CHAPTER 26


"I…uh…um…" Starscream wasn't exactly sure how to explain this. "I…found them…in uh…on the ship…?"

Megatron raised an eyebrow. "Last time I checked, we did not have any sparklings on board."

"Keep going, you're doing great," Knock Out whispered sarcastically to him.

"Shush," the Seeker hissed back. He looked at Megatron and sighed. "My liege, they're…they're mine."

An odd expression showed on the warlord's face, but it was too brief for the Seeker to decipher it. "Really? And how long has this been going on?"

Starscream avoided eye contact, instead looking down at the sparklings in his arms. "Five…months…"

"And you've kept it a secret from me that long?"

"Yes. But it was only this last month that I actually knew about—"

"Knock Out, how long have you known about this?" Megatron interrupted, taking the doctor by surprise.

"I, uh…just this month as well, my liege," he said hesitantly. "But it's only been regular check-ups, nothing else!"

"Aha," Megatron said, his face turning alarmingly serious. "And does any of this have to do with our massive drop in energon stockings?"

Starscream was about to say no, but realized lying here would probably not benefit at all. He hesitantly replied, almost in a whisper: "…Yes."

Megatron stared at him in silence. Nobody dared say anything. The atmosphere was tense, and everyone was anxiously waiting for Megatron's next reply, reaction or action. After what felt like a megacycle, Megatron began walking towards Starscream and Knock Out. The doctor stepped aside, but the Seeker remained where he was, with a tight grip on his sparklings. As the warlord approached him with heavy steps, he lowered his wings in submission but refused to back off or let go of his sparklings.

Megatron stopped when he was a mere meter from the Seeker, almost touching his armor. He looked up at the tall warlord casting a shadow over him, shaking in fear, his faceplate sweating with lubricate. What was the warlord going to do? Kill the Seeker? Take his sparklings? Blast all of them?

He glared back at his master with a challenging gaze. If you try to hurt my sparklings…I swear I'll KILL you… he thought bravely, but doubted if he would be able to actually do it.

They stared each other down, everyone waiting for one of them to make a move. Knock Out stared at the two with a mixture of anxiety and admiration for the Seeker standing his ground against their leader. The Vehicons watched with intense anxiety, almost equivalent to Knock Out's. Shockwave waited calmly to observe the scene's outcome, whilst calculating the logical options here. The Predacon rattled impatiently, probably wanting to play with its 'chew toy', but Shockwave prevented it from doing anything until Megatron gave orders. Soundwave was indifferent about the situation as well, though he did seem to look interested at the sparklings.

Suddenly one of the sparklings let out a rattling yawn, causing Megatron to glance at it, but Starscream continued to watch the large mech. As the warlord looked down at the sparkling, his optics seemed to narrow, and – could Starscream be seeing things? – an almost scared look showed on his face. The reaction was brief, and Megatron soon snorted and shook his head. He turned around and walked back to the others, heading inside the ship.

"Get back to your posts," he snarled at the Vehicons, Shockwave and Soundwave, who all followed him inside. The Predacon remained on the flight deck where it fit, along with Knock Out, Starscream and the sparklings.

Knock Out walked over to the Seeker. "Okay…what was that about? Starscream?"

Starscream stared at the closed door, from which Megatron had left. He was trying to figure out what just happened. Megatron had seemed ready to execute them all right away, but for some reason, he didn't. He wanted to be relieved, but the sight of Megatron's peculiar expression when gazing at the sparkling puzzled him.

He felt a strange yet faintly familiar sensation on his chest and looked back down at the sparklings. They were once again licking the leaking energon off his chest, just like in the forest. It kind of tickled, and it made him uneasy.

The Predacon growled, snapping the mechs out of their thoughts, as if telling them to 'get out of my sight'.

"Maybe we should take this inside," Knock Out said and went for the door. "Let's get you to sickbay, big guy."

He wanted to reply with a snarky comment, but he was too tired and drained of energon to care, so he simply followed the doctor in silence, trying to ignore the stares of Vehicons they passed by. As they arrived in the lab, Knock Out took the sparklings from a reluctant Starscream and put them on a clean table to examine them. When the sparklings were taken from their parent, they started whimpering, threatening to wail, but Starscream had to be stitched up. Starscream felt terrible about being seperated from his sparklings and wanted Knock Out to get it done as quickly as possible.

"Relax, I'll have you patched up in no time," the doctor said annoyed as he began sealing his wounds, buffing his armor and attaching cables to give him energon supplement. While waiting for the energon to fill the Seeker up, Knock Out went over to check on the sparklings.

"Alright, lay still, you little whiners," he snarled while attaching cables to the sparklings as well, connected to a device reading their status meters and vital signs. "Mobility, normal." He poked each of them lightly with a claw, and they either kicked or swiped against it, while squealing. "Reaction, good. Vocal receptors...no comment needed. They seem stabile in general. Though their energon readings are kind of low..."

"What?" Starscream exclaimed. "They're running out of energon? But we don't have much energon left! Are they going to die?"

Knock Out waved a hand. "Don't worry, there's still enough energon to get Lord Megatron back on his legs...you know, if he ever gets wounded. There's plenty energon for the little ones."

He went and got an energon cube and put some hoses in it, giving a hose to each sparkling. But like the Autobots, they quickly found out the sparklings were fussy little mechanoids. They spat out the energon and threw their hoses away, followed by loud wailing.

Knock Out scratched his head in confusion. "Uhh, okay...so, what do we do now? They won't take the energon and they're too small for drip, so that's not a good sign..."

"Oh for Primus' sake, give them to me already!" Starscream hissed impatiently from the operation table. "They want me, I can feel it, so just give them back to me."

"Fine, fine," Knock Out said and removed the cables from the sparklings, picked them up and went over to the Seeker with them. Starscream eagerly accepted the little forms and gazed at them with a warm look in his eyes. The sparklings stopped wailing as well and started purring instead, knowing they were now safe in their carrier's embrace.

"See? They calmed right down," Starscream said and looked triumphant at Knock Out. Suddenly, though, he felt a sting in his chest and let out an exclamation. He looked down and saw one of the sparklings had bitten onto one of the two light blue pouches on his chest, which had both inflated, he now noticed, and slightly glowing. They seemed to be filled with energon.

"Hey, what are you doing? Eep!" he exclaimed as the rest of the sparklings followed their sibling's action and bit onto the 'energon pouches'. They purred loudly while sucking the warm energon in them. Starscream felt a bit uncomfortable about the touch, but at the same time he felt relaxed, and kind of good after all. It was an indescribable feeling, both transboundary and pleasant, and he didn't feel like ending it. He just lay back and let the sparklings suckle.

Knock Out watched interested at the scene. "Huh, well whaddya know? Hatchlings will take any energon when they're born, but apparently sparklings only take energon from their host. I guess that means if we really want these kids to survive, we need to keep you with a steady enegon supply."

Steady energon supply. He liked the sound of that. Though he was barely listening to what the doctor was saying. He just lay and felt the sensation of the sparklings' toothless mouths keeping a tight hold on the pouches to make them leak, using their small tongues to suck the energon in them. It tickled every time they took a lick. It was weird, but good weird.


"How are you doing, Bee?" Raf asked his partner on the operating table.

"I'm fine, Raf," Bee replied. "It takes more than Starscream to take me down!"

"That's right! You're the coolest 'Bot I know!"

"Hey," Smokescreen said, somewhat offended. "I'm pretty cool too, y'know."

"Uh, sure Smokescreen, you're cool too."

"I don't feel so convinced by your tone," Smokescreen pouted. "I took Scream's claws too..."

"Let it go, Smoke," Bulkhead said. "Me and Jackie's gonna teach you how to be a Wrecker, then you'll be cool!"

"Really?" Smokescreen said delighted and sat up. "Alright! Let's get on with it!"

"Ehep, hep, hep," Ratchet said and pushed the young Autobot back on the table. "Not until I approve of your condition, you're not!"

"Aww," Smokescreen said disappointed and laid back down. "But now I'm all pumped up for it..."

Meanwhile, the rest of the team were still brooding over their failed mission.

"So what do we do now, Optimus?" Bulkhead asked. "Do we find the sparklings and take them back from the 'Cons?"

"No," Optimus said. "We will leave them be for now. As long as they are dependant on Starscream for energon, our hands are tied. Once they are old enough to take other kinds of energon, we will attempt another rescue. Until then, we must have faith in Starscream to keep them safe."

"You're asking a lot from us, telling us to have faith in Scream," Arcee replied. "He's not exactly the most faithful character."

"Optimus is right, Arcee," Ratchet said. "Right now, they're safer with the Decepticons than they are with us, however hard that may be to imagine."

"But I promise you," Prime said, "that we will save those sparklings from Megatron's tyranny, before he can turn them into Decepticons, or worse..."

"Guys, can we talk about something else other than those sparklings?" Jack said. "The more you think about them, the worse it'll be."

The Autobots looked from the human to each other. "You're right, Jack," Arcee said warmly. "If there's nothing we can do about the sparklings, we'd better focus on those Predacon bones instead."

"Agreed," Optimus said, relieved by the change of subject. "Are there any new signs of Predacon fossils?"

Ratchet checked the radar monitor. "No, but I've caught a signal somewhere in the atmosphere. It seems to be heading toward Earth."

"Probably just a meteor or satellite," Agent Fowler remarked, having exited his office after getting a cup of coffee over the day's episode. "They tend to cross our radar-"

"Wait, the signal's getting stronger," Ratchet interrupted. "Very strong. It seems..."

The monitor suddenly started flickering, as if something was interfering with the radar. Several Autobots turned their heads to the malfunctioning machine.

"Something's not right here..." Ratchet fidgeted with the controls to try and figure out what the problem was. "I'll switch to camera function."

The radar switched to a video screen, showing a bright light in the sky. He zoomed in on it, until the image showed a flaming unidentified flying object. Because of the flames, it looked like a comet, but what was inside the flames was anything but round - it was more triangular, like a ship.

"These readings..." Ratchet said stunned. "It's Cybertronian."

This caught every Autobot and human's attention. "An Autobot?" Miko said hopefully.

"Another 'Con?" Arcee said suspiciously.

Ratchet gazed at it for a while before answering: "Neither. Whoever this newcomer is, he's neither Autobot nor Decepticon."

They looked at each other in bewilderment, especially the humans.

"What does that mean?" Raf asked. "Is...is it another Predacon?"

"Unlikely," Optimus said. "This one is in vehicle mode, a sort of plane. And Predacons seem to be too large to fit inside a transport ship like the Iron Will."

"So...what are we dealing with here?" Smokescreen asked ominously.

Optimus looked gloomily at the video, which had also begun flickering, even worse than the radar.

"It hurts me to say...I do not know."


Starscream felt the sparklings one by one let go of the energon pouches and concluded that they were finished feasting. He let them slide down by his side and checked his chest. It was stained with energon, but for some reason the pouches were not breached; they had closed on their own, after the sparklings let go. He felt on one. It was as hard and solid as ever, though much thinner than usual. How could a sparkling without teeth squeeze it so hard it felt like rubber? Not to mention making it leak, then closing it when finished...

Knock Out entered the lab, holding a single energon cube in his arms. Starscream sighed disappointed.

"That's it?" Starscream complained. "I don't get any more?"

"I'm afraid so," Knock Out replied. "His Lordship has limited you to one energon cube per day."

The Seeker gasped. "Only one? Per day?! I need at least three per day with these gluttons!"

Knock Out held out the cube in front of him. "It's as far as he'll go. Take it or leave it."

"Alright, I'll take it!" Starscream grabbed the cube from the doctor and guzzled down its content in ten nano-cycles. He sighed of relief, getting to feast too, but not enough. He felt another strange sensation and looked down, observing as his thin energon pouches began expanding a little, to about twice their size, though still half the size before the sparklings had feasted.

Knock Out saw it too and gave a crooked smile. "Hmm. Interesting. Getting pumped?"

"Very funny," the Seeker said annoyed. "I still need two more energon cubes though."

"Like I said, Megatron only allows you one per day from the storage. An unusually generous gesture, actually, as most of us only get two or three per week. He's really taking your sparklings into account."

"Not enough," the Seeker said and sat up, carefully laying the sparklings on the warm table, taking his cables off.

"Hey, what are you doing? I haven't relieved you yet!"

Starscream walked past the doctor while wiping his stained chest with his servo. "I'm going out."

"What? No you're not, you're not leaving me here with them!" the doctor said and pointed at the now sleeping sparklings, apparently unaware that their parent had left them.

Starscream looked at Knock Out with a serious, and irritated look on his face.

"If Lord Megatron won't give me more than one cube per day, I'll just have to go get more by myself!"