Ch. 15
It had to have been hours. There was no way mere minutes could express this agony. The weight above him was torture and the angle he was stuck in made it worse. Without his legs for support, Starscream wouldn't be able to try to escape.
Arcee sighed gently, "So, any ideas?"
"A few," the seeker hissed, "none you would appreciate."
Jack had been pacing back and forth for a while, his arms crossed and his eyes to the ground.
Starscream growled, "Jack, you might have an easier time of this if you sit down. You're expending too much air."
The human paused, "I think better when I move around."
The seeker made an amused noise, almost like a laugh, "Funny. So do I."
A tumble of little stones above made them all brace themselves. Starscream panted his intakes as he struggled to keep the rocks from crushing them.
Arcee glared up at the boulders, "If we don't get you some leverage, we're not going to get out of here."
"Not unless we're excavated," the seeker hissed, groaning as he tried to push back against the weight above them, "but... I'm seriously doubting... they'll find us intact..."
Arcee frowned and slowly put her servos under her chassis, pushing her back up against the wing covering her. Starscream gasped in surprise and pain, gritting his dentals.
"If you're going to move," the seeker growled, "you need to tell me how, where and why!"
The femme frowned, "If I can push your wing up enough," she explained, "I can slip off your legs and get a little closer to Jack. Then you can slide your legs under you and get more leverage."
Arcee moved again and Starscream whimpered at the pressure on either side of his left wing. Knockout was going to polish him senseless when he saw all of his new scratches and dents. That's if he made it out alive.
'Of course I will!' he snarled inwardly, 'I have to and I will!'
The femme pushed harder, freeing an arm, and reached forward to pull herself out. When the seeker saw her progress he took a deep intake and growled as he pushed up hard, moving the boulders on top of them enough for Arcee to finally slip off his legs. It was a welcome relief but the act had drained so much out of him.
Starscream felt the rocks push him back down again, the little progress he had made with his arms gone. Arcee winced, knowing the pain the seeker must have been in was extensive. She softly reached out a servo and touched his shoulder plating.
"Thank you," she murmured, "for saving Jack."
Starscream grumbled, panting softly, "I assure you, I wasn't intending such a thing. I was trying to get out of Megatron's blast radius."
Arcee smirked gently, "Sure you were. In that case, for saving him and his mother."
The seeker stiffened, but didn't respond. He wasn't going to acknowledge that he had ever done such a thing, even if he was getting the credit.
"That meant a lot to his mom."
Starscream huffed, "You must have me confused with another seeker who gives a frag about these humans."
"Megatron's not here," Jack said softly, "you could at least admit it to me."
The seeker smirked, "Never."
A shake above them dropped dust and small rocks down from the top of the pocket. Arcee reached out and cupped Jack under her servos and arms the best she could, but Starscream hissed as he pushed up, using the shakes to wedge the boulders higher up. And he continued to move to the best of his ability, a strangled snarl escaping his throat as he managed to slip one of his legs back and under him. At least now the angle he had been turned at was starting to make sense, the ache in his back plating easing.
The shakes stopped and the seeker sighed.
Jack peeked out from under Arcee, "What was that? Another cave in?"
The femme shook her helm, "I don't know, but it sounds most likely."
Starscream coughed and laughed dryly, "No... no, that was Megatron. Unmistakable. And not surprising."
"How do you know?" Arcee frowned.
The seeker did his best to shrug, "I can feel him moving under the rocks a couple hundred feet below us. My wings are picking up his escape attempts as he shifts the stones and conducts sound..." Starscream tried to shuffle his other leg under him, "which isn't helping our predicament much. In fact it's making it-"
A strange sound popped loudly into the air and he stopped moving. The seeker's optics were wide with pain and horror. In the dark of the pocket, a new glow could be seen emerging, along with the dull drip of liquid.
Arcee growled, "What happened? You're leaking energon."
"A... a jagged edge," Starscream managed to answer in a raspy voice, "it just cut into one of the fuel lines along my back."
Jack watched the energon follow along the curves of the seeker's frame to the front of his cockpit before dripping into the dirt below, "What happens when you stop leaking?"
"Oh, I'll pass out long before that," the mech hissed, "and as soon as I stop pushing against these boulders, we'll be crushed."
Arcee frowned and groaned as she reached back, making Starscream wince as she felt for the wound, "Here. I found it."
The seeker huffed, "I know you did. But it's not like we can do much about it."
The femme ignored him, transforming out a blade and jabbing as much as she could against the jagged rock that had cut the mech. The rock eventually crumbled under her assault and she sighed, transforming her servo into a blaster.
Starscream heard the whir of her charging up to shoot and he whimpered, "Wait... what are you doing?!"
Arcee slipped her blaster among the rocks of the pocket wall, "Jack, cover your ears and don't let go until I tell you to."
She fired wildly into the wall after Jack did as he was told, the blaster doing little damage to the pocket.
The seeker huffed, "What are you thinking?! You could bring down more debris, and I can barely handle what I have now!"
"Sorry," Arcee muttered, sticking the end of her hot blaster against Starscream's leaking wound.
The seeker wailed loudly as his arms and legs buckled at the pain. The smell of the hot metal was unpleasant and the sound of it searing crackled in his audials. When the femme pulled her blaster away, the sound of the energon drip had stopped and was replaced by Starscream's pained pants to cycle intakes into his system.
She transformed her blaster away and delicately set her servo against the wound, sighing in relief when she felt it had closed, "Well, at least you're not leaking anymore..."
Jack slowly removed his hands from his ears, gasping when he saw how dim Starscream's optics had become; he was passing out, "A-Arcee! He's going down!"
The femme grabbed the side of the seeker's helm, hissing, "Starscream, focus! You need to stay online!"
Starscream's arms and legs started to lax, pressing Arcee and the seeker further into the ground. The femme cried out when she could feel the weight crushing her and Jack held her servo tightly, shaking.
But just as quickly as it had started, Starscream's optics burned to life and he roared, shoving back up hard into the mass of boulders pinning them. A loud tumble of stones could be heard rolling away and faint strands of light could be seen peeking through the smaller bits of rock and dirt. Starscream panted and stood, the rest of the dirt falling off him in chunks, and he stumbled out of the open pocket, falling to the ground tiredly.
Arcee came out of the hole a few moments later carrying Jack, and sat next to the seeker, sighing, "We made it out..."
Starscream hummed, shuddering. They were free. That left two bots and a human to go...