At long last the next chapter. I am sure you have waited for it with excitement. Here it is, please enjoy.
Africa:
As the week passed slowly for the two seekers back at the decepticon headquarters, the time went even slower for the self-imposed exiled blue seeker.
Thundercracker had used most of the three first days to enlarge the cave, and now he no longer suffered from the claustrophobia that had threatened him the first night cycle occupying the cave.
He had scavenged some unused buildings for materials to improve the defense of the cave, just in case he was found by the autobots or any lucky decepticon. He was not yet ready to return to the base, the vocord-disrupter was a delicate piece of hardware that would take some time to heal. While it was damaged Thundercracker would be left with the awful high-pitched voice and not be able to change it back to his own.
Fortunate that he always had a stash of energon in his subspace if anything should happen, he didn't need to starve while he waited for the healing to progress.
But the long waiting raised some issues.
Seekers were after all not known to sit idle for longer periods of time. And the ingrained need to use their wings would be one of his enemies if he didn't find something to occupy his mind.
The first days had at least been used to form the cave and make it comfortable. Now with the work done he had nothing else to do than sit and wait.
And he began to greatly miss his trinemates.
As time went his insecurity began to ask questions.
Did he do the right by leaving?
Maybe he could have explained and deterred their suspicions?
More and more questions grouped up on him, and suddenly he was haunted by scenarios in his recharge.
Starscream deactivated before Megatron, a fusion blast through his chest and Skywarp asking the blue seeker 'Why weren't you there? If you had been this would not have happened!'
Skywarp missing his wings, the precious black sheets ripped from his back by an angry grounder he had pranked and his trinemate telling him it was his fault. 'Why weren't you there to avoid him getting the idea in the first place?' Starscream screeched while Skywarp lay prone due to the loss of energon he had sustained before he was found.
Then there were the nightmares of the raids that his trinemates would participate in while he was away; haunting dreams of the mangled remains of their corpses littering the ground because he wasn't there to warn them of the incoming missiles or to jerk them out of the way of a certain fateful blast coming their way.
He shuddered as he recalled the worst of those dreams. He had awoken screaming their names and not being able to reassure himself that they were okay, since they weren't there with him. Those nights had left him without recharge, more time to pass slowly while he tried to tell himself that they were okay.
But his spark had not believed him, and had not allowed him to enter recharge.
For once he wished he had agreed to the sparkbond, even if his secret had been revealed to the two other seekers. They might have understood, might even have kept his secret a secret. At least he knew Starscream would.
But with Skywarp in the picture, the equation was not as easily calculated.
Sure the teleporter was one of his best friends. But how Skywarp would react if he told the truth was unknown, and the risk had been too great at the time Starscream had asked them to bond.
Now however he might have to come clean to his trinemates if his cover was blown. The two seekers would be the only ones he would trust on the matter and the troubles that would come of the cover being blown.
He shuddered at the thought of Megatron knowing it all. He could see how the tyrant would begin to plot and come up with plans that would spell doom for the blue seeker.
Shaking his head he cleared his mind of the thoughts, those were after all only worst case, if his vocord-disrupter didn't heal in time for him to return to the Nemesis before everything went crazy.
But not much time passed before his thoughts entered the same thought pattern.
Oil platform at the shore of Florida:
Megatron was furious.
A week had passed since the last disastrous raids where one of his elite seekers went AWOL, and now as he battled the Prime he could just watch as Skywarp flew by, screaming while the red autobot twin was latched firmly onto his frame.
Not far away Starscream fared no better. It seemed that the tricolored seeker had just given up. Even his smartass talkbacks had been few, and not voiced in the normal fierce tone.
Scowling he saw Skywarp finally crash, the twins making a mess by leading the black and purple seeker on colliding course into Starscream while they with jeers descended to the ground unscarred.
With a growl the tyrant had had enough.
"RETREAT!" Megatron yelled, making the order heard by everyone on the battlefield.
At the order the autobots cheered all while the decepticons withdrew from the ruined oil platform.
Throwing the Prime from his frame Megatron took to the air and with a last heated glance at his nemesis he left with the rest of his troops.
Starscream and Skywarp were carried by some of the others, while for once the cone heads was fairly undamaged.
His mood darkening at the sight of the prone frames, the two damaged seekers completely out, he promised to punish the useless idiots.
This was the second raid in a week Starscream and his trinemates messed up.
Prowl watched the autobots while they repaired the large leaking oil lines, a thoughtful look on his faceplates.
Beside him Jazz hummed a joyous tune looking at the battlefield swamping with working mechs cleaning the area of the spilled oil and restoring the platform into working condition. The decepticons always left a mess whether they won or lost the battle and the autobots was left with the cleaning.
Rousing the tactician from his thoughts Jazz then asked him a question he himself had wondered about.
"So, why did it go so easily today?" the saboteur asked curiosity filling his voice.
Prowl recalculated the scenarios he had run while the battle had been on, and his results had told him that the decepticons had the advantage this battle. There must have been something he had missed out.
Not far away Sideswipe covered Sunstreaker with a ball of oil to his chest, and the vain golden frontliner yelled out in fury before tackling the red twin. Brawling on the ground the two was soon covered completely in the sticky substance.
Sideswipe was still grinning when Prowl went to the two brawling frontliners to discipline them.
"Nice battle, eh Prowl?" he asked.
"Yes." The stoic mech answered the dirty red frontliner.
Beside him Sunstreaker scowled at his twin. "For once we managed to get the seekers good."
Laughing Sideswipe jeered. "Did you see how we managed to down Skywarp and Starscream? It was hilarious."
Prowl never would understand the twins' way of having fun. And he felt that once more something was missing in the picture.
It was Ratchet coming up beside the group of mechs that solved the mystery.
Growling at the twins for their jetjudo he admonished the two frontliners.
"If Thundercracker had been there you would not have escaped that move so easily, you know! You would have been scrap for me to put together. I have told you two troublemakers to be careful." He said while threatening with one of his wrenches in hand.
Why Ratchet was together with them and not back at the Ark repairing was simply because no mech had suffered damages severe enough to require attention. The minor wounds would be attended to later, right now the reestablishing of the area of the battleground had more priority, and for once Ratchet bowed to the Primes wishes.
With the fact that Thundercracker hadn't been at the fight Prowl reran his scenarios and found some surprisingly more favorable results. The fact that the calm and collected blue seeker had not been there had caused disruption of the command trines flight pattern and their awareness was weakened by missing one of the wings in the trine formation.
That left the tactician shaken that one missing mech on the enemy's side could turn the battle that much. What part did the blue seeker play in the trine? Thundercracker was not a mech to show much outwards and the autobots knew very little about the seeker.
Those thoughts raised a need to gain Intel on the blue seeker for further studies.
As the first thing when they returned to the Ark Prowl decided to discuss the issue with Prime and Jazz, hoping to get some useful knowledge out of the fact presented to them.
It might be the one thing that could win the war for them, he mused before he returned his optics to the working autobots once more.
Nemesis:
Starscream awoke with a pained groan.
As he opened his optics he was blinded with white light.
'Great. The medbay.' He thought.
He could hear voices talk somewhere not far away, and when his optics readjusted to the light he got a good look at his surroundings.
To his right he was shocked to see the black and purple frame of Skywarp. The teleporter not having one undamaged armor plate, and the black wings bend in various painful ways.
As he got a look on his own frame he could see the newly wielded lines telling the tale of his own damages that had been repaired.
Moving his wings slightly he winced.
Okay so not all had been repaired fully. He knew for the wings to hurt as they just had, that Hook must have let some of the more delicate damages to be taken care of by the seekers own self repair.
The tiny delicate wiring inside the wings was a nightmare to work on for a medic, and most of the times the self-repair did a better job healing the damages than if a medic had to make a mess of the insides of the wings.
The movement to the wings had alerted the present medics to the fact the SIC was awake and Hook came into view of the seeker checking the monitors by the berth.
"How do you feel?" the medic asked.
"Like slag. How should I feel?" Starscream sneered.
At that Hook turned to turn off the monitors and gestured to the seeker that he was free to go.
Hesitating Starscream asked, before rising from the berth.
"How, eh, how is Skywarp?" he asked, nervousness entering his voice. He winced as he heard how weak he sounded.
"Skywarp is to remain as he is." Hook answered in a flat tone, uncaring. And before Starscream could say anything he added. "Megatrons orders."
The fire that seemed to have left the SIC in the last week returned at that. He had already lost ONE trinemate. He was not going to lose the other because of some petty dispute.
Rising from the berth he closed in on the medic and growled causing Hook to unconsciously back away.
"You will repair him, and do it NOW! I will take care of Megatron" the seeker screeched.
Sure that the medic would do as he ordered Starscream left the medbay. But only after he had gently caressed the black and purple seekers shredded wings. They needed to stick together now that Thundercracker wasn't there anymore.
Megatron had been right. Starscream had given up, given up on finding the blue seeker.
He just hoped that Thundercracker at some point would return.
But he had no hope of that happening.
The Ark:
Prowl entered the Prime's office together with Jazz.
Optimus sat behind his desk reading the content of a datapad as the autobot SIC and TIC entered the room.
Greeting his officers he waited until they both had taken place in the chairs.
"What is it that you want to discuss Prowl?" he asked, curious.
"The fact that we should have lost the battle. Instead we won." Prowl began, showing the surprise in the Prime's optics.
"My calculations had the decepticons favored to a degree where we should have had several heavily injured mechs, and that Megatron would get away with a large amount of energon." Prowl continued.
"But we won. And we didn't suffer any severe damage, while the decepticons had to turn tail with some of their warriors heavily damaged. Starscream and Skywarp in particular." The tactician concluded.
Nodding in understanding Prime waited for Prowl to continue.
"Ratchet reminded me that the decepticons at the moment are missing a key in their formation."
"Thundercracker." The Prime confirmed.
"Yes, Thundercracker. I suggest we investigate this turn of events further, at least to get more Intel on the blue seeker. I think we are on to something. Something important." Prowl pointed out while looking at Jazz to see what the spec ops. mech thought.
"I am with ya, Prowler." Jazz nodded with a smile to both his superiors.
"Then it is settled." The Prime decided.
"Jazz you will see what you can find out on the Nemesis, while we will let Teletran run a scan for Thundercracker. We might not get anything, since the decepticons don't seem to have found their missing seeker yet, but let's give it a try." With that he stood and watched as the two other mechs left the office.
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