Ch. 10
'What time is it?' the seeker thought quietly to himself, the question barely registering in his own mind.
Almost a half hour to wait before anything happened. Slag.
'Better to be early than late,' he thought.
And it was a good thought, but it didn't make the situation easier. He had huddled himself away behind tall buildings and pieces of equipment. He was still trying to establish where Airachnid would easily make herself a target when he spotted something that made him pause for only a moment.
He saw Airachnid jump away from the top of a tower, a strange bundle hanging stationary at the top of the perch. That must have been Mrs. Darby, strung up like a present. Well, she could hang there a bit longer.
Starscream quietly scuttled after his target as she slipped into a warehouse hanger, her spider-like limbs carrying her about the room, "So, are little Jack and Arcee on their way?"
"They just received instructions a few moments ago," the seeker heard Silas respond, "It shouldn't be much longer now."
Starscream hid himself under a broken window, listening carefully.
Airachnid seemed to purr, "Now that is treat."
Silas didn't answer back; instead, the seeker heard the human walk over to a computer screen and the light sound of tapping keys, "Since we have a bit of time, and after this little arrangement we will be parting ways, perhaps you can tell me a bit about this one. This... Cybertronian."
Starscream found a small hole in the wall of the warehouse and peeked in, watching the spider walk to the screen to look at a grainy picture.
He heard her laugh, "Him? You want to know about him?"
Silas didn't look away from the picture, "Yes. What can you tell me about 'him'?"
Airachnid transformed so she could stand on her own two legs, crossing her arms as she pursed, "The mech is an idiot, a bright idiot, but an idiot. Fast, showy, flighty, an all around liar. Honestly, I don't know how he became a second in command."
Starscream squinted to see the picture better then winced. It was a grainy picture of HIM. And worse yet, she hadn't named any of his better qualities.
"Allow me to return your question with another," the spider hummed, "What's the interest in Starscream?"
Silas typed in a few commands and the picture disappeared, "It seems this transformer, this Starscream, knew of the plan we had to extract Cybertronian mechanics from a captured subject. Before we had caught the subject. We surmise he may have precognitive abilities."
Airachnid laughed loudly and for this Starscream was actually grateful, "Him?! Precognitive?! Starscream may be cunning and clever at best, but he has no precognitive abilities! The only reason he's alive today is because of mercy from the merciless and luck! It's all he has!"
Good, at least Airachnid didn't believe it. But how the slag had Silas come to that conclusion? He had been careful, really careful, alright somewhat careful, when he rescued Breakdown! ... Unless there had been a backup generator for the security cameras in that tunnel. Slag. And the picture he had seen Silas put up on the screen? A satellite photo. Double slag. This wasn't what the seeker had expected to find, but he was glad to know that Silas was second to die on the list for a reason.
Starscream began to slink away from the warehouse. Arcee and Jack would be pulling up soon. And the area where Mrs. Darby was strung up looked like a good spot to keep in his sights.
The seeker disappeared into the shadows just in time, too. The rev of Arcee's little motorcycle engine tickled at Starscream's audials and he grimaced. Primus, he hated the two wheeler. His internal clock told him it was 11:51PM. Perfect, they were right on time.
He heard MECH fire their weapons at the pair after they arrived and a few moments later he heard Airachnid's voice. She must have been messing with them already. And then the distinct tapping of Jack's little feet reached his audials. The boy was on the move.
Starscream let out a soft intake, watching Jack run around with a radio in his hand.
The seeker smirked. Clever kid. He must have been calling for Agent Fowler right now.
11:56PM. Jack didn't have a lot of time left. But then the boy saw his mother.
Starscream took in a deep intake. He was nervous, not realizing that he was holding his cycles of air until he was near a boiling point. He readied his missiles again, prepping as he took aim. He watched Jack climb the tower to his mother, the woman fully awake now.
And then there was Airachnid, climbing up the other side of the structure as she taunted the boy. Starscream wanted to fire right then, but he would easily be noticed. As long as Jack and his mother didn't die yet, he didn't care what happened to them.
A few moments passed and Airachnid started to move in on Mrs. Darby, Jack pinned down by a glob of webbing. This could have been another opportune shot, but the humans were still unharmed and he was sure Arcee would be there any second.
And there was the sound of her engine, there was her little headlight, there she was, transforming and slamming into Airachnid to keep her away from Jack and his mother.
Starscream continued to wait, his patience beginning to wear thin. As the two femmes scrapped and fought, his mind drifted. Why was he doing this? Well, he hated Airachnid. She was the cause of far too many problems. She killed- no, KILLS- Breakdown eventually, and he needed him under his command. All of this, all of these precise plans and eliminations were for one solid outcome.
"Make sure 'DEAD' never happens," the seeker murmured, aiming carefully again, "Make sure 'DEAD' isn't even a possibility."
He watched Jack and Arcee cover Airachnid in the quick concrete, the mix hardening over the spider as she thrashed and slowly froze into place. Then Arcee rushed to get to Mrs. Darby, but was stopped by a throw of webbing from Airachnid. Starscream figured that man-made solution wouldn't hold her but he smirked when air support finally came for the Autobot, Agent Fowler leading the charge of gun turret mounted helicopters.
Now was his chance.
"Wait for it," he told himself, a missile locked on to Airachnid's form, "Just a second more..."
Agent Fowler's helicopters opened fire and Starscream took the shot, his missile launching hard and fast and hitting its mark. An explosion of fire and a scream from the spider left little doubt that she had sustained damage, but the seeker hadn't thought the whole of the plan through when he saw the blast had created enough of a blow back to throw the helicopters above slightly off course. There was also a wave of concrete dust that had covered the area in a low cloud, making it hard to see. And then he saw his biggest mistake. Jack had fallen and was clinging hard to the end of the webbing that was holding his mother.
Starscream's optics widened and he hissed, "Scrap!"
Arcee was still trapped under a blanket of webbing; she couldn't get to them. Fowler and his soldiers would have to land first before they could do anything to help.
The seeker growled, "I do not save humans! That's where I draw the line!"
He heard Mrs. Darby scream in horror as Jack started to lose his grip. She screamed again when the webbing holding her up started to snap.
Frag it all.
Starscream broke into a sprint into the dust cloud, scowling angrily at both himself and the situation, and held out his claws as the humans fell, catching them tightly yet carefully. There seemed to be a frozen set of seconds where Jack and Starscream locked eyes to optics. The seeker frowned down at the humans in his servos, then crouched low when he saw a green ray of light, a SINGLE ray of light, shoot out from where Airachnid had been stuck.
Starscream stayed quiet and glared. He hadn't killed her. But the single ray of light told him he may have wounded her badly. The green light struck Fowler's helicopter as he moved in closer and Airachnid jumped up, transforming into her new vehicle mode. The blow back from her propellers started to move the cloud of dust away and Starscream panicked, quickly setting Jack and Mrs. Darby down on the ground so he could scuttle back into the shadows and then transform and fly into the opposite direction.
He screwed up worse this time. There was no point in staying behind to see what happened next.
Silas had already established a new base of operations some distance away. They cleaned up every trace that they had been at the factory before they left and now the man sat idly at a computer screen, taunted, frustrated. He stared at the footage they had taken of Airachnid and Arcee's fight, glaring when he slowed down the feed to watch a red missile come out of no where and hit Airachnid against the side of her helm.
Footsteps came up behind Silas and he growled lowly, "He was there."
"Sir?" came the quick response.
"He was there," Silas said again, "Starscream. The precognitive transformer."
The MECH soldier stoop up straighter, "We know, sir. We just got these from the security feed at the factory. We scrubbed the data once we had it so Agent Fowler and his people wouldn't find it."
The soldier handed a thumb drive to Silas, who put it into the side of the computer screen. Images started popping up, first of Starscream jumping over the fence, to him listening beside the warehouse, to him eventually taking the shot that knocked Jack and his mother from their perch and his act of saving them from falling.
Silas watched the feeds over and over, finally chuckling to himself, "What a waste of an ability," he stopped the feed and zoomed in on Starscream's conflicted expression as he ran to catch Jack and Mrs. Darby mid-fall; the man tapped on Starscream's picture, "This is where our efforts are going to be put," he smirked, "A transformer and a precognitive edge. Two in one."