Disclaimer: I no own Transformers, though I do like occasionally playing God with the toys.

Another drama chapter - Decepticon this time! - and then we will return to your regularly scheduled humor.


No Home For The Wicked

This entire star system was made of dirt, and Starscream hated it.

The system that orbited Cybertron's primary star had been rather small - only Cybertron and two other planets were in it, besides Cybertron's moons and a few asteroids and comets. it had been relatively empty, and by extension, clean, unlike this system with its seemingly endless supply of planets, asteroids, and other such space debris that all seemed to home in on him, determined to knock into him and make him slag himself against a flying rock.

He growled at the ground, trying to shake off the red dust that covered the fourth planet. Primus, he hated dirt.

Cybertron's landmasses had been made of metal ores and alloys, and in some places had been as smooth as their own armor plating. Of course it had broken and ground up under their significantly larger mass to become a sort of fine metal powder, but it had been heavy, and did not stick to their feet. Also, with Cybertron's nearly non-existent atmosphere, there was never any wind to kick it up aside from his own turbines. It did not conspire to stick to his every surface, grinding into his joints and causing them to grate irritatingly.

He didn't know how the Autobots could stand it.

Deciding that the dust just wasn't going to come off - what he wouldn't give for a soak in cleaning solvent right about now - he craned his neck back, sneering at the blue dot in the night sky that was the third planet.

The Autobots could try to make a new home all they wanted, Starscream knew the truth. No place would ever be home aside from Cybertron.

Perhaps it would work for them, but never him. He was a Seeker. He had been built and programmed to defend Cybertron. That had been the sole reason they had even created his kind. He could never turn his back on his planet, his home. He had only left it because the Allspark had left, and he had needed to find it. Who gave a slag about Megatron, Cybertron was what mattered. That was the only reason he had left his home, though the other Decepticons had wanted Megatron as well.

Starscream sneered, kicking at the remains of the small survey drone they had destroyed their first pass to Earth.

Who would want Megatron back? His war had engulfed Cybertron, turning it into a twisted slagged shell of what it had once been. Everything had been destroyed, but if he had gotten the Allspark there might have been a chance to revive it, a chance to save it...!

But that was impossible now.

He had been prepared for the Autobots to die. He had been prepared for the Decepticons to die. Either of their leaders should have died in that fight - slag, he'd taken pot shots at Megatron himself, hidden in the human jets. Easiest way to shake them, it had been - shoot the enemy! It relieved the sting of being hit by one of those missiles himself.

But he hadn't expected the Allspark to be destroyed. The Autobots had to have known it was the only way to revive Cybertron, and yet, they had the human destroy it anyways. It ended the war - in theory - but sealed their fate at the same time. The Autobots had not intended to ever return to Cybertron. He could see that now. They had left Cybertron to its fate as a dead chunk of space-rock.

"Traitors!" He hissed. Turning their backs on their home, leaving it to die and just moving on. Traitors, all of them. And Megatron the worst of them all.

And so, here he was, standing on this miserable red rock full of itchy dust, glaring at the planet in the distance.

There were very few times when Starscream did not have a plan, and this was one of them. What was he to do? Barricade was the only active Decepticon left on Earth, and he had disappeared to avoid detection - and, most likely, was trying to find and fix Frenzy. Soundwave had let Frenzy on the expedition on the strict rule that he was not to be harmed. If Soundwave ever found out how badly the little glitch had been hurt, Barricade's aft was little better than molten slag. Scorponok was still in that desert somewhere, but was slowly dying without Blackout to sustain him. All the rest were dead.

He could not attack the Autobots alone - not with Prime alive and that walking gun-turret of a weapons specialist they had. He was outnumbered, and while he was confident he could do serious damage if he did attack, the odds of surviving such a suicide run without backup were minimal. He did not want to be grabbed in mid-air by Prime, thank you very much. And more Autobots were coming - he'd heard the signal himself. Staying here alone was unthinkable.

He couldn't return either, however. Cybertron was abandoned, the Decepticons scattered across the galaxy much like the Autobots were. It would take time for the news of Megatron's death and the destruction of the Allspark to spread, and what would it do? He could call the others here, as he was currently the leader of them all from Megatron's death. But for what end? To drag the war on? As much as it would please him to squish the Autobots when they had found something to hope for, it wasn't practical. It would drive their race even closer to extinction, and what would they fight over, anyways? The Allspark was gone, Cybertron dead. It would be little more than revenge-killing at this point, and Megatron didn't deserve to be avenged.

It wasn't like Earth was a prize to fight over, either. So no, continuing the war was illogical, though many Decepticons would beg to differ. Fine, let them slag themselves - Autobots were vicious when they had something to protect, and that little planet of theirs was definitely something they protected - Starscream wasn't ready to die just yet.

He was many things, but stupid was not one of them.

But still, what was left to do? He could not stay. He could not return, either. Whether he stayed here on Mars or just drifted through space, he was bound to run out of energy at some point. He needed somewhere to go, but he had nowhere else to go.

Home. He wanted to go home.

"Home is gone." He rasped to himself. It was gone, slagged, unliveable. The Cybertron of his memories, that he had tried so hard to protect, was gone, destroyed by his own faction's war.

Megatron destroyed their home, and Starscream would never forgive him for that. He hoped the slagger burned in the Pits.

He shuttered his optics for a moment, just standing. So quiet. The only thing this planet had going for it was the sheer silence. So peaceful. This planet was meant to be dead, so no echoes of its former life remained.

He decided. He leaped into the air, transforming as he went and blasting through the thin atmosphere into space.

He would go back home. He would try to find another way to revive Cybertron, even if he died in the process. He wouldn't abandon his planet.

Idly, Starscream found the Autobot's signal and forwarded it, passing it on and reviving its strength. Already he could hear several of them, trying to reach their leader as they got closer. Let the Autobots gather on their silly little mudball with the squishy organics. It would get them out of Starscream's way. He would not be interrupted.

Firing his thrusters, he continued flying through space, aimed for a distant star.

He would not give up on his home like the others.


Because Starscream needs more characterization than just "evil afthole".