CHAPTER 16

Ambush


"Skyfire! Where are you?!" Starscream's frantic voice called over the comm. again. "I'm under attack! Three jets are shooting at me, one of them seems to be on fire! Are you there?"

If Skyfire was responding, Starscream couldn't hear it. The noises of the laser shots along with Amy's frightened keening made it hard to concentrate on the comm.

"Amy, calm down," Starscream said, though he was struggling staying calm himself while dozens of red lasers were flying right past him. "We'll be okay, we just have to get back to base and-"

"No! You can't go back to base!" Amy exclaimed. "They'll learn the base' location! And then we're all screwed!"

"Scrap, you're right," Starscream swore and turned to a random direction, away from the base, trying his best to avoid the shots from behind. "Now what do we do? I want to fight back, but I don't remember how to fire in alternate mode!"

"J-just keep going, Skyfire will find us eventually," Amy said with a trembling voice, trying to calm down. "R-right?"

A pair of lasers flew past them, followed by a blow to the right. Starscream let out a scream of surprise and pain.

"Starscream?!" Amy exclaimed as the world around them began spinning.

"They got me," Starscream groaned. "My wing's been hit! I can't fly straight! I'm going down!"

"No..." Amy whispered in fright. "No, no, no, no..."

"Starscream! Do you read me?" Skyfire's voice sounded through the comm.

"Skyfire! Help!" Starscream exclaimed back.

"Calm down. You're crashing, you have to resume bot mode to minimize damage to your exterior. The snow should provide a somewhat soft landing. Hurry, before you reach the ground! I'll cover you!"

Without further argument, Starscream did as instructed and initiated bot mode.

"Hang on tight, Amy!" he warned off the comm.

Amy let out a scream as Starscream's body parts moved around her until he had assumed bot mode, stopping the spinning, but he kept falling. Soon, he landed face first through the frozen trees and crashed in the forest. His wing was still smoking from the shot. Two trees about his own height lay on his legs and his left wing.

"Starscream, are you okay?" Amy asked concerned as she checked herself if she was still alive. "Wake up, please."

Starscream groaned and tried to lift himself off the ground, but found himself impaired by the two heavy frozen trees and the still-burning, painful right wing.

"Starscream, get up!" Amy pleaded.

"I can't, I'm stuck," Starscream hissed in panic. "I can't get up."

"Oh no, no, no," Amy keened and looked outside. "Starscream, above you!"

Starscream lifted his head just enough that he could see the blazing jet hovering down right in front of the trapped Seeker. All the snow and ice surrounding the jet melted away and revealed green grass, leaves or needles underneath.

Starscream stared at the jet in fright. Good thing he was still wearing the mask. He felt no damage to his face, and his enemy couldn't see the terror on his face...

All of a sudden, the flames disappeared from the jet in front of them, revealing a stunningly beautiful, unnatural shiny golden and white paintjob underneath. Not a single speck of dust or even the tiniest scratch dirtied the image of this beautiful jet.

Before they could really take in the image of the jet, it started coming apart and rearranging itself, until it had assumed robot mode.

Starscream's Spark skipped a beat.

The bot he saw in front of him was an exact copy of Starscream himself, excluding the different paintjob and yellow optics this one had. Other than colors, he had the exact same shape, physique and model as Starscream.

Starscream didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to think. His processor just stopped working, everything around him ceased to exist. Every sense was deafened, blinded, muted, tuned out, the only thing remaining being the image of the tall, golden Seeker in front of him with a white face, a black helm, and a pair of golden optics, which had a familiar gleam to them.

And all of a sudden, a name appeared in his mind. All his senses came back to him.

"...Sunstorm...?"

The golden Flier before him seemed to widen his optics as Starscream spoke. His mouth hung open slightly, as if in surprise.

"Starscream?" Sunstorm replied. "Is that you?"

Starscream's gaze inadverdently went from Sunstorm's face to his wings. Rather than the red Autobot insignias, the wings showed off ominous purple insignias, ones that looked painfully familiar to Starscream.

No... Starscream thought but kept quiet.

Blue lasers were suddenly being fired at them, and Sunstorm jumped out of the way. He gave Starscream one more look before he turned around and ran away, resuming jet mode and blasting off into the sky.

Starscream lay still as Skyfire landed, transformed and removed the heavy trees from Starscream, followed by him extinguishing the fire on Starscream's wing with a pile of snow.

Starscream lay still as Skyfire requested a GroundBridge back to base, and hauled Starscream up into his arms as the GroundBridge arrived.

Starscream lay still as Skyfire went through the GroundBridge back to base with the Seeker in his arms, and they put him in medbay to treat his wounds, though not severe.

Starscream lay still as they tried calling his name to gain contact with him, and manually retracted his visor and mouth mask to check for a reaction and finding none.

Starscream lay still as Amy kept quiet and still, desperately trying to stay hidden from the bots' sight and seemingly succeeding.

Starscream remained still as he had another nightmare.


Starscream keened already before the blade met his armor. He was strapped to a table again, unable to move, barely even able to see what was happening to him.

They decided to cut this time. Use a laser knife and started cutting.

They began by the tip of his pede, then slowly cutting their way up his shin and thigh, stopping just before his hip. Then they did the same with the other leg.

Starscream screamed desperately at the painful cuts. As they reached his other hip, they paused again. Starscream keened in pain, trying to stiffle the sobs threatening to come out of his throat.

"Aw, the little Seeker is going to cry!"

"How pathetic. We caught ourselves a crybaby."

"Crybaby! Crybaby!"

Starscream hissed, which only encouraged the sobs to come forth.

"Let's see how you like this, crybaby!"

The knife started to make short but slow cuts across Starscream's modesty panel and hips. Starscream screamed as the sensitive modesty panel was stinging with pain up and down. The knife lingered at the leaking wounds on Starscream's waist.

"Hey, I got an idea. How about we cut those extra, extra sensitive parts, huh? Bet that would hurt like nothing else."

"Yeah! Open! Open!"

"No! Please! Anything but that!" Starscream exclaimed. "Stay away from my modesty panel! Don't you fragging dare, you-"

A click sounded. The knife began cutting. And Starscream screamed his Spark out.

"Starscream!" someone called.

Starscream jolted awake and swiped out with his claws around him, letting out a shriek. He sat up quickly and felt on his legs and waist and studied them. No wounds, but he felt strong stings of pain in those areas, especially underneath his modesty panel.

Starscream huffed and looked up and around him, seeing the concerned gazes of Skyfire, Metalhawk, Smokescreen and three other bots he hadn't seen before, probably those Headmaster kids. The rest seemed to be absent.

Starscream briefly glanced down at himself again, feigning interest in his lower parts, but actually looking inside his cockpit. Amy was still inside, rolled up, stil and silent, but seemingly unharmed.

Starscream looked back up at the bots, who didn't seem to notice Amy inside of him. He looked to the left and noticed Smokescreen had gained four leaking wounds on his face. Leaking, but seemingly not serious. Starscream looked down at his servos and saw his left claws were stained pink with Energon. Suddenly he remembered back in the desert when he got blood on his claws, and his vents quickened.

"I... I'm sorry," Starscream apologized and curled his legs up to his chest, partly shielding himself, partly hiding Amy from their sights. "I-I didn't mean to..."

"Forget about it," Smokescreen replied as a white and red fembot brought out a first-aid kit and started treating Smokescreen's wounds. "It's not bad, is it, Minerva?"

"The wounds aren't deep," Minerva replied. "They should be fixed with a few nanite patches and a couple of days healing."

"Thanks," Smokescreen replied as Minerva began disinfecting the wounds and applied the patches to his face. "How about you, Scream? Uh, Starscream, I mean? Are you okay?"

"You were completely out of it," a blue and white mech said. "And then you suddenly started screaming all of a sudden."

"You said sudden twice, Shuta," a red and white mech commented.

"Shut up, Cab," Shuta replied. "It's not important right now."

"You're right, it isn't," Skyfire snapped at the two young mechs. "Be quiet. Starscream, are you alright?"

Starscream was still shaking, though loosened his legs just a little, but not enough to show Amy in his cockpit. He took a deep vent and exhaled.

"I'm fine," he lied. "Just... fine."

"You shouldn't fly off like that without me," Skyfire said sternly. "I was worried sick about you, especially when I heard your comm.! Don't ever do that again!"

"Who were they?" Starscream asked. "Those three jets. One of them transformed. Are they all Transformers? Who are they?"

Silence fell over the medbay and its residents. Nobody said anything for a while.

"They were Decepticons," Skyfire finally said. "Patrolling the same territory we were, apparently."

"One of them looked like me," Starscream said. "Why did he do that?"

Skyfire hesitated. "Remember what I said before about some cities on Cybertron creating bots with specific designs?" he decided to say. "Like how Prowl and Bluestreak both are Praxian and look like each other? Well, you're Vosian, and the body type you have is very popular in Vos. Was. The bots we met were Vosians."

Starscream felt a rush through his tanks. "Vosians? There are others like me? Why... why are they Decepticons?"

Again they hesitated. Again Skyfire was the one to explain. "Unfortunately many Vosians decided to follow Megatron and joined the Decepticons. Many, but not all. We Autobots have several Vosians on our side. Including you."

Starscream hummed, which came out as more of a keen as he was still pretty agitated. He opened his mouth to say something, but quickly shut it again.

"Does... does this kind of thing happen often?" Starscream asked after a while.

"You mean the ambush? Sometimes, but it's been quite a while since we've had Decepticon contact. I have to inform Optimus about this so he can inform the other bases."

Starscream, starting to calm down, cocked his head. "Because of one small attack in the middle of nowhere?"

"This is serious, Starscream. If any contact, conflict or otherwise is made with the enemy, it can quickly escalate to a battle, if not at our region, then at the Ark. And in that case Prime's going to need as many Autobots as possible. I'm calling him now. If you're able to get up, go to your room and rest."

Starscream didn't argue with Skyfire. He wanted to be alone for a while. As alone as one can be with a human in one's chest, that is. So he got up and walked off into the hallways by himself, arms slumping beside him, his walking accompanied by slight shuddering.

Still thinking about the nightmare.

As soon as he found his room and made his way in there and closed the door, Starscream opened his cockpit by the desk, allowing Amy to step outside. She seemed to have calmed down, though like Starscream, was still shaking a little.

"Never," Starscream hissed darkly as he placed his servos on each side of Amy on the desk to block her in. "Never do that again. Do you understand? Never sneak inside me again without my permission and without my knowledge. If you do, I'll send you back to Metroplex City."

Amy's eyes widened. She closed them and nodded. "Okay," she replied quietly. "I promise I won't do it again."

"Good," Starscream snapped and started pacing around on the floor. "You claim you're a good listener, right? Well, I have something I need to talk about right now."

Amy walked over to the stress relief ball and sat down into it, as if it was a bean bag. "Okay, what is it? Is it about that Sunstorm guy?"

"You catch on quick," Starscream said without looking at her. "Skyfire said some Vosians joined the Decepticons while others joined the Autobots. Like me. But something's not right about that story, and I think the reason is Sunstorm."

Amy cocked her head in confusion. "Why? What does Sunstorm have to do with this?"

"This may sound weird," Starscream said and briefly paused in his pacing. "But as soon as I looked at him, I felt something click in my head. I remembered something. Something about myself. Something very important."

"What is it?"

Starscream hesitated before speaking and started pacing again.

"I'm not sure how to explain it," Starscream said, "but I think Sunstorm is my brother."