As soon as Starscream took off he said "Stasis. Now." And I heard a pshht come from behind me. Next thing I knew I felt like I was made of lead. Everything was so heavy, including my eyelids. And then I was asleep.
When I woke up everything was hazy. I opened my eyes and everything was too bright. I had to try a few times to finally get it so that my eyes didn't burn from the light. When I finally did, a blurry vision of blue was wrapped around me. It felt like metal. Optimus?... No... Then I remembered where I was. When I finally was mostly awake, I saw that Starscream was setting me in and iron cage. He kicked the cage under his berth, hidden from view. But I was still so tired. So I curled up on the cold metal floor and slept.
I finally awoke again. I sat up groggily and was glad for the shadows. The dark didn't burn my eyes. I heard no noise so I called "Hello?" No answer. Suddenly directly above me was whirring and scraping. I flinched then realized, Starscream was asleep directly above me. I stayed huddled waiting for what was to come next. What was that exactly? I didn't know. That was the worst part. But why didn't he take me to Megatron?... I wondered. I abandoned that thought, because that's when the fear started to sink in.
The 'Cons didn't care If I died or not. Actually, they'd probably like that very much if I did. I started to think of the Autobots. Then I thought of something. I'd known this all along, but I'd never stopped to think about it like I was now.
The Autobots could kill me just as easily as any Decepticon could. I walked about on the floor, all it would take is just one ped to come down on top of me. But then I remembered back on the day we'd discovered about my need for energon. Wheeljack, Ratchet and First Aid. They actually cared for my safety. They cared if I felt ok. All the Autobots did. They'd done so much to protect me and my family. These creatures, they risked their lives to protect us, the weaker and more vulnerable. What did we humans do in return? Sector 7 kidnapped them and treated them like a frog to be dissected in science class. Even back there at Sector 7 the Autobots could've easily overpowered the humans and killed them all. But even though Sector 7 started to torture the Autobots, they didn't harm a single human. Optimus had even saved one. I longed to be back with them. My feelings for them had changed over the course of time. We were now more than best friends. We were an interplanetary family, made of humans and robots...
This was no time to get mushy. I yanked my head back to the problem at hand. What time is it anyways? I thought. I made sure there was no movement from above, then I pulled out my iPod. I didn't want Starscream to take it. I felt like it connected me to the outside world. And if he did take it, he'd most likely crush it. And if he didn't, he'd see all the Transformers videos I'd favorited on YouTube. (I found it pretty stupid that almost all the information I knew about transformers could be easily found on the internet. Thank Primus the 'Cons didn't know of the internet's existence. Or TV's for that matter.)
I turned on the iPod screen and the little clock read 3:47am. I then powered down my iPod and shoved it into my jeans pocket, then covered it with the end of my shirt and jacket. I zipped up my blue jacket over my shirt. I looked down at my black skinny jean clad legs and thought of ways to escape. It was all I could do until Starscream finally woke up.
I couldn't think of anything. If I got an Idea, I found something to stop that plan of action. The biggest problem was being unarmed. If I had my weapons, escape would be simple. I kicked myself yet again for forgetting my necklace. I never took that thing off. I even slept in it, I was so paranoid about it. But the lull had been so long I started to slack off. The only times I ever took it off were when I was showering. I'd taken a shower earlier today, (or actually since it was 3 in the morning, I guess that'd make it yesterday...) and forgotten to put it back on afterwards. How stupid! Well, since I had nothing better to do, I just went back to sleep yet again.
I was jolted awake by sounds from above. I heard whirring, clicking, scraping and a groan. Starscream let air out of his vents loudly. It sounded a lot like a sigh. I stayed quiet as more scraping was heard and two peds touched the floor in my line of vision. I heard him mutter "How can it be six already?" under his breath and trail off into Cybertronian.
"Uh, hello?" I called uncertainly. "Oh yes. I forgot you were here." I heard Starscream's reply from above. There was a delay and his peds (the only part of him I could currently see) twitched. I'd startled him. "Oh, you forgot? Forgot that you kidnapped me yesterday?" "Well I just got out of stasis." Starscream said dismissively as his blue peds moved closer to the berth. Then I saw his arm come under the berth and feel for the cage. "Over here." I called, still annoyed. His hand followed the direction of my voice and came down on top of the cage. I sat up and crossed my legs as the cage slid over the floor. I tried to not seem scared as I saw Starscream on the floor near the side of the berth.
He was lying on his front side and once he had the cage out from under the low (to his point of view anyway) berth he wrapped his fingers around the top of the cage. He pushed himself up with one servo and got his stabilizing servos underneath him. With that accomplished, he stood and dusted himself off with his free hand. He flipped the cage around in his fingers so it ended up sitting on his palm. "Not so nice to see you again, Screamer." I said to his face, now level with mine. He glared at me and said "No one is to call me that. Especially not a little fleshling, such as yourself." "Then how come Thundercracker and Skywarp do? Or should I say, Thunder and Warp?" I remembered Taylor telling me about the jets' nicknames for each other after we'd saved her. If looks could kill, I would have dropped dead then and there.
"Do not test me." His eyes narrowed even thinner than before so they were just strips of glowing red. "By the way, while we're on the subject of names, I'm not fleshling. I'm Hailey, thank you very much." I crossed my arms and stood as I said this. "Whatever." he said, rolling his optics.
"Starscream!" I knew immediately by the voice and tone that it was Megatron, and he wasn't too happy with Starscream. Starscream snatched a data pad from his desk and dropped it and the cage at the same time. The data pad and I hit the ground hard. I ended up falling painfully on my butt. The data pad on the other hand, didn't even have a scratch on its glowing blue touch screen. He kicked the cage back under the berth as he stooped down to pick up his data pad. I don't know he did all that under 4 seconds, but he did.
When Megatron walked in, he saw Starscream stooped over the pad. "What are you doing?" Megatron said in a tone clearly saying "you look like an idiot." "I- uh... dropped my data pad. That's what made the clang." Starscream muttered uncertainly. "Klutzy fool." Megatron said massaging the bridge of his nasal plating. He obviously was embarrassed with his "army of idiots" as I can imagine Megatron calling them.
I had stayed silent during all this because I really didn't want to face Megatron again. I could watch the conversation if I lay down on my stomach and put my face up against the bars of my cell. "I didn't come here to tell you you are an idiot. I came here to tell you that just because you're confined to quarters doesn't mean you're excused from your duties. You have patrol again today. You should have taken off 13 minutes ago!"
As Megatron was biting Starscream's head off, I noticed Starscream had a digital clock in his quarters. It was displaying 6:18 in green lights. It was obviously human made, because it had Earth numbers as opposed to Cybertronian ones. They probably all had one, stolen of course, since Earth time is different than Cybertronian. Where we counted hours, they had Megacycles, seconds were nanocliks. The units were similar, but not the same.
Back to the chewing out of my jet captor. Starscream leaned back from Megatron, and Megatron in turn leaned forward. Starscream eventually had to lean back so far, he fell on his aft. "I'll be in the skies before you know it." Starscream whined from the floor. "You'd better be." came Megatron's threat of a reply. I heard the swoosh of the door shutting then Starscream loudly cycled air through his vents; basically a deep breath.
He reached under the bed without re-situating his body. He slid his arm behind him and groped for the cage. "Here." I said. He again homed in on my voice and took the cage out from against the dusty wall.
"Say nothing or die." Starscream said as he pulled out a key. He displayed the key and said "No funny business." I moved my fingers over my lips as if zipping my mouth shut. I then put an imaginary key and locked an imaginary lock. I threw the invisible key over my shoulder and folded my arms behind my back. He set the cage on his berth and unlocked it. I unfolded my arms and stepped out. He put his servo on the berth palm up. I climbed on quickly as he set the cage on the floor shoved it out of sight quietly with his ped. His fingers curled around me and I made no effort to even move as he opened his orange cockpit. He stuffed me inside and I settled silently as he shut it again. Thanks to the tinting I could see out, but no one could see in. I watched the orange dyed world go by as Starscream walked out of his quarters, through the base, past the command room, and out the wide front doors. He transformed and flew away.
