The Decepticons had finally found their first planet to raid and they wasted no time in landing the ship. Soundwave stepped out and observed his surroundings. The planet had a very blue hue to it, the sky dominated by ghostly white clouds. The air was thick and humid, but it still had a breathable atmosphere.
"We have detected a strong heat source." Soundwave turned to Starscream at the entrance. "Said heat source may have the potential to become Energon."
"It had better not be from a volcano." Starscream had his fists on his hips while he observed the planet. "You know what happened the last time we tried that on Earth. Scientific goobledegook, my afterburner!"
After all the Decepticons gathered outside of the ship, Rumble and Judith peeked from the entrance.
"Is it me or is this planet really humid?" Judith asked Rumble while she fanned herself with a hand.
"That could come from one of 'dem heat sources Soundwave found." Rumble replied.
"Decepticons, as your leader, you are to follow my orders accordingly. You must find a strong source of heat on this planet and convert it into Energon, then bring it back to base. Do not try ANYTHING to generate more heat or else absolute chaos may ensue!"
"Why would that matter? We could always let this planet get destroyed and find others." Thrust huffed before Starscream roughly grabbed the jet by the top of his head.
"Allow me to shed light into that triangular brain of yours." Starscream seethed. "We might come back to this planet for more Energon in the future, so it might still be of value to the Decepticons, and if anything goes wrong that might destroy that value, as well as destroy our only means of escape, I will personally ensure that the first thing to go extinct on this planet is you!" The seeker screeched, tightening his grip around the jet's head. "Do I make myself clear, Thrust?!"
"C-crystal, lord Starscream!" Thrust quaked with widened yellow optics.
"Good." the seeker tossing the 'con back. "Now where was I? Oh, yes. GET GOING!"
The Decepticons hopped to the skies and transformed, blasting off at top speed while Starscream and Soundwave remained on the ship.
"Rumble." Starscream turned to the cassetticon.
"Y-Yes, Lord Starscream?" Rumble jolted.
"I shall be taking the human along with me." The smiling Decepticon held out his hand. "I have a special mission for her."
"And what do I do?" The confused Rumble threw his hands up.
"Whatever Soundwave commands." Starscream gestured his hand, beckoning the human to come forward. She hesitated in taking a step, but upon seeing his hand wave faster, she rushed over to him and into his open hand.
He lifted the human and opened his amber compartment to stuff her inside, closing the hatch around her as he turned to Soundwave once more.
"Alert me should anything go wrong." Starscream solemnly commanded before jumping into the air and flying off with his companion.
"Where are you taking me?" The frightened Judith asked. The seeker landed atop of a hill and opened his cockpit, taking the human out and placing her onto the teal grass.
"I believe there may be some inhabitants on this planet." Starscream pointed to a series of small silver buildings from below the hill. "I want you to go see if they are of any hostility or not."
"What?!" Judith exclaimed. "But I… I don't have anything to defend myself with."
"All the better to approach these creatures." Starscream said in a honeyed voice and smile. "If they believe you as defenceless, they will not attack."
"I thought I was only meant to be your medic." Judith argued. "What if they attack me anyways?"
"Then I will retaliate before things could get ugly." Starscream tilted his head, optics darkened. "Without hesitation."
Judith sighed and headed down to the mysterious town, a chill running down her spine and her breathing heavy from the humid air. Upon closer inspection, the buildings were coated in a blue, mossy substance. Judith furrowed her brow in thought.
"This looks so high tech, but…" she knocked on the metal. "… they're not functional. What is..?"
Judith gasped upon the sight of a key lime colored humanoid with an elongated mouth and large, pupil less dark eyes. It stared at her, tilting its head while more gathered around. One sniffed her and let out a cute purr. They all gave happy chirps until a sudden explosion was heard, the entire posse sharply turning towards the source with wide, creepy stares. Out of instinct, they all crawled towards the source of the explosion, leaving a shocked Judith behind.
"How… cute but creepy." She swallowed, looking around for any more of those aliens. "But why are they running towards the explosion?"
The woman followed the group towards the center of the town, where she found the aliens crawling into a large, white edged hole that spurted a blue, glowing hot substance. One alien with a wounded head crawled into the substance, and came out with a clean, fully healed scalp.
"No way… could that be the source?" Judith took a step forward before a sudden laser blast destroyed a building, causing the aliens to crawl out of the substance and away from the continuous destruction. The woman frantically searched where the blasts were coming from, only for her wide eyes to find a grinning Starscream.
"You've done well, Judith." The seeker put his smoking arm down as he approached the circle of blue lava. "I thought these creatures would come out and approach you. They like anything with an organic heat source."
"You used me…" Judith frowned.
"Like I haven't done that before." Starscream arrogantly squinted an eye.
"Wait, how did you know they'd only be comfortable around me?" Judith rubbed the sweat off her forehead.
"Because I have been here before." Starscream kneeled over to the blue lava. "Long before I was a Decepticon. I came to study this planet. It used to be inhabited by a thriving civilisation and advanced technology. But now it has been completely eradicated. War, invasion, who knows? All I know is that by the time our war began, this planet was long dead, inhabited by these strange creatures."
"So that's why…" Judith looked over to one of the buildings.
"But now…" Starscream smiled, stroking his chin. "It seems that this planet holds some value to it."
The Decepticon summoned a phantom cube from his chest that materialised into a glass container, then brought his hand over to the blue lava to test its heat.
"Hmm, this is a high risk. My hand would melt from just the touch." Starscream's nose twitched. "But I cannot invoke an eruption or else we may risk a catastrophe…"
"Well, those aliens just now didn't seem have any problem bathing in it." Judith suggested. "Maybe I could ask them to help."
"Have at it." Starscream scoffed, leaning against his arm.
Judith followed where the aliens had ran and found them hiding beneath the debris, the poor things trembling as they stared at Judith with widened, frightened eyes.
"Don't worry." She opened her hands out to them. "I won't let him hurt you. I talked to the scary giant outside."
"I heard that!" Starscream called out from the distance.
"He says he will leave you in peace if you help him with something. Please?" Judith tried a smile, one of the aliens looking to one another before it eventually approached Judith's hands and sniffed it. It gave a small lick before turning to its brethren, all of which crawled out of hiding and followed the human out.
The moment their eyes fell upon Starscream, however, their eyes glowed pale and hissed. "Ssshhh…" Judith brought her hand out, radiating her natural warmth that calmed one of the creatures, but still kept cautious watch of the seeker. "Just help him put some of the lava into that box. I won't let him hurt you."
After a while, the aliens managed to scoop up enough of the lava into the cube, which converted the glowing blue substance into a more stable and glowing pink Energon.
"At last." The pink glow gleamed onto Starscream's optics. "It may only be one, but it's better than leaving this planet empty handed. I wonder if the other Decepticons have received any."
"Oh, no…" Judith's eyes widened upon realisation. "What about the other aliens?! They might be in danger!"
"And how is that any concern to me?" Starscream let out a cruel chuckle.
"How could you say that?" Judith gasped. "These creatures helped you collect Energon and this is how you treat them?"
"I don't care for any of these creatures. If anything, they're more primitive than the previous dominant species, just like the humans." The Decepticon leader smirked while the aliens continued harvesting his Energon. "Only difference is that these creatures are dumb enough to do my bidding."
"They're not doing your bidding, they're just helping you!" Her voice fluttered as she clenched her eyes and shook her head. "They came back because I told them you would leave them be if they helped you!"
"And they believed you?!" Starscream threw his head back in laughter while Judith's eyes widened in horror. "Those poor fools are so easily deceived! They'll make the perfect slaves for us."
"No…" Judith welled up while her breathing grew heavier. "Starscream, please…" the woman suddenly collapsed onto her knees trying to catch her breath. The seeker noticed that the human's skin was moister than usual and picked her up. She laid back against his hand, face flushed red and chest heaving rapidly.
"It would appear this planet's atmosphere isn't as safe as it used to be." Starscream's eyes thinned as he placed the human back inside of his cockpit before turning his attention to the now filled up Energon cube. Suddenly, another explosion was heard, but this time it was accompanied with screaming. The seeker saw a gaudy green jet plane soar above him and recognised it as one of his Decepticon soldiers, Acid Storm. On the tail of his plane was a glowing blue substance and one of the aliens clinging onto the screaming plane.
"That moron!" Starscream snarled, picking up his Energon cube and flying up closer to the green jet. From above, he could see a group of the aliens, all of which are coated in wounds and burns, huddling onto a hilltop and after sniffing the spot on said hilltop, they all collectively stomped the ground with all their might until the ground started to tremble, causing the hilltop to crack open and release more of the glowing blue lava from within the planet's crust. Starscream's optics widened upon realisation.
"Acid Storm!" Starscream shouted as he fired lasers at the plane's tail, scaring the alien off of it and landing into the pool of blue lava below. "Alert everyone! We need to get off this planet now!"
Inside of Starscream's pilot compartment, Judith witnessed the aliens inciting the blue lava before her vision grew blurry, and the only thing she could hear is a high pitched ringing in her ears. She no longer had the strength to control the muscles in her eyelids for now.
The Decepticons made it to the ship as blue lava swam over the land, the lime green aliens swimming around as Starscream glared down at the sight from the ship window. As soon as they were out of the planet's atmosphere and back into the endless void of space, Soundwave entered to check on his leader.
"How is Judith coming along?" Starscream asked, back facing the second-in-command.
"The human Judith is experiencing fatigue and dehydration. Rumble is providing her with the treatment she needs."
"And what of the Energon?" Starscream looked over his shoulder.
"Enough to sustain us for a few days." Soundwave replied.
"But not enough for our war." Starscream pinched the bridge of his nose. "At least we achieved something."
Soundwave stood beside the silent Starscream, the two observing the planet they had just left.
"To think that this planet used to have the best technology I had ever witnessed." The Decepticon leader monologued. "And all this time the source of their destruction were those creatures."
After a brief pause, Starscream left his throne room and entered Judith's quarters, where the Seeker witnessed Rumble over Judith in her bed, patting the giggling human's forehead.
"Hehehe, and that's how ya DON'T pet Ravage!" Rumble chuckled.
Starscream cleared his throat, garnering the cassetticon's attention and took his hand off Judith. "L-Lord Starscream! I was just, uh, checkin' the fleshy's temperature! Yeah, that's it."
Starscream's glare didn't falter. "I would like to speak to the human alone, Rumble." The seeker commanded.
"Understood! Blowin' this popsicle stand right now!" The tiny 'con made a run for it, rushing past the door and a confused Ravage.
Starscream kneeled down to the the tired human, his shadow consuming her tiny form. Judith swallowed and averted her gaze.
"Did… any of them come aboard?" Judith closed her eyes.
"No." Starscream shook his head. "They wouldn't have survived this voyage without an extreme heat source."
"Maybe they could always sleep in a giant sized oven." Judith let out a small laugh.
"They prefer organic heat, Judith." Starscream continued, not one smile forming upon his frown. "At best they would huddle against you for warmth."
Judith's smile wavered, turning her head towards the seeker, her eyes half open. "So, they're why that world seemed so…?"
"Dead?" Starscream finished.
"It must've been such a long time ago, and they never knew of the damage they've caused…" Judith sighed. "Those creatures were so sweet…"
"They're disgusting." The seeker scowled. "They're the cause of that planet's destruction, yet you still feel for them."
"They don't know what they've done. They're not intentionally malevolent." Judith gazed into Starscream's glare, her heart racing. "Or else they would've killed me where I stood, but instead they trusted me."
"After what you know about them, you still care for such a destructive species?!" Starscream snarled, his crimson stare glowing. Judith's eyes moistened, turning her head away from the Decepticon.
"You're right… I shouldn't care for such destructive beings." Her soft voice quaked. "It wouldn't have gotten me here in the first place."
Starscream's optics widened in realisation, before regaining his cold glare. "From here on out, you are forbidden from joining our missions." The seeker stood up. "You are to stay on this ship and provide your services to any injured Decepticon."
"But Rumble…"
"WILL stand guard for you unless I am in need of his services." Starscream angrily interrupted. "And if you need anything, Ravage shall help."
With that, Starscream departed from Judith's quarters, leaving the human alone in her bed. Her whole body quaked and her pillow soaked with tears, burying her face against the soft case and sobbed herself to sleep.