CHAPTER ELEVEN: A Catastrophe in Three Acts

Even in such a confined area as the Nemesis, Starscream had never had much trouble avoiding Megatron. It had become even easier after he'd been taken off-duty to help Skywarp with Nubby. Unfortunately, he couldn't avoid his commander's comms right now without sending the sap into a panic that he and their fantasy sparkling were dying somewhere.

"What!?" he snapped when he couldn't ignore the pings any longer.

"Where are you?" Megatron wanted to know.

"In my quarters," the seeker lied, settling further into the nook he'd found himself in the main hangar.

"You're avoiding me again," the other mech accused.

"Am not either," Starscream huffed.

"Aren't you?"

This last question was spoken not over the comms, but aloud and just to Starscream's left. The seeker started violently, and didn't quite manage to get his thrusters ignited before his commander's massive frame had blocked his path to the open door.

"I'm not avoiding you!" Starscream hastily protested. "I'm just queasy! I wanted fresh air, and I thought you'd say no."

Megatron's eyebrows rose.

"I'd be happy to accompany you if you want some air," he assured his second. "But you're right in assuming that I don't want you going out alone—for obvious reasons."

Starscream made a noise of frustration and folded his arms across his cockpit. Megatron's gaze snapped to the region of his spark chamber, and his optics softened before falling to the seeker's gestation chamber.

"Come," Megatron invited, extending a servo. "Let's go have a look at our sparkling."

And Starscream felt every single plan he'd had to fudge his way through this melt away in the warmth of the old warlord's smile. He deflated, and took a deep breath, hoping that he wouldn't cry again. It just wasn't fair. Here he was trying to protect Megatron from the truth, but why did that mean he had to hurt so much? He couldn't take it anymore.

"Megs?" he started, his voice sounding strange and small.

"What is it, love?" the older mech asked. He stepped forward, reaching his servo now as if to caress the seeker's helm.

Frag, but the bastard had softened and become so much more than either of them deserved. Starscream reached up and intercepted the touch, clasping the worn, familiar servo in both of his own for something to ground him as he continued.

"Do you remember that time when the Autobots raided our entire energon store? The one that I was supposed to be watching?"

Megatron frowned.

"Not especially, no. Why?" he wanted to know.

Of course he didn't. That moment had hung somewhere in the back of Starscream's mind every day for the last two million years, and Megatron didn't even remember.

"Starscream? You're shaking," the other mech said, his voice tinged with concern, and another servo came out to engulf the seeker's shoulder. "Is something wrong? You're not… Did something happen to the sparkling after all!?"

Starscream quickly shook his helm.

"I mean… I guess in a way, you could say it did, but… two million years ago," he said. There was a ringing sound filling his audials now, and an unpleasant taste in the back of his mouth.

"Starscream, what are you talking about?" Megatron demanded, his servos tightening.

Servos… Those massive servos gripping his plating until it crumpled, crushing and tearing and a massive weapon that he didn't have the strength to dodge aimed down at him and—

Hang on.

This wasn't his. It wasn't even his memory, it was…

"SKYWARP!" Starscream gasped, jolting back to the present. The idiot had said he was going to go read to his son, so why was he now apparently outside the base and under attack!?

"What—" Megatron started, but Starscream was already breaking out of his commander's grasp. Whatever was going on, he needed to get to Skywarp as quickly as possible.

He flipped into a transformation sequence and blasted up the exit shaft, Megatron's confused shouts drowned by the sound of his own engines. Well, that was something he was just going to have to deal with later, Starscream reflected as he let the pull of his trine bond guide him toward land.

Fear flooded all of Skywarp's systems as the servo closed around his wing.

"Skywarp," said a deep and ominously familiar voice. "Relinquish the sparkling and we will allow you to leave unharmed."

The seeker twisted around to find himself staring up at none other than Optimus slagging Prime, and the fear turned to utter terror. His first instinct was to warp away, but of course he couldn't do that while the Prime was holding his wing.

"You planned this, didn't you!?" he shouted accusingly at Sideswipe, trying to twist out of the the Autobot leader's grasp. "I trusted you!"

Sideswipe had the decency to look completely miserable with shame as Optimus tightened his grip and Skywarp started to cry out in pain, the plating of his wing crumpling easily beneath that powerful blue servo. Nubby began to wail, sensing his creator's panic. Skywarp pulled a blaster from his subspace and whipped back around to aim it at the Prime. A second blue servo closed over his before he could fire and crushed.

"We do not wish to harm you any more than necessary," Optimus announced over the seeker's screams.

"Leave me alone!" Skywarp wailed, now kicking at his captor and struggling desperately. "He's my sparkling! You can't have him! Help! Starscream! T.C.! HELP!"

"This is necessary," Prime assured him, reaching now for the screaming ball of armor clutched to Skywarp's chassis.

"NO!" the seeker howled. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening. He could feel his trine prodding at him through their bond—Thundercracker trying to reassure him and Starscream panicking just as much as he was—but they were all the way back at base. They would never make it before Prime had deactivated him and waltzed off with his sparkling. Why had he come out here? Why had he trusted a fragging Autobot!?

He managed to get a thruster up and ignited it against Prime's abdominal armor. Optimus grunted with the pain, but then grabbed hold of Skywarp's ankle and twisted that, too. The connections in his leg snapped and the fire in his thruster went out. The larger mech brought his pede down hard on the seeker's other ankle before he could try the trick again.

Skywarp collapsed in a sobbing bundle of pain, curled around his sparkling as the Prime dropped back down on top of him and started attempting to wrench his arm away from his treasure.

"Optimus, do we really have to..." he heard Sideswipe venture somewhere in the background.

"This is what must be done to prevent one of our own from being corrupted by Megatron's evil," Optimus cut him off, now squeezing the seeker's elbow.

"He's mine!" Skywarp wailed, clawing at Prime with his broken servo. "Please, Prime! He's my son! Don't, please! You can't—GYAAARRGH!"

He devolved into a choked scream of pain as the plating in his elbow gave way and the Prime's digits crushed the gears and tubing underneath. His lower arm went limp, leaving him with no further way to prevent Optimus from plucking his sparkling right out of his arms.

"NOOOOOO!" the seeker shrieked, his throat stinging with the strain. "Give him back! Give him back, please!"

He couldn't even get to his pedes to follow. He had to drag himself after on his knees and one good elbow as Optimus began walking away, making hushing noises to his traumatized son, and Skywarp felt like his spark was splitting in two. There had to be something he could do—something he could offer.

"I'll... I'll give you intel!" he blurted through his tears. "I'm Starscream's trinemate; I know lots of important information! I'll tell you whatever you want to know, just please don't take my son!"

"There is no intel you could give us that would be worth an innocent new life," Optimus rumbled, turning to regard him with something like pity in his optics.

"He's... he's my son..." Skywarp choked again, trying to find any weapon system on his body that wasn't damaged beyond use.

"He is not only your son," Optimus declared. He stepped over to Sideswipe then and offered him the little red bundle of flailing limbs. The Lamborghini hesitated, looking to Skywarp with an expression of uncertain horror, and then he accepted the package.

Rage instantly replaced some of the terror and desperation in Skywarp's systems, and it occurred to him suddenly that, while teleporting onto the bridge of the Nemesis with Optimus Prime in tow would be one of the worst ideas he'd ever had, doing so with Sideswipe would have relatively manageable consequences. He gritted his teeth and activated his warp drive, aiming for a spot just over the grounder's shoulders.

But when he popped into existence there, he found himself meeting Optimus's fist, swinging directly at his face. The seeker went somersaulting back across the ground. He skidded to a halt just long enough to register that his nose was probably broken before he felt a large pede come down on one of his turbines.

"I am afraid that we cannot have you following us in any capacity," Optimus announced gravely, and Skywarp looked up to find the Prime's rifle aimed right at his cockpit.

Before he could react, a volley of shots had melted the glass and pierced his inner plating. As his fuel levels started dropping, an error message flared across his HUD:

WARP SYSTEMS COMPROMISED

"Please..." he managed to choke out one last time before he slipped offline.

Thundercracker had apparently blasted out of the Nemesis's hangar only moments after Starscream had, doubtless leaving Megatron even more confused and frustrated than before if the increasingly insistent comms Starscream was getting him were anything to go by. The seeker ignored him, but kept up a steady back and forth ping with his other trine mate as they got closer to their destination.

Skywarp was a significant distance from the shore, and his spark signature was weakening. Something terrible had happened, and all Starscream could think was that he'd probably had his son with him. Hurting Skywarp was bad enough, but if anyone had done anything to that perfect little newspark, he was going to shove Megatron's fusion cannon up their aft and fire it until it lost charge.

His panic only intensified when he finally caught a flash of purple through the trees beneath him. He flipped into bipedal mode and descended on his unconscious trinemate in a frantic mess.

"Warp!" he screeched, his servos hovering over the scorched hole in the other seeker's cockpit. There was fuel leaking everywhere and he couldn't tell if his trinemate's ventilation systems were even still online. "Warp, please! Say something! Do something! BE OKAY!"

There was a sound of choked static, and one of Skywarp's optics flickered back online. Starscream gasped with relief and seized the other seeker's face between his own servos.

"S'ar...?" Skywarp mumbled, his voice weak and full of static.

"What happened?" his trineleader demanded, now taking in some of his other injuries. "Warp, who did this? Where's Nubby!? Talk to me!"

"Pr...prime... gone... hel..p..." Skywarp managed, his face screwing up slightly as a couple of tears leaked from the corner of his optic.

Unbridled fury surged through Starscream's frame as the words sank in.

Prime. Optimus Prime had come through here, destroyed his trinemate's warp drive, crushed his ankles, punched him in the face, and wrenched his sparkling from his servos!? No one treated his family like this and got away with it. He didn't care if it was Optimus Prime or Primus himself, he was going to slag the living daylights out of the fragger.

Starscream rose to his pedes just as Thundercracker touched down behind him. The blue jet took in the scene, made a desperate sort of keening noise, and lunged for his injured trinemate.

"Get him back to base," Starscream ordered. "I have things to do."

"Wait, Star! Where are you... STARSCREAM!" Thundercracker called after him, but the other seeker had already taken off.

One of the many benefits of Autobots not having flight capable alt modes was that they always left a trail to follow and they could never get very far. It was mere seconds before Starscream found the highway they must have escaped to, and only minutes after that before he was bearing down on the two of them—Prime and one of those horrible twins. Some tiny remnant of reason prevented him strafing them, remembering that one of them was likely carrying Nubby, and he dropped down on top of the red Lamborghini instead, punching straight through his canopy with a shriek.

Sideswipe howled in pain and swerved, trying to throw the seeker. Starscream dug his claws in and aimed a nullray at the Autobot's hood, but didn't get a chance to fire before a much larger frame barreled into him, sending him sprawling down the freeway with what turned out to be Optimus Prime on top of him.

Starscream managed to get the barrel of his weapon under the truck's chin even as they were still skidding across the pavement and fired. The Prime's heavy plating protected him from critical damage, but it was enough to have him rolling off the jet, servos grasping at his injured throat and face plating. The seeker rolled to his feet and charged once more at Sideswipe, who had transformed back to bipedal mode. He had Skywarp's son cradled against his chest.

"Wait, Starscream!" the Autobot protested, one arm outstretched in supplication as he backed away from the enraged seeker. "He might get hurt if we fight!"

But Starscream was beyond words by that point. He raised his nullray with a snarl, and Sideswipe's optics went practically white with horror before he fired the cannon mounted on his shoulder.

Starscream ignited his thrusters and shot forward to dodge the blast, launching a barrage of his own weapons systems as he went. He was careful to aim only at the grounder's legs so as not to harm the sparkling. Most of his shots hit home, and Sideswipe fell to his knees with a howl of pain. He raised his blaster, but Starscream was close enough to knock it aside by then and punch the Lamborghini across his stupid, silver face. He was just charging his nullrays to blow the blasted thing's head clean off when something hit him in the side.

At first, all he felt was surprise and the sensation of air forced suddenly from his intakes. Then, he thought to look down and saw the ax that had sliced straight through his abdominal armor, stopping only when it hit his spinal strut.

"Wha...?" he spluttered before it pulled out again with a screech of metal on metal and a spray of energon.

Starscream stumbled backward, clutching at the gaping hole in his side, which his internal components seemed intent on spilling out of. A dull fire spread through his systems from the point of injury, clouding his processor and choking his intakes.

"Surrender, Starscream," Optimus ordered, pointing the energon-smeared ax at him again.

"Never!" the seeker snarled, even as he collapsed to the pavement.

"I'm afraid you are too valuable a prisoner to allow to escape," the Prime was saying, pulling Starscream's nullrays from his barely resistant arms. "We will provide you with medical treatment upon return to our base."

"No..." Starscream tried to access his comm, to call for Thundercracker or... or Megatron! Megatron would save him for sure! But his fuel levels were dropping rapidly and nonessential systems were already starting to go offline. "Megatron... will..." he tried to make some kind of threat, but his glossa felt too heavy in his mouth.

"Yes, Megatron will bargain desperately for you, I'm sure," Optimus said, laying a hand on the seeker's helm as if he were trying to comfort him. "Just rest for now."

The last thing Starscream saw before slipping into stasis was Sideswipe trying to comfort Skywarp's screaming newspark.

Thundercracker felt numb. One trinemate down he could deal with, but both of them? He couldn't even wrap his processor around the concept. His spark was being ripped in two and his processor had stalled in self defense.

:...ates? Thund...respond. Thundercracker!?:

The shock of hearing Soundwave shouting at him over the comms jolted the blue seeker out of his trance. He had alerted the communications officer when he and Starscream had left the base. Further reinforcements wouldn't be far behind, but they were already too late.

"Um… I… C-commander Starscream…" He couldn't bring himself to say it. "Medical assistance required… Skywarp is down. He… sparkling… gone…"

Another voice came over the comm line, this one gruff and impatient: Megatron.

:Thundercracker, what is going on!?: his commander demanded.

"I… I don't know," the seeker confessed, trying to force his attention back to the clamp he'd been putting over one of Skywarp's fuel lines. "Skywarp is… And he said Prime was here, and… Starscream… went alone… He's gone. I can't… He's gone!"

The world was spinning around Thundercracker. Skywarp was fading. He couldn't feel Starscream. He'd known he should have stopped him going after Prime alone, but Skywarp was losing energon and had been for a while. He'd prioritized, and now he was losing both of them.

:WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S GONE!?: Megatron roared, and Thundercracker winced. His servos were fumbling and he couldn't get the clamp on Skywarp's line. The energon just kept spilling out of it in a slow, thick stream. How much had he lost already?

"P-please, sir…" Thundercracker tried, his vision swimming in front of him. "I… can't..."

WARNING: SEVERE SPARK STRAIN. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN IMMINENT.

The words flashed across his HUD, and the seeker grabbed at his chest with a desperate cry as he felt his spark spasm within its casing.

"No..." he whimpered, collapsing on top of his unconscious trinemate.

:Thundercracker? Thundercracker, answer me!: Megatron was still shouting at him, but the seeker didn't have the energy to reply anymore.

He couldn't be passing out right now—Skywarp needed him!—but it hurt so much. His processor was fritzing as his spark searched desperately for two more that it had never been so completely cut off from before. Skywarp's inert frame beneath him was the only thing he was aware of as his vision turned to static and the strength seeped out of his limbs.