Transformers: Starscream Ascendant
Chapter 10
Disclaimer: I own nothing and I make no profit form this work. All characters and places are the properties of their creators or patent holders: the statement is getting a bit old but it does keep the lawyers happy. I'd like to thank the sci-fi channel separately for the Dune Miniseries. The hats were ridiculous and some of the desert backdrops looked right out of a grade-school play but it did give the world the scaly sand worm.
Authors Note: Man, did this one take a long time! This is my chance to flesh out what I think happened before and during the Cybertronian Civil War. There's also some clues as to the root of Barricades Motto: "To Punish and Enslave"
Summary: There was much that Optimus... omitted about the history of Cybertron, and Starscream will not jeopardize the trust between him and this wayward pair of potential allies by lying. But the Truth is a strange beast, after all...
4:55 AM Local Time, Saturday, June 21st 2008
Quay Road 59, New Mexico side of the Texas State Line
In the last twenty-four hours, Edith hadn't gotten much sleep and now she was absolutely revelling in it. With Alvin in her arms (the infant safety seat had cracked all up one side during the battle), she slept in the passengers seat, leaning against the locked door and snoring as only the blissfully unconscious could.
Barricade, conversely, was racing his mind as he drove through the grey pre-dawn landscape.
How did Starscreams quote from the Book of Primus go again?
'And Lo, the Font of Souls shall be consumed in the fire of it's own power; and in the aftermath will be reborn in a land distant: reborn in a shell of water and soft metals.'
Yep, that was it.
He'd long ago lost any confidence in religion and had never believed in arcane prophecies. After the missionaries from Tyger Pax had shattered his clans faith in the Makers by rubbing their true nature in their faces, nothing had seemed worthy to replace that sort of reverence, not even their words of a great 'Cube' on some distant world.
But here he was, alive and whole. And the little bag of organs that he was responsible for... was responsible for it.
And if what Starscream was telling him was right...
Barricade caught himself before he completed the thought. He had already figured out that, besides being a politician and an utter sneak, Starscream had one other personality characteristic that made him extremely dangerous: fanaticism. It also had to be remembered that the only reason he was doing this was to stay alive and, if possible, satiate his new curiosity in regards to these Humans.
Then, perhaps, he could begin searching for the Little One that Soundwave had sworn him to carry. For all the inconvenience, chaos and chattering insanity that Frenzy had caused him, he was still a reminder to Barricade of simpler, even happy times, memories of which the Decepticon still held close to his spark.
Edith finally awoke and noticed that the ride was getting slower and bumpier. This was because Barricade had driven off the road and into the desert itself, heading for some unspecified point.
The car stopped and the passenger door unlocked when they reached a dim patch of scrub desert, far from the road. Still holding her son, Edith opened the door and stepped out into the grey light, treading lightly on her shoe-less left foot, unsure of what would happen.
What did happen is that an F-22 fighter jet, the same F-22 that had saved them from capture, began circling over the site, it's engines sounding like constant thunder. Then, low to the ground and in front of them, the craft simply cut its engines and began to drop out of the sky, tumbling... twisting... shifting its mass... changing its shape. With earthquake force, it slammed into the desert on two digigrade legs and rose to look at her with two glowing blue eyes.
Edith began backing away from the apparition in fear as it approached her, its every step booming, its sheer size intimidating her. Finally stopping against the legs of a transformed Barricade, she stared at the figure towering over her and briefly wondered if this was what the whole 'Angel and Shepherds' incident was like before it was prettied up for posterity.
The being crouched down, putting it's face only a few feet from Edith. "Are you Edith Roberta McPherson, Daughter of Jeffery and Emer McPherson?" It asked in a strangely organic, almost nasal-sounding voice.
"Yeah." The answer was hesitant and weak, unlike her initial reply to Barricade. Of course, right now she had none of the adrenaline or high-strung emotions that she had possessed then, having practically burned herself out just hours before. "You?"
"I am Starscream, Commander of the Decepticon Armada. The one behind you is Barricade, the helmsman for our starship and one of our scouts. We are mineral-based sentient beings from the planet Cybertron... and we are but two among many." Barricade seemed to snort derisively at this but other than staring at him for a fraction of a second , Starscream ignored it.
"Alright..." Edith began, slowly becoming less intimidated. "But... why me? Why here?"
"We seek to return life to our broken world. To do this,we need to find the Allspark, the source of our life force. However..." Starscream looked at the young woman appraisingly "It would take far too long to adequately explain the entire situation. But to be able to see it..." This was another step in the plan: If the girl could identify with their plight, she'd be more likely to agree to their plan.
That just meant getting everyone else to go along with it.
Starscream raised his hand to the side of his face, and suddenly beams of light shot from his eyes, causing... Edith couldn't really believe her eyes. Where once there was open desert under a grey sky was now a vast cityscape of shining crystalline towers under green clouds, a sunrise-pink sky and a distant blue sun.
It was quite possibly the most breathtaking thing she had ever seen.
Although her alien companions had disappeared, she could still hear Starscream narrating.
Our planet was once the capital of a vast empire, rich with resources and tremendous in its influence. For millions upon millions of years our society flourished under the rule of the Primes, elected autocrats stretching back to the first planetary leader. However, as with all empires, we over-extended, and under Nova Prime met with the greatest foreign threat we had ever faced.
Somewhere in this city, an explosion sounded. And then another. And another. Edith began seeing blue-black trails of smoke rise above the towers and began to hear more sounds of war.
Suddenly, Edith was thrust into the middle of a battle zone. Heat-driven winds howled in her ears. Smoke and ash filled the air as bipedal robots, who Edith assumed were the same species as Barricade and Starscream, fired small-bore energy weapons at greenish points of light in the distance while taking shelter behind chunks of crystal. Even though the smoke didn't really exist, the utter realism of the illusion compelled her to want to close her eyes and cover Alvin with the jacket she wore.
That compulsion only increased when the specks of light began firing back that the robots; green beams of energy searing and burning their way through rubble and robot alike. Nightmarish, multi-limbed war-machines shambled out of the smoke, spots on the chassis glowing sickly green and whip -thin tentacles thrashing in the air.
The Quintessons had already established for themselves a reputation for being brutal and merciless conquerors when we first encountered them, but none of us could have dared predict that they would strike so far into our territory as Cybertron itself. In their wake they left nothing: no slaves taken to work their factories, no corpses of our slain people left on the field... only screaming prisoners dragged off to indescribable horror. The attack on out world, though it lasted only two of your years, cost the lives of countless numbers of our people. And, although untold numbers of our bravest warriors perished, new heroes emerged. Among these were a young reactor-engineer who would come to be called Optimus...
As the shambling machines advanced, one passed over a patch of small-particulate rubble. Suddenly, that patch burst upward as a Cybetronian, noticeably larger than the others, launched itself out of the ground and grabbed hold of one of the legs. The walker didn't have time to react before the robot's other hand morphed into a sword blade and stabbed upward, slicing the tall cylindrical body nearly in half. Shoving the flailing shell aside, 'Optimus' turned his sights on another walker, transformed his grasping hand into a large energy cannon and blew a hole clean through its chassis, causing it to explode
...and a combat scout for the Exploration Corps, called Megatron.
On what Edith assumed was the same battlefield, another large Cybertronian was being dragged off by several walkers. Even with his hands grabbing hold of boulders and his digits scrabbling in the soil, he was clearly losing the fight. Tendril after tendril wrapped around his legs, one even ensnaring his arm so he couldn't fire at them.
Where before death had come from below, it now came from above. The sound of jet engines filled the air as two walkers were suddenly bowled over when an utterly alien aircraft crashed into them. The craft suddenly hit the ground and... transformed into yet another large Cybertronian, but one unlike the others. This one... where the others had been utilitarian with blunt fingers and relatively simple body design, the one Edith assumed was Megatron was all sharp edges and grasping claws, his face a perpetual snarl with piercing eyes and sharp teeth.
As Edith witnessed Megatron swing one of the damage walkers around like a mace to destroy the others, she suddenly understood that this was a person... being that was operating on pure rage. This was made even more clear when the illusionary Megatron finally ripped one of the walkers open, pulled out a squirming, screeching alien that looked to be one part squid, one part deep-sea starfish and several more parts Lovecraftian Horror and then casually crushed it in his hand.
The planet was eventually saved, and though Nova Prime was killed, friendships and loyalties were formed that last until this very day. A new Prime was elected, the position of Lord High Protector was created to be co-ruler, we learned how to morph into better weapons and vehicles to fight with... and eons later, the war ended with an assault as sudden and disruptive to the Quintessons as their first strike had been to us.
Now Edith was somewhere utterly different. She was standing on a high ledge at the outskirts of a massive rock outcropping. Beyond the rocks were dunes of grayish-white sand as far as she could see and a black, starry sky above her. And beside her was Barricade, only he looked... different. He still had his red eyes, but most of the rest of his body was covered by angular ceramic plates, as grey and gritty as the sand. Behind him, others were standing on the rock or at cave entrances, all of them with red eyes and in similar plates. Like the others, Barricade was looking to the sky, and when Edith turned to look, she saw what appeared to be hundreds of meteorites falling from orbit and crashing into the desert.
On the dark, desolate world of Chak, once an important energy reserve for the Cybertronian Empire, the Quintessons had established a massive factory complex to supply their war machine. Its destruction would mean a quick and clean end to the war while it's continued operation threatened to drag out the conflict even longer. So, we did what any responsible, humane people would do... we went in and trashed the place.
The scene on the sand below had shifted, a sprawling grid of dark industrial buildings sitting inside a vast crater that was half-filed with sand. She noticed that Barricade was missing again.
Three seconds later, so was most of the cliff below her.
A truly massive explosion rocked the entire scene, the flare reminding Edith of stock footage of atomic explosions... meaning without the noise or the heat of the real thing. Now she was on the very edge of a sharp drop where... millions of tons of rock must have been simply obliterated. Whether dust from the explosion or from some sort of storm, a huge cloud of white dust was surging into the crater and blanketing the facility. In fact, everything about the sight could be described as simply big.
From then on, the rest of the battle flashed around her in a series of images with her never being sure where she was. A squadron of fighter craft surged out of the storm to attack the defending forces, with one, recognizable as her narrator, even morphing in mid-air to perform intense aerial acrobatics as he ripped, shot and wrestled Quintesson fighters out of the sky. On the ground, Cybertronian warriors rode into the crater on the backs of huge, narrow, silver-scaled blobs, each holding 50 or so 'men'. Holding on to scale-segments with long hooks formed from their forearms, the Cybertronians were barely holding on while red-eyed, grit-plated 'locals' were holding on and even steering as if they had been doing it all their lives.
This was so much like a cheap sci-fi miniseries that it wasn't even funny.
But it was still pretty neat.
The "worms" (or possibly slugs), now nine in total, suddenly jerked to a stop in front of the facility. Leaping off, the Cybertronians charged toward the advancing Quintesson ground forces. The blue-eyed Homeworlders, with only a few exceptions, fired all their various weapons at the approaching walkers and other vehicles, while the red-eyed natives, including Barricade, preferred more physical weapons such as blades and flails in their assaults on the enemy. The most fantastic thing, however, was that each silver mass began to dissolve into thousands of small, metallic beings... beings that automatically skittered toward the advancing Quintessons and began attacking them with lunatic abandon.
With our numbers and with native help, we won the day despite the deaths of Sentinel Prime and High Protector Oxmaris... but we made a gruesome discovery. A discovery that would split our already fractured society and lead us on the path to civil war.
Two airborne Cybertronians, whom Edith recognized as Megatron and the one he had rescued, dropped into an alley between two factories. Emerging into a wider thoroughfare, Megatron morphed one of his claws into a spiked flail and swung wildly at the various buildings and machinery, while his companion fired waves of destructive blue energy that burned and exploded everything in their path. By this time, the others had penetrated into the facilities and were in the process of hunting down survivors or destroying enemy equipment.
One thing that struck Edith was that Megatrons eyes, having been blue in his last appearance, were now the dark red of the native population.
Megatron bashed open a door to one of the central factories and charged inside, with others following in his wake. What they saw inside made them all stop and stare in shock.
All besides Megatron, who began looking even more enraged.
The scene changed.
A leg joint from a Quintesson walker skidded across the smooth floor of a vast council chamber. Sitting on crowded benches on the sloped walls of the chamber, thousands of Cybertronians were looking down at the scene, where Megatron, standing at the head of a group of warriors and with the same flier at his right shoulder, was confronting the new Prime.
Edith and Alvin were now among those thousands.
"We cannot allow our enemy to escape judgement! What I saw in that pit erases any doubt of their intentions toward us! Prime... Brother... all you need to do is have this alloy analyzed by a medic and it will prove that the Quintessons truly are the monsters I thought them to be!" Megatron made his impassioned plea to the Cybertronian leadership, the leader of which was Optimus, obviously the new "Prime". The strange thing about this speech was that, while it was imploring, there was nothing threatening about it. Despite his ferocious looks, Edith saw none of the malice that one would expect from his previous actions. Also strange was that, while he was clearly speaking in the trilling warble that was their language, there were English subtitles provided... and she knew that this never happened in real life.
Optimus turned his head to look at another Cybertronian standing on his left and motioned for him to come forward. This one, a medic with thick jowls, did so and proceeded to elementally test the metal part via some sort of laser beam... thing that sprouted from his wrist. "There are trace particles of Chakan Pan-dust on the surface: probably residue from the casting process. As to the alloy itself, the surface is plated with Selarkium, an anti-radiation material imported from their space. That still doesn't explain the durability, but..." The Medic probed deeper with the scan, but suddenly his face morphed into a mask of shocked horror. "Prime... 90 percent of the core is comprised of Cybertronian skeletal alloy! They've been using our casualties as raw material for their industry!"
This little piece of exposition caused the entire chamber to flare in anger, with denunciations and demands coming from nearly all corners. Most of them were variants on "Send the Beasts to Hell" and "Slag the fleshies". Only after turning over the label of that particular metal a few times in her head did the enormity of the revelation finally hit Edith... wherein she felt an uneasiness in the pit of her stomach that hadn't been there since September.
Megatron was smirking, as if amused that Prime finally knew what he did "It is much worse than that, Prime. Not only have the Quintessons been melting down the bodies of our dead for use as scrap, already a sacrilege of the most vile order, but they've been sucking the energy out of living sparks! Draining our souls to power their batteries! Treating us as nothing more than malfunctioning pieces of equipment!" Megatron suddenly turned toward the assembled audience, his arms spread wide. "Our organic allies are of the opinion that the Quintessons are fit only for oblivion: as vermin to be exterminated for the good of the universe!"
The roars of approval were almost deafening, but then Megatron motioned for silence. "This, I fear, is a grave misjudgement. Would not the enemies industrial base and research facilities, their raw resources and their shipping routes, not be better utilized to help repair the damage inflicted on our civilization, on our people? Thus, I move that all Quintesson population and industry be drafted into our service as reparation for crimes against the Cybertronian Empire!"
It was a convincing argument, Edith had to admit: pragmatic, industrious and much more lenient than the supposed alternative. However, Edith had her own issues with purely pragmatic arguments and could not help but think of situations not long past in her own life. The rest of the crowd obviously approved, murmuring positively among themselves in their own little political clutches.
However, the one being that had not been heard from now spoke his piece. This piece was not nearly so positive.
"Brother... are you suggesting that we violate our oldest and most sacred of codes in the name of efficiency? Does Megatron the Bold now suggest enslavementof an entire civilization?" She had not yet heard Optimus speak, but now she had an idea of just why he had been declared Prime. There was a... a gravitas (yes, that's the word) and an almost unearthly sense of thoughtfulness in his voice that had suddenly brought the entire chamber to rapt silence.
Megatron finally broke this silence, his voice bristling with barely-contained anger. "I am suggesting that it may be the best offer that the Quintessons will get. And as to Scripture, I do not think that..." He did not get to finish his rebuttal, as new murmuring had erupted in the crowd standing behind him. To his left was an angry-looking hunchback, and to his left was a crowd of (relatively short) grit-plated robots from Chak, Barricade among them. Another Cybertronian was coming through the crowd, with the Chakans giving him a wide berth and bowing their heads in reverence.
This one too appeared to be of their type, yet was... different. Not only was he significantly taller than his fellows, but his plates were more intricate, smoother and much more concealing than theirs. Beaded chains and thin cables held the plates together compared to their more rugged fastening implements while tiny, iridescent blue crystals formed beads on threads dangling from the plates or were embedded upon them in mosaic patterns. Whatever he was, he probably wasn't a warrior like the others.
Coming up to Megatrons left shoulder, the apparition moved to unfasten the cords holding its faceplate on. The mouth that was revealed below his long red visor reminded Edith of the mandibles of some herbivorous insect, but it spoke just as well as the others. "I seek permission to speak an addendum in thy presence, Lord Prime." The very idea that a supposed foreigner (and a 'savage' besides) was speaking Old Cybertronian so fluently and formally was a novelty to this crowd, and would have been entertaining if not for the severity of this assembly.
"Thou may speaketh freely, but the Prime requests thy designation." Optimus spoke in the same archaic dialect, indicating that not only was he a good speaker, but that he was also well educated.
"I am Soundwave, Journeyman Anthropologist for the Exploration Corps." Now that the flowery anachronisms were gone, Soundwave was plainly identified as a Homeworlder and thus taken more seriously than a mere curiosity. "Prime... I have studied many organic societies during my training, and I am of the opinion that the Quintessons barely qualify as one. They have no art, little civilian culture besides basic education and their industry is geared toward ongoing, nonstop expansion. Not to mention that, due to the mass-rearing of their tadpoles, there is little in the way of formal family identification. In sort, the Quintessons seem to be... less a civilization than a swarm. In these circumstances, I do not believe it would place undo burden on the defeated to focus their energies on reparation." Soundwave finished, but he did not perform the reverent nod of the head, as was tradition. Instead, he kept facing the Prime, as if trying to read what Optimus would do.
What Optimus did next was surprising, to say the least. "It seems... that the options are slim" The Prime looked strained to say this, but regrouped as he began addressing the Assembly. "The first and foremost duty of the Prime is to ensure the survival of Cybertron and its people. However, it is also our duty to embody the ideals of the First 12. On this occasion, it appears that both may be met: our survival by making use of our enemies industry, and our ideals by treating them mercifully in the face of calls for their extermination. In this, the motion to retool Quintesson industrial capacity for reparation purposes are approved. So is the will of the Prime as borne down from Primus." The closing remark was a traditional ritual of authority for a Prime, recited countless times for every official declaration by every leader.
However, Soundwave had sensed something in Optimus; some uncertainty, some... sense of weakness that he could exploit. And now he had an opening. "May a new motion be presented before this assembly, my Prime?" Soundwave stepped forward, past Megatron, as he asked.
Prime, for his part, was unsuspecting. "The motion is carried. You may speak."
Soundwave made his move. "It is abundantly clear to me, esteemed delegates, that the leadership of Cybertron is incomplete. That is not to say that the Prime has been insufficient in his duties... but only to say that there must be balance within our leadership: pragmatism and idealism, science with religion and war with peace. Therefore I move for the position of Lord High Protector to be permanently established... and I officially nominate Megatron for the position, in light of his ideas for war reparations."
No one could have been prepared for this, least of all Megatron. But the idea, slowly, began to gain some traction. By the time the scene began to blur, there were cheering shouts from the more waggish elements of the assembly, shouts of "Punish!" and "Enslave!" in the style of political slogans.
"In time, Megatron became very popular amongst rank-and-file war veterans for his pragmatism and his suspicion toward organic species. As High Protector, he did rule wisely beside Prime for a while: a Yin to a Yang, his harsh pragmatism offsetting Primes blind idealism, his xenophobic suspicion against dreams of Galaxy-wide cooperation. The name his followers eventually took for themselves even referenced the martyr Decepticus, renowned for his suspicious nature." Starscream had been beside her throughout the assembly, but only now did he speak directly to her.
"But..." Starscream seemed to hesitate. "as the millennia wore on, subtle signs of trouble began cropping up. Suspicion turned to outright hatred of organics, and eventually of anyone weaker than himself. Pragmatism gave way to grand, even insane dreams of violent expansion in the style of Nova Prime. And whereas before, Megatron had taken on the mantle of leadership with great hesitance, an insatiable lust for power began to overtake and consume him, with him even hungering after the most Holy of Holies: the Allspark itself." The Assembly Rotunda was gone, along with the attendants, replaced with yet another battlefield.
"Thus began the War..."
This time, the war was not between Cybertronians and squid-things, but between themselves. Robots with blue optics fought a staying action against red-eyed behemoths. They had the eyes, but these were not the small, agile desert fighters that she recalled. These were massive bipedal war-machines, decked out with missile launchers, plasma cannons and sharp claws... and the most offsetting thing was that she remembered some of them from the assault on the factory, when they all had blue optics.
"The civil war engulfed our empire; reducing entire planets to ash and glass, annihilating any organic species that dared intervene. Cybertron lay in ruins, and just when things could not possibly become darker... they did."
Now Edith (and Alvin, naturally) were in some sort of immense temple dome. At the very least, it probably had been a dome at one time, but with the crystalline roof now shattered and in shards all over the floor, it was hard to tell. The inner 50% of the circular floor consisted of a deep pit, and floating above the pit...
Edith could not believe what she was seeing. Save for the outrageous size differential (the thing was frigging huge), the Cube with it's glossy black sides and strange markings was... just as she remembered it.
"The battle for the temple-city of Tyger Pax lasted three of your years, with Megatron personally leading the last, brutal charge to capture the Allspark. Prime's loyalists held off as long as possible, hoping to smuggle the object off-planet. And , in the end, it did leave... but it did so under its own power."
Now a whine of engines could be heard, and the young woman looked up to see an aircraft dive into the dome. As soon as it transformed into Starscream and landed, a blinding flash of blue light lit the ruined space. Crackling arcs of blue energy emanated from the great cube, flashing outward and into the deep pit below. The arcs just kept increasing, getting more powerful, brighter and more focused as they arced and flashed against the bottom of the pit.
Then the Cube began to launch like a rocket, slowly at first but steadily accelerating, through the broken dome and into the dark sky, leaving a tail of blue energy in its wake.
On the outskirts of the city, Megatron had just torn something out of the neck of a small loyalist soldier that had been brought before him. Suddenly, all optics were fixed on a point in the sky. Megatron swerved to look... and in that moment, he lost all interest in everything else. Dropping the mangled organ, he transformed and streaked after the Cube, both of them disappearing into the sky.
The sky... as she watched the fading image, Edith realized that the sky was much lighter now... the world around her was returning to normal. The craggy battlefield was gone, replaced by the scrub of the New Mexico desert, now lit by a rising sun in the east.
"Megatron followed the Allspark like a being possessed. When it crashed on this planet, he was so careless in his pursuit that he allowed your magnetic field to blind his sensors, sending him careening into the arctic ice. For three thousand years he lay frozen in an enforced stasis lock... until your government, in it's infinite wisdom, dug him out and placed him not nine hundred feet from the object of his lust with only a fragile cryogenic system to protect themselves from him." In th light of dawn, Edith could see Starscream much more clearly: not too different from the image in the illusion, but still utterly alien with a bestial face, ape-like arms and his vaguely avian legs.
After realizing that her mouth had been hanging open since the cliff blew up and crudely wiping the dribble from her jaw with her denim-clad shoulder, Edith realized that there had to be more to the story; a last chapter at the very least. "What happened then?"
"Several of our remaining leadership caught wind that Prime and the last of his loyalists were close to finding the Allspark. They tracked down the location of the Cube and, learning that Megatron was interred there as well, insisted on freeing him." Starscream let his optics dim and his head bow before raising it again and subtly shaking it. "The downtown core of Mission City was torn to pieces in the ensuing battle. Prime and his human allies tried to keep the Cube out of Megatrons grasp, but so manic was his desire that only the seeming destruction of the Allspark, along with Megatron and three of his most fanatical followers, finally ended the battle."
"Alright, but you didn't answer my first question: why me?" Edith had to know, as she was beginning to get a bit nervous about why these beings had done so much in her service.
"It is as I said: the Allspark was believed destroyed during the battle. However, the long-range sensors on our starship began detecting some interesting energy patterns shortly after the battle." Starscream cocked his head to one side. "Tell me, Ms. McPherson, has anything..." He waved his hand about airily. "strange ever happened to you?"
Edith wondered on the question and then, looking down at her right hand as she flexed it a bit, decided that if there was ever a time to finally tell someone about it, that time was now.
Edith looked up to face Starscream. "You guys are going to think I'm crazy, but..."
So they listened. And Starscream began to lay out a plan.