser, but gave up and said the first thing that came to his mind.
"The direct manner never works."
ooo
To be continued…