9. Flight

Starscream let me accompany him when he dealt with his… our… fellow Decepticons. At first they were uneasy—I still had Autobot symbols on my wings—but eventually they grew used to me. That didn't stop them from casting me strange glances.

One Lugnut seemed particularly awe-stricken. He was huge and hulking, with graceless pincers on each hand and a single red optic in the center of what remained of his face. He was missing the lower part of his jaw, so could not speak beyond random mechanical sounds and bursts of static. He followed me as I followed Starscream. Just being around him for a breem or so had me looking over my shoulder for megacycles.

Starscream and I trained in a secluded area. Anyone who saw us would charge Starscream with attacking an Autobot—conveniently noticing my sigils when it benefited them.

"There's only so much I can teach you," Starscream said. "Hand-to-hand is not my forte, but that's all we've got until you're armed. Now, let's work on your stance."

After he'd hammered my stance into something acceptable, he spent orns teaching me to fall properly. Eventually he trained me both on the ground and in the air, with an emphasis on the latter. I discovered I had a knack for both.

When Starscream was busy, he sent Skywarp or Thundercracker instead. This was sometimes more enjoyable; I had grown used to Starscream's infinite condescension and sarcastic wit, but that didn't mean I liked it. Skywarp was an enthusiastic sparring partner, leaving me panting and low on fuel. Thundercracker drilled me on the same techniques over and over again, until my body went through the movements with no hesitation. A few kliks could be the difference between life and death someday.

When I did complain, it was at the end of a long and frustrating orn. The first few megacycles, I had been forced to entertain a visiting Senator, who had made no effort to conceal his opinion of me. Now Thundercracker had me drilling endlessly, practicing until I was ready to snap. I was alarmingly close to beating my processor out against the nearest hard surface, when Thundercracker called a halt. Now that I was still, I wanted nothing more than to be moving again. This aimless, chaotic feeling wouldn't go away. My fingers twitched and I shifted, uncomfortable.

"How long have you been groundbound?" he asked. I calculated the orns.

"About an orbit. Six orns or so."

He sighed. "Fly with me."

He shot into the sky and I blasted after him. Within a few kliks the buzz in my audios retreated. Thundercracker led me a merry chase across the city, dodging around towers and diving beneath roadways, and it was a challenge to keep up. After a few cycles I could focus again.

Thundercracker slowed high over the towers to let me catch up. I felt better than I had all orbit… weightless and free! He gave me a rare smile.

"Don't forget to fly," he said.

The ire of the Autobots grew over the next few vorns until each glare directed my way felt like a blast to the face from a plasma cannon. The whispers grew louder, too, snide comments about my model or my processor, my creators or my habits in the berth.

These I could ignore. It didn't matter what they thought of me. But when I caught a mutter about how Optimus preferred his berth warmed by four Seekers rather than just one, I pinned the offender against the nearest building with my hand at his throat.

"Say that again," I hissed.

Starscream pulled me off. "He's not worth your time," he said. /Let it go,/ he hissed over his comm. /Here anyone can see us./

"You stay out of this, scrap," the 'bot snarled. "Drag your port around somewhere else… that's all you Seekers are good for."

Starscream punched him. Hard.

The 'bot went down with a screech and his companion leapt at Starscream. I intercepted him, holding him back with difficulty: he was much bulkier than I.

Something clanged off of my helm. Two more clangs followed, accompanied by a familiar voice.

"Break it up, sparklings! And you, stop that hollering or I'll dent your faceplate worse than that!"

I rubbed my helm as Ratchet yanked the first mech to his pedes. The red-and-green mech blubbered more than was really necessary—Starscream had only dented his nose—but when Ratchet brandished a wrench at him, he muted it. The four of us stood meekly (except Starscream, who had never looked meek since he was Sparked). The security mechs finally arrived, blasters at the ready, but hesitated behind the medic.

"All right, any of you big tough mechs feel like explaining?" Ratchet growled.

Dent-Nose immediately piped up. "He attacked me," he whined, pointing at me. "They ganged up on me! They would have terminated me!"

"Oh, please," Starscream sneered. "Denting your ugly faceplates is hardly—"

"Silence, slave," one of the security mechs interrupted. He grabbed Starscream. Another came for me, but I wrenched from his hold.

"Don't touch me!" I snapped. "And release him at once!"

"I wouldn't arrest them just yet, Officer," Ratchet said. "He's the Prime's ward, or didn't you see those Autobot symbols on his wings, right in front of your optics?" The officers let go, looking sheepish. "Nova?"

"He insulted the Prime," I said angrily.

"You attacked first," Ratchet said. "Let Prime deal with these two, officers. He'll handle them fairly."

"That slave damaged me!" Dent-Nose whined, pointing at Starscream. "I'm disfigured! I demand the right to punish him for his crime!"

"First of all," Ratchet growled, "stop bellyaching. Your self-repair can bang that out in a breem. You know a mech can't punish another Autobot's slave without permission. Isn't that right, officers?"

The security mechs looked at each other, reviewing the slave code in their processors. Then, reluctantly, the captain nodded. "That's correct, sir."

Ratchet turned to me. "And does he have your permission?"

"No," I said. "I'll deal punishment as I see fit."

Dent-Nose and his crony glowered, but there was nothing more to be done. The crowd had already begun to disperse. Even the security mechs were leaving.

Dent-Nose glared at me. "This isn't over, Decepticon," he hissed, then shoved his way through the crowd. The remark unsettled me. Protoforms had whispered "Decepticon" at me before, but it had never struck so close to home.

Starscream and I were left alone with Ratchet. The medibot crossed his arms and scowled.

"You two report to Prime and tell him what you did. If he doesn't hear it from you, he'll hear it from me. Got that?"

Starscream gave a derisive snort, but I nodded, chastened.

A lecture from Optimus was worse than the scorn of every Autobot on Cybertron. It would have been easier if he'd shouted. But he didn't raise his voice, or look angry. Instead it was the awful disappointment in his voice.

I could have given excuses to make myself look better, but I took it in silence, trying not to melt into a puddle. When he finished, I said, "I'm sorry, Optimus." And I was, straight to my Spark.

He smiled. All is forgiven, that smile said. But he didn't know what I had done, what I planned to do.

Prime turned to Starscream.

"I shouldn't be surprised at you, Starscream," he said, "but I am. Nova's safety is your responsibility. You failed today."

I expected Starscream to look disdainful, or make a sarcastic comment, or something. Instead he looked away, uncharacteristically silent.

The incident with Dent-Nose wasn't the end. The skinny mech appeared everywhere I went, letting badly-concealed insults reach my audios. I ignored him until he grew tired of his game, or so I thought. I learned later that he had gone instead to bait Skywarp and Thundercracker whenever Starscream or I sent them out. I could laugh off the annoyance, Starscream could smirk and uphold his pride, Thundercracker could fume in silence, but Skywarp couldn't help his personality.

Starscream received a call on his comm from one of his wingmates; he hesitated right before attacking, allowing me to swipe his legs out from under him. Something was wrong—Starscream would never let me knock him down unless he had been distracted by something important.

"What is it?"

"Skywarp and Thundercracker. There's trouble."

We took to the air and I followed him away from Prime's tower. What we saw from above wasn't comforting: Thundercracker and Skywarp were in the middle of a brawl against three or four Autobots. I spied the now-familiar gleam of Dent-Nose's red-and-green plating, as well as the yellow of his larger crony, among them.

"Starscream, wait…!" I cautioned, but he was already diving towards his wingmates. I scanned the area for security, but we were on the outskirts of the city, away from residential areas. I dove into the fray, intent on pulling the trine out before anything irreparable could happen.

I was immediately assailed by Dent-Nose himself. He went for my optics and I jerked back, straight into the arms of another mech. Rough hands caught my wings. I kicked back, firing up my thrusters, and whoever was holding me let go with a grunt. When Dent-Nose came at me this time, I was ready to counter his weak attack. Trying to get him out of the fight without seriously harming him, I kneed him in the torso. As he toppled, I aimed a blow at the back of his neck. He went down hard.

I looked up to find that the other two Autobots had fled when Starscream and I arrived. Dent-Nose's large companion lay on the ground, optics dark. I looked back at Dent-Nose as Starscream knelt over him.

"Temporarily offlined," Starscream said. He glanced at the other downed 'bot, mouth pulling into a thin line. "Can't say as much for that one."

"What happened?" I asked Skywarp. He glared defensively.

"The Autobrat tripped me. Called me a receptor model. What was I supposed to do, stand there and take it? So I told him where he could stick it and he decked me. Not my fault this clod couldn't block."

"He's offlined, Skywarp. Terminated," Starscream said.

Skywarp's optics paled and he threw Thundercracker a glance as the sirens started. "Well… uh…" Panic bloomed slowly on his faceplates, his words coming faster and faster until they bordered on hysterical. "You know what they do to slaves who kill Autobots! It'll be the scrap heap or the smelting pools for sure! Screamer, what'll we do, what'll we—"

"Quiet," Starscream snapped. "We don't have much time before this one—" He aimed a derisive kick at Dent-Nose. "—or one of the others tells them what happened."

"I'll say I did it," I said. "Self-defense."

"No," Starscream said, overlapped by Thundercracker. The blue Seeker looked at me seriously.

"It won't make any difference," he said. "Those…" He nodded at my Autobot sigils. "…won't matter. You're one of us." He turned to Starscream. "We have to fly."

"Kaon," Starscream said. "Skywarp, Thundercracker, take the east route. I'll take Nova west. Watch for Autobots. Go."

The other two transformed and rocketed off as the sirens drew nearer. Starscream motioned to me, but for a moment I couldn't move, paralyzed by the sight of the swiftly graying shell of the dead Autobot.

"Nova. We need to leave, now."

I tore myself away and we flew back towards Prime's tower.

/Why are we going here?/ I asked.

/We need supplies. Wait in your quarters, I'll be back. Lock the door and open it for no one./

He left me in my quarters and flew around the side of the tower.

Primus, what was happening to me? An Autobot lay dead, and I would be fleeing my home with an escaped slave… enough for me to be made a slave myself if I was caught. And all of this would only confirm what they thought of me…

Optimus. Ice crept into my Spark. What would Optimus think? Would his trust in me be shattered? I wished I could speak with him, explain what happened, pour my Spark out and show him my good intentions. I wished I could tell him goodbye, but there was no time.

Starscream landed on my balcony with two energon cubes. He shoved them at me. "Subspace those," he said. I obeyed. He ushered me to the nearest console.

"We're going to move your credits," he told me, connecting remotely.

"To where?"

"Working on that." He paused, optics brightening. "Perhaps they didn't…" He struck a few keys and another account appeared. "They didn't!"

"Whose account is that? Yours?"

He snorted. "I haven't had an account in astrocycles. They'd never think to look here… nobody remembers it exists. This is Skyfire's account."

He transferred everything in my account to the new one and covered his tracks, making it impossible for the Autobots to track or retrieve the credits. By now we could hear sirens.

"Let's go," he said.

I took a last look around. This was my home. It wrenched my Spark to leave this behind, but there was no other choice.

We left Iacon in vehicle mode, pushing our engines to the limit.

/We won't fly long,/ Starscream commed. /We can't risk flying by day. There's a hiding spot where we can wait for night./

After a quarter of a megacycle, he dove sharply and braked above a crevasse in the ground. We both transformed.

"It takes thrusters to get in here," he said. "No groundpounder could do it."

He eased into the crevasse, steadying himself with his hands. He shuddered as his wingtips went under the surface. I grimaced in sympathy—our innate claustrophobia could make this difficult. I leaned over to watch. The bottom of the crevasse was hard to make out. The gap widened further down, leaving a portion of the lower wall invisible. Starscream steered himself into the wider area, then gestured for me to follow him.

I squeezed my way down. My wings scraped against the walls in an unsteady wobble; my Spark pulsed uncomfortably as the sky narrowed into a strip.

"This way." Starscream's voice bounced off the walls. From here, I could see a cave in the side of the crevasse, hidden by the ledge above us.

Once we landed, I asked, "How did anyone find this place?"

"You'd be surprised how creative desperate mechs can be," Starscream said. "Recharge. I'll keep watch and rouse you at moonsrise. We'll share a cube then…"

"You need a full cube," I said. "I can wait."

"We have to conserve," he said. "We've only got four between us."

"You need it more than I," I said. He opened his mouth to protest, but I interrupted. "Let go of your slagging pride for a few orns. Look at it this way: I need you online to get us out of this. You're going to drink a whole cube, and I'll take a half. I can manage."

He sighed. "Fine. Recharge now."

Recharge was limited without a proper berth. The cramped cave unsettled me. I awoke every few breems to see Starscream perched near the cave's entrance with his back to me, a silent guardian.

When Starscream woke me, it was dark. Besides a glimmer of moonslight splashed onto the crevasse wall, the only illumination was the red glow of our optics. He offered me a cube. I drank half and watched to make sure that he drank all of another.

"We're still in Iacon territory," he said. "There's been activity aboveground, so we'll need to be quiet."

"We can't fly?"

"Not yet. We'll aim to reach Simfur on our pedes tonight… there's a dry energon mine there that we can hide in. From there we should be able to fly. Should. The wind there is murder."

"We can't just… fly up into space and get there that way?"

He gave me a look. It was one of his "I've got morons on my team" looks. "The Autobots thought of that. They've got a blockade on the planet so tight that every bit of space debris is marked and labeled."

He led the way out of the crevasse, scanning the area for Autobots before allowing me to come out into the open. In the moonslight we blended into the landscape, but Autobots might detect us on thermal.

Starscream and I were unused to walking long distances. After a while, walking was not only awkward but painful on our thrusters. Every so often we saw an Autobot patrol and moved out of sight.

We stumbled on for megacycles that felt like orns. The moons crawled across the sky, tracing a path through the glimmering stars.

Finally, Starscream pointed ahead towards a dark shaft. "There."

I shuddered… underground again.

We would have to remain in the mine for the day, too long for comfort. All that metal above us, rather than open sky, made my cooling fans kick on within a breem. I pulled my shaky limbs in on myself, hunching over where I sat and massaging my aching turbines.

Starscream's voice echoed oddly around the tunnel in which we sat. "I knew a Seeker who the Autobots put to work in a mine like this. After an orbit, he went berserk and killed two of the guards, then himself."

"Thank you for that comforting story," I said dryly.

"You're welcome. During the War, the Autobots… at least, ones like Prime, who actually cared about their captives… had to think of creative ways to hold Seeker prisoners." He pulled out the half-empty cube of energon and tossed it to me. "Refuel, then recharge. We have a difficult flight ahead of us."

"It's my turn to watch," I said. "You need this more than I do."

"I'm not having this argument every time we stop," Starscream growled. "I've already taken more than my share."

I unsubspaced one of my full cubes and threw it at his head. He caught it, scowled, and made as though to throw it back.

"I know how slave rations are," I said quietly. "You need this."

He made no reply, but tossed the cube back to me anyway. I set it between us, then drank my fuel in silence. When I looked at him he'd turned away, facing the shaft.

"If you need this," I said, just loudly enough for him to hear, "it's here."

It was no easier to recharge in the mine than it had been in the crevasse. At some point I activated my optics and saw that the energon cube was only half-full. I curled my mouthplates into a smile and drifted for some time.

A touch on my helm roused me from near-recharge to see Starscream settling down beside me.

"Come here," he directed, and after a moment of hesitation, I moved closer. The only way to comfortably fit both of us was to curl up awkwardly together. At least it was better than the unyielding rock.

I felt something strange when I was pressed against him. It was a feeling of rightness, of belonging. I could feel the warmth of his Spark on my chest. I felt safer and more peaceful than I had in vorns. I tilted my head just enough to see Starscream's face; his optics were shuttered, and for once there wasn't a frown or a sneer pulling at his mouthplates. He looked content.

"Unless something happens," Starscream told me when night came at last, "we can make it to Polyhex tonight."

"Only Polyhex?"

"We'll be flying against the wind," he said. "It'll burn fuel, and after that walk last night, it's going to hurt. I don't want a breakdown. There's an outcropping in Polyhex that's only accessible from the air. After that, we stop at Khalkon, a Neutral settlement in Tarn. Kaon is heavily guarded… it will be difficult to get word in and organize our entry."

It felt wonderful to stretch my wings and let the wind calm my nerves. It was a refreshing change from crawling along the ground or huddling in a cave. But my turbines screamed in agony from the abuse they'd suffered the night before, and the headwind was strong.

/If you feel like you need to refuel, don't wait,/ Starscream told me. His comm signal was patchy with exhaustion. /This mess will blow you clear to Tyger Pax if you don't have energy to fight it./

My energon level dropped at an alarming rate as we struggled against the wind. I was beginning to worry that I wouldn't make it—more, that Starscream wouldn't make it—when he finally angled down towards an outcropping. I didn't see the cave until we were practically on top of it. This one was bigger on the inside. I staggered to the back and sank gratefully to the ground.

Exhausted from the night's flight, I didn't notice what Starscream was doing for some time. He had pried his holomatter projector from his circuitry and set up a projection of a rock face over the mouth of the cave. He had cannibalized more of his nonessentials to fuel the projector and was in the process of patching himself up.

"I could have helped with that," I said reproachfully. He shook his head.

"I'm used to this," he said. "I've had plenty of experience running on empty. You can't handle it."

Determined to prove him wrong, I stood up. For a moment I felt fine, but then a wave of dizziness struck me and I swayed dangerously. Before I hit the ground, Starscream was there to catch me, supporting me as he had when I was still learning to fly. My helm clacked quietly against his shoulder plating as I leaned on him. I could feel the warmth of his Spark on my chest again. My own Spark shifted towards it, but it was a longing to be closer, not the insatiable hunger for a merge. It was as though my Spark recognized his…

Starscream propped me against the wall and drew away, breaking the almost-contact, and as he straightened I thought I saw something in his face, a sort of tenderness or affection. It was gone in instant as he turned towards the cave's entrance. But I'd seen it before, all those times when I caught him looking at me in a way that was more than a slave at a master or a teacher at a student. I'd felt that pull on my Spark, the recognition, the orn before. And it made sense… because I'd finally realized what I should have vorns ago, it made sense.

"Starscream…"

"I'll keep watch," he said. "Try to recharge."

My voice sounded loud in the enclosed space.

"Starscream… you're my creator, aren't you?"

There was a moment of complete silence. Starscream turned half-around, fixing me with a penetrating stare. Finally he cycled an intake.

"Yes," he said. "I am."

Starscream was my creator. I was the sparkling of a Decepticon. It explained my red optics, my Seeker frame. While I had once hated the Decepticons with all of my Spark, I had always been one of them.

It didn't matter now. I was surprised, but not disgusted or horrified. I had already decided that I was a Decepticon. I was proud of it.

A thought occurred to me and the irony made me smile: I was Sparked that way.

I leaned my head against the wall. "Tell me more."

"What more do you need to know?"

"Why was I raised by Optimus? Why didn't you just tell me?"

He laughed harshly. "Would you have believed me?"

"I might have."

He settled down across from me. "You know there aren't any Seeker femmes. The frame type is impractical for flight. Instead, a Seeker can carry a second Spark in his chamber for a time—a sparkling who needs a protoform to survive.

"You were already… there before Axis. Nobody knew, not even my wingmates. I didn't want anyone to find out, especially after Axis, but you had to come out sometime.

"Ratchet and Prime were the only ones who knew about you: Ratchet performed your transfer into a protoform. And Prime, emotional fool, felt that you deserved a chance to grow up free, so he took you as his ward." For a moment, I thought he was going to say something else, but finally he shook his head. "That's all."

"Who is my other creator?" I asked.

He considered for an entire cycle, his optics on me but looking through me, seeing another mech, another time. Then his face hardened.

"You're better off not knowing," he said. "Not yet."

"Not yet?" I repeated, incredulous. "Is it always not yet? Is it so horrible, or am I so weak and delicate that I can't bear it?! Or do you just delight in drawing things out? Are you going to give me little bits and pieces of the truth, one at a time?"

"If I had my way, you'd never have known," he snapped in reply.

"Why not?!"

"Because I never—!" He broke off, but the force of the unsaid words struck right to my Spark.

"Because you never wanted me? Is that it? So you decided to offload me on Prime, so you didn't have anything to do with me?!"

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean, Starscream?"

"It's—" He stopped abruptly, vents whirring, and looked away as he fumed. "Complicated." But the tension in his frame, the trembling of his wings; this emotion, hiding under the anger, I recognized.

Starscream was ashamed.

Hesitantly, I ventured, "I'm sorry."

Starscream didn't answer.

"I'm sure you had your reasons," I said. I even managed to keep most of the bitterness out of my voice. "I won't force you to tell me."

After a moment, he tilted his head. "Drink your energon. We need recharge. Tomorrow night, we arrive in Khalkon."

I offered a cube to my creator… my creator. He accepted the full cube without complaint, and I drank our last half. When I had finished, I twitched my wings, looking up at the Autobot symbols painted there. It felt like an itch in my wiring. It was wrong. I was Decepticon-Sparked, and I had chosen the Decepticon way.

Bracing myself, I reached up and scraped my sharp fingers across the sigil, scratching until bits of red paint peeled off to leave only raw silver plating.

"What are you doing?"

I swiveled to show Starscream the bare spot. "I'm going to need your help with the backs."

"It doesn't have to hurt," he said. "We can get solvent in the settlement, or paint over them."

"I want them off now," I said. "I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea about me. And it should hurt. I'm… just… help me get rid of them."

It ought to hurt. I was stripping off my former self. I was leaving the Autobots behind forever.

My wings shook by the time we were done.