Hey guys! I know, it's been a long time. I've been working on my deviantart account a lot lately, doing sketch commissions and whatnot, while waiting for the inspiration to continue this story. But now I'm back! Where we last left off, Starscream had to take on the mantle of leader of the Decepticons, sooner than he ever wanted or expected to. Megatron is MIA, assumed dead, Jack, Sierra, and Starscream are all pushing themselves past their limits, and the government has begun a manhunt for members of MECH and COBRA.

Shockwave begins to wonder how much of the war effort will fall on his young Predacon's shoulders, and then the report comes in: the Autobots are on the move.


Shattered Glass: Down the Rabbit Hole

It felt wrong somehow, meeting in Megatron's personal chambers, like an intrusion. The practicality of the location was all but acknowledged fact, being out of the way of what few crew remained and being shielded from ship-wide scans.

Megatron had liked his privacy.

Starscream still felt out of place leaning on the desk, like a child holding a club meeting in his father's office and pretending to be dignified. The simple chair at the desk that functioned both as a resting place and a personal data channel dwarfed the Seeker, leaving ample room for his wings. It only drove the out-of-place feeling home.

Around him stood Breakdown, Airachnid, Knock Out, and Soundwave. All but one had been part of the little class of sparklings and younglings that Megatron had taken upon himself to teach outside of the regulations of the caste system. They had known Megatron the longest, understood the way he thought better than most. And Soundwave, while not Megatron's oldest supporter, was certainly one of the most loyal.

Starscream steepled his servos and leaned against the outsized desk. "We need to discuss the worst-case scenarios," he said grimly.

"Hold it right there, pal," Breakdown put up a hand to stop him. "We've been in dire straits before. This is bad, I'm not gonna lie. This whole thing is scrap. But we've been neck deep in it before and pulled together. Remember the escape from Cybertron? Or the siege of Tyger Pax?"

"Both times, our losses were incalculable," Starscream argued, "I'd hardly call those victories."

Turning back to the others, his wings twitched with either irritation or exhaustion. "I'm talking about plans to minimize loss of life if the worst should happen."

"Alright," Airachnid spoke calmly and evenly, as Starscream had relied on her to do. "What kind of scenarios are we running here? Let's start with the basics and work out some protocols from there."

There was no use hiding the data, everyone would figure it out sooner or later. Starscream projected Sierra's findings on energon levels onto the desk and let them read it at their leisure. "If we don't get that synth-en formula perfected soon, we'll be out of energon within the year."

Knock Out made a clicking sound, mimicking the way humans sometimes sucked on their teeth before answering. He'd done what he could to take some of the burden off of Sierra's shoulders, but he hadn't had time to really examine the synth-en project yet.

"Alright, looking at this, it's best if we start rationing now," the medic said. "There's no sense being careless with what we've got. I think Sierra is right though, if we adopt projectile weapons in place of energon-consuming weapons, we can stretch what we've got further."

Breakdown shifted uncomfortably at this, being very used to his energon battle pistol. His plating ground together in disgruntled acceptance as he finally canted his helm in agreement. "I'll check the armory, see what's left," he grunted, "We can use neutron assault rifles. Might have to rig up some of the mags when the ammo runs out though."

"Let Wildrider worry about that," Knock Out suggested. "He's quite inventive….and I do not mean that strictly as a compliment, I would like to state for the record."

Starscream caught Breakdown's meaningful look and waved a hand in his direction a little hastily. "Yes, I know, Breakdown. We'll see to the reports of Autobots mobilizing in a moment. But if we don't finish this discussion now, we may never get another chance."

With another wave of his hand, he cleared Sierra's reports from the desk surface and allowed a series of data interface connections to plug into the base of his helm, granting him access to Megatron's private database. There were over a thousand years' worth of movements and secrets and tactics and battle plans in these lines of code, as well as information on contacts and political situations on hundreds of worlds Starscream only barely remembered. There were some things Starscream had not yet been brave enough to explore in the database, he would admit that. The levels of encryption around his own file and those of his brothers worried him, and in a way he was ashamed of that. He had trusted Megatron above all others, and he wasn't sure why he felt a cold tendril of fear wrap around his spark when he looked at Thundercracker's file. Because he wouldn't let you see the body, his mind suggested, Because he never discusses...discussed it with you.

Starscream pushed these unwelcome memories to the side, as well as the piles of notes detailing some of the more desperate arrangements Megatron had made to protect his people - some a sight less scrupulous than a Decepticon would have imagined...Starscream didn't know how he was going to pay off a debt to an alien crime boss, and found himself hoping that the creature had died of old age by this time - and accessed the files on contingency plans.

"Megatron had more than one strategy for what to do if we were ever so vastly outnumbered and outgunned that staying would cost more lives than it would save," the Seeker began, but did not move the data to the table, instead choosing to read it privately and share his findings verbally. "If our numbers dwindle below six adult Decepticons aboard, Megatron had a protocol in place that would warn Trypticon to adjust internal systems to support human life, and then leave the solar system."

"Abandon-Earth?" Soundwave squawked, radio clips jangling together discordantly. Flickers of picture ran in an uninterrupted stream across his visor, photos of nature, clips of the news, a series of candid snapshots of Miko and Frenzy together.

"Not without the humans," Starscream tried to calm his friend. "Sierra and Miko had not yet joined us when Megatron first created the policy, nor had Pax Minor been born, but we had June. The idea is that if ever the Autobots completely overrun Earth, and things seem hopeless, we take our humans and follow the map Megatron left for us."

"To where?" Airachnid demanded, "We can't just rip the kids away from everything they've ever known!"

"Airachnid," Knock Out said gently, "If things get this bad, everything they've ever known will probably already be gone."

The femme faltered, extra legs drooping. They'd become so used to living day-to-day, taking each new crisis as it came, that she hadn't given much thought to what would happen if they lost. She couldn't afford to.

"Where would we go?" she repeated harshly. Starscream's plating drew inward at her tone and he frowned. "All our bases from before are destroyed or evacuated. He didn't mention any others."

"Megatron had secrets, Airachnid."
"No he didn't. Not from us. Not from you." Breakdown interrupted, knowing even as he said it that it was merely denial.

Starscream looked at the older Decepticon almost pityingly. "You know there were things he couldn't tell us. Choices he had to make that he wouldn't burden any of us with. I've seen his records. He set up havens, hiding places for Decepticons on the run. There are star systems he wiped out of the overall charts, places none of us knew existed, so that if we were captured we couldn't betray their location." Now Starscream allowed one of the coordinates to appear on the desk. A flick of his servos magnified the bare-looking patch of space.

"If it looks like Optimus Prime is winning, and we are in danger of extermination," he spoke flatly, having imagined the scenario so many times that he no longer attached much emotion to it, "We will evacuate and follow Megatron's lead to the havens. If I read his notes correctly, there may be more escaped Decepticons there. Enough, perhaps, to bolster our forces."

"So it's less of an escape and more a temporary retreat?" Breakdown asked. That was more to his liking than simply taking his daughter and grandson and fleeing their homeworld forever. He'd lost his home planet, lost Cybertron. He couldn't bear to see his little Junebug experience that same loss.

Soundwave shuffled a step closer and copied the data into his visor. Starscream shot him a warning look, clearly read as Be careful with that. If Soundwave were captured, they would all be vulnerable. The young spymaster extended his plating, then drew it back in again in a placating gesture, and nodded. "What was the other -contingency -you needed to-discuss?" he asked.

Abruptly, the Seeker's wings dropped to brush against the sides of the chair, and Starscream fidgeted. The older Decepticons exchanged glances, trying to guess what, out of all the hopeless scenarios he'd likely had to consider, would make him so quiet.

"If," Starscream cleared his vents and began again. "If something happens to me, we need to decide on a secondary….er…tertiary leader of the Decepticon forces on Earth."

"Nothing's going to happen to you, 'Screamer," Knock Out said sharply.

"Can you guarantee that, Knock Out?" Starscream's voice was low, weary, but his optics were clearer than they'd been for days. "No, you can't. None of us can predict the future. If I am captured or killed, and I leave no one in command, deliberating about a new leader could cost the Decepticons time that they don't have." None of them could argue that point and Starscream knew it.

He raised his helm. "I propose that, in the event of my death, capture, or incapacitation, command falls to Airachnid, with Soundwave standing as her second. Are there any objections?"

Silence reigned for a moment, and Airachnid seemed to be struggling with the thought - logical, given the enormity of the proposal. Then the femme crossed her arms and nodded.

"I accept, Commander," she said formally. Soundwave made a chiming sound in agreement and dipped his helm.

A weight seemed to fall from Starscream's shoulders, and he sagged in visible relief. Knock Out scanned his vitals and his eyebrows raised. "Oh dear, Sierra wasn't exaggerating."

"What?"

The medic's armor flared out aggressively. "When was the last time you refueled? Or recharged, for that matter? Your levels are in the yellow zone, you idiot!"

"I don't have time to-"

Starscream's protests were cut off with a sharp rap to the helm. "Scraplet-leavings! Even Megatron found time to recharge!" Knock Out growled. "I propose we adjourn this meeting and you let your newly-minted second-in-command handle the reports of Autobot activity. You need to rest!"

"I second that," Breakdown nodded sagely. "You're no good to us half-alive."

Soundwave raised a hand as if in agreement and Airachnid smirked. "The ayes have it, motion carried."

"That's not how it works!" Starscream glared at them all. He knew he was running on fumes. He could already feel his primary systems drawing energon from his extremities to keep his core functions running smoothly. And he knew that even that slight loss of pede coordination or arm steadiness could be costly in battle. But there was so much to be done, and he had no idea how Megatron had managed it all!

"Starscream," Airachnid put a hand on the younger Cybertronian's shoulder with a sympathetic look. "You've always been good at looking out for everyone else. But sometimes, you're going to have to let us look after you a little bit. Now let's go over the Autobot reports so you can get some rest, okay?"

This wasn't how Megatron had done things. Megatron had always shouldered the burden alone, and doing any less felt to Starscream like a failure to live up to his leader's expectations. But on the other hand, Starscream was a Seeker: social by nature, created with a longing for community and the unity of a Trine. But his Trine, his brothers were long gone, and rather than go mad like some orphaned Seekers did, Starscream had found comfort in his fellow Decepticons. Would Megatron have thought less of him for delegating responsibilities to a "Trine" of his own? He'd seemed supportive enough when Starscream began to turn to Sierra and Flamewar as his social Trine, perhaps he would have agreed with forming a political/military Trine with Soundwave and Airachnid - though Trines in name only: they shared none of the closeness of spark and electro-magnetic field that he and his brothers had enjoyed.

It would take time for him to open up enough to being a leader to trust himself with all of the myriad secrets a Decpticon Lord had to handle at any given time, let alone trust those secrets to others. But Starscream would try, for the sake of the Decepticons and for the sake of Earth. He cleared the contingencies from the desk display and moved to a console at the wall, followed by the others.

The triple screen flared to life, displaying MECH's report of activity near the ruins of the old Space Bridge on one panel, a map of the planet on the center panel, and a report from Soundwave concerning Autobot activity on the remaining fold of the screen. Breakdown tapped it harshly, sending little flickers across the screen from the force of his servos.

"There. We got a hit on the satellite feeds, right there in the middle of the North Pacific ocean. Definitely Autobot." The ex-Stunticon scowled and crossed his arms over his chestplates. "Thing I can't figure is, what's he doing out there?" Breakdown knew it could've been anything from a vein of energon to drilling for oil, but he'd long since learned that making assumptions about the enemy's activities could be a costly mistake.

Soundwave took a moment to sift through human satellite feeds to look for any news in the area, anything that would suggest an Autobot cover-up or something that would attract Autobots. He bypassed reports of pollution and oil spills - while upsetting, these did not bear the hallmarks of Optimus Prime - and skirted around reports of human naval warfare until something stood out to him. It had only taken him four and a half seconds to process all the information, and he quickly chose the relevant entry to display on his visor.

Paleontologists Answer a Call to a Floating Laboratory: What Happened Next will Shock You! the clickbait article proclaimed. Of course, being clickbait, it was highly doubtful that anything in the article was shocking in the slightest. In fact, it was likely old news. "Oil comes from fossils" or some such. But the title had the desired effect. The other Decepticons looked at the screen, their own personal electro-magnetic fields pushing against each other in discomfort and realization.

"Another relic-hunt?" Airachnid guessed. "That would make it Cliffjumper. But fossils….didn't Predaking say something about sensing kindred metal on this planet once?"

"The only Predacon Wheeljack ever succeeded in making was raised Decepticon," Breakdown pointed out, "So I guess it'd make sense if the 'Bots wanted one of their own. Could they clone one from fossils if there turned out to be bits of old Preds down here?"

"More or less," an old movie star's voice rang out of Soundwave's visor, followed by a series of lines from an old dinosaur movie about gene sequence gaps and the problems they presented. He finished with a short video clip of Mel Brooks as Dr. Frankenstein.

"Right." Starscream nodded. "They can't do it without Wheeljack. And the last time I saw him, Skywarp and I had just shot him and left him in an exploding Space Bridge."

"Don't jinx it," Knock Out warned, "That's what we said about Arcee, and look how that turned out."

For a moment, everyone was silent, trying to avoid memories of the psychopathic femme and the damage she'd done in the past. Starscream's wings fluttered indecisively for a fraction of a moment. Then he looked up.

"Alright, Airachnid, Soundwave, if you and I are a council now, we'd best put our helms together: does this warrant a full investigation with our current resources, or not? And since we've got to check it out one way or another, who goes?"

Airachnid magnified the map on which the beacon appeared and frowned. The Nemesis was a good ways away from the coordinates, which hopefully meant the Autobots were nowhere near figuring out their current location. It would take a good deal of energon to open and hold a Ground Bridge for an underwater mission. That ruled out grounders.

"I think," said Airachnid, "that we'd better stick to a fly-by scouting for now. Easy retreat if the Autobot spots them, and a good vantage point to fire from if we need to intervene in whatever they're doing."

"But wait! There's more!" Soundwave waved a hand a moment before becoming frustrated with the imprecise nature of his form of verbal communication. He threw up his servos and began signing, trusting that none of his companions had deleted their files on the language. If there's any possibility that Predacon bones are involved - even if that is just a rumor at present - we can't allow any Autobot to get their hands on them, if for no other reason than to grant Predaking's ancestors a decent burial. I propose that Predaking is sent with one other flyer so that if there is anything there, he'll sense it.

Predaking was young yet, and inexperienced. His combat experience only barely outranked Sierra's, really. But the longer he was on Earth, the more often he dreamt of bygone days and ancient experiments: things he should have had no knowledge of. Soundwave knew that the Predacon had reliably "sensed" at least one ancient Predacon burial site before - though they still had no confirmed explanation for the creature's presence in Lasia.

"I'll fly with him," Starscream decided. Catching Knock Out's glare, he held up his hands in a defensive posture. "Not right this moment, doctor, calm yourself! I intend to rest and refuel. I'm not stupid enough to fly reconnaissance on half-power. And if you're still not satisfied, I'll take Sierra. She can inform on me if I do something ill-advised."

Knock Out squinted at him. He suspected that this amounted more to a bid for escape from the crushing weight of his duties than an actual reconnaissance mission for Starscream. He was glad they'd been able to maneuver him into delegating responsibilities at all, but there was still so much on the young Seeker's shoulders that Knock Out could hardly begrudge him a chance to get out and fly. And Sierra needed a mission that didn't involve her on the ground being shot at by her own species. Her visits to MECH's counselor helped some, but she was not adapting to being a soldier near as well as Pax Minor had.

Then again, Pax had literally been born to that life - something that Knock Out sometimes regretted, as though he'd had a hand in the decision-making.

"Fair enough," said Knock Out easily, as though he didn't suspect a thing. "A flight will do that girl good. You know she's trying too hard to run the lab on her own."

Starscream winced, and his wings fell a few inches. "Yes," he cleared his vents and looked away. "That's why I asked you to take over what projects you could. And if Pax Minor would ever stay on one deck of the Nemesis long enough for me to actually find him, I'd ask him to do the same."

Breakdown shook his helm. "Jack needs time, Starscream. He'll fight for you - scrap, he'd lay down his life without hesitation - but to him, you're still his comrade, not his leader. I think he feels that if he acknowledges you as the new Decepticon Lord, it means he has to give up hope that Megatron could have survived."

Starscream clasped his hands behind his back to keep his servos from shaking. "I know how he feels." Turning quickly so that he wouldn't have to see the startled and pitying looks from his companions, the Seeker copied the coordinates and formulated a set of orders to send in a data packet to Predaking.

"I'll be in the lab, recharging for the next two hours. If the Autobot signal moves before then, come get me no matter what I say or do," he squared his shoulders and raised his wings, taking on a more commanding posture to signify that the meeting had ended. "Any questions?"

"Oh plenty," Knock Out snarked, "But none pertaining to the present subject matter."

Starscream waved him off with an annoyed look and ushered them all out of Megatron's office before code-locking the door behind him. Even with Dreadwing in the brig and only a handful of trusted Decepticons still alive on Earth, Starscream absolutely would not take a chance with the database Megatron had left him. The ship was eerily silent as he made his way back to the labs.

Sierra was elbow-deep in paperwork when he entered, and by the dark rings under her eyes, he suspected she'd been avoiding sleep as much as he had, despite their mutual promises to each other to rest. Both lies, evidently. They'd have to stop that.

"There's a weird power fluctuation in the satellite network," the girl said without looking up. "Jack was in here earlier, said it looked almost like a code signal, but made up of interference rather than something someone programmed. Which I don't get, but I'm not asking him for an explanation."

Starscream lowered himself to the makeshift berth in the lab and tilted his helm to the side, just watching the human for a moment. Then, when she finally looked up, he managed a half smile. "How did you know it was me?" he asked.

"I didn't," Sierra answered shortly. "I've said the same thing to the last three bots to come in here, hoping they were you each time. Glad I finally got it right…..scrap, I'm out of it." She set the datapads down and scrubbed her hands over her face with a gurgling groan. "Jack and I think the interference is coming from an astronomical event. Nebulos, Pequod, Saturn and Earth are all aligned right now, which you wouldn't think would affect anything but it does. Things get thin when those four line up. Don't ask me what that means, it was Trypticon's explanation."

"You spoke to Trypticon?" Starscream asked, surprised, "But he's nearly always dormant!" He slid open a panel in the wall and fished around several empty containers until he came up with a cube of medical-grade energon - no high-quality meal, that was for certain, but fortified with enough alloys and minerals to keep his systems going.

"I didn't really-" a cavernous yawn interrupted Sierra and she made an apologetic face. Starscream beckoned her over and she reluctantly abandoned her work. "I didn't really speak to him, per se. He threw some text into the middle of my report. Wouldn't explain what "things get thin" meant, which was annoying. But hopefully it'll be over in a couple of days and our satellite network will clear up."

"We have a mission in two hours," Starscream said when she had finished, and he plucked the girl from the table to deposit her on his chestplates. Sierra groaned.

"Okay, who do I write the mission report for?" she asked in a resigned tone. Long servos carefully ran over her head and back in an attempt to make her relax as she felt Starscream chuckle slightly beneath her feet.

"No, Sierra, we have a mission. You and I. We're flying out to the Pacific with Predaking in two hours to check on reports of Autobot Activity."

In an unbearably hopeful voice, the girl asked, "No shooting? No Unit E forces? Just a fly-over?"

Starscream couldn't promise that. They both knew he couldn't. But Sierra was his partner, scrap it, and he was going to protect her.

"I don't know about Unit E, but we'll be staying airborne unless absolutely forced to land," he said. "And with me and Predaking there, you really won't be doing much of the fighting, if any at all."

Sierra breathed a sigh of relief and sank to her knees over Starscream's spark chamber. "Thanks, 'Scream," she mumbled. "I'm sorry, I want to be a good Decepticon, like you, or Rani, or Pax, but I-" she rubbed at her eyes and looked away.

"But you weren't raised like us, and it's a lot to get used to," Starscream said, and rested a hand over her. "Everyone here understands that, Sierra. Trust me." He shifted on the berth until his wings were no longer cramped, and worked up a smirk.

"Now, we have two hours until we ship out. I suggest you go to sleep, because that is what I'm going to do."

"For real this time?" his partner folded her arms suspiciously.

"Seeker's honor," he grinned, holding up a hand. Sierra seemed to accept this, and laid down, curling beneath his hand as though it were a blanket.

"Okay then. Night, 'Scream."

"Goodnight Sierra."

Starscream waited until Sierra's breathing had evened out into a slow, steady rhythm before shutting down his own primary functions into a sleep mode to allow for a kind of system-restore. It would be an uneventful scouting trip, as far as missions went. He would take Sierra and Predaking and probably blow up a mobile Autobot lab, nothing more. And Airachnid would hold the bridge of the Nemesis while they were gone, as professional as ever. Just like things used to be.

Or so he tried to convince himself. Starscream had a flicker of warning dancing at the edge of his awareness, somewhere between neural net and spark in a nebulous place he'd always just categorized as instinct.

He wouldn't find out what it was until the mission was well underway, but by that time, it was too late.