Chap 2 : « I'll never make it to Cybertron ! »

Starscream didn't offline his optics, for the simple reason he didn't have any. But the next he knew, he was onlining them and found himself sitting against the inner hull of Astrotrain with all the Decepticons who had participated in the attack of Autobot City on Earth gathered in the space shuttle around him.

His hand scraped over the floor. He had forgotten how it feels to be able to touch something, the feel of the material under his metal skin made him sigh deeply in satisfaction. He had forgotten how it feels to be alive and have a functional body. After those millions and millions of eons feeling nothing but numbness, a simple touch was delightful.

"You better jettison some weight or I'll never make it to Cybertron."

Starscream came out of his reverie as the resonating voice of Astrotrain reminded him why he was here again. He stood up to address all the others.

"My fellow Decepticons, Astrotrain has requested we lighten our burden..."

Bonecrusher stood up as well and declared it was survival of the fittest, glancing at the damaged Decepticons gathered together in the shuttle. Starscream ignored that and continued.

"So we will throw out everything we can. Get into the cockpit and remove the seats. Get rid of everything that is loose!" he commanded.

"Why throw away useful material when-" Scrapper looked at the wounded insistantly.

"Don't even think about it!" threatened Starscream.

Scrapper walked up in front and the remaining Constructicons stood up. "They are barely functional. They are going to die soon anyway."

"Yes, they must sacrifice themselves for the safety of the others!"

"We will not throw out anybody. Dare move a finger towards them and it's you I will throw out, after making sure you're not functional anymore!" Starscream shouted at them. The Constructicons looked at each other, but said and did nothing

Thankfully, some other Decepticons had obeyed Starscream's order and already started to throw out loose equipment, including empty weapons. Frenzy hesitated in front of the door, Megatron's fusion cannon in his arms.

"Throw it!" Rumble encouraged his brother. "He'll find some other deadly weapon"

When everything that wasn't alive was thrown out, including a protesting Astrotrain's pilot seats and secondary equipment, the shuttle was asked if it was sufficient. The answer, unsurprisingly, was negative.

"Everybody get rid of their weaponry!" Starscream ordered.

He quickly scanned his wingmates and the Insecticons: Skywarp and Thundercracker suffered severe and painful damage, but they were mostly external. Starscream faintly smiled, relieved to think that they were not in danger and would survive. Bombshell was unconscious, but his wounds were minor. Shrapnel was in bad shape and would probably not survive. Kickback... he scanned twice to be sure. Kickback was dead, but no one needed to know as long as his colors had not faded.

"Starscream, this is insane! Let's throw those who will not make it instead," protested Blitzwing, backed by the Constructicons.

"No..." Starscream started to remove the wounded's weapons. They didn't protest, knowing it was their weapons or them.

"I am certain that if you were wounded, you'd be eager to jump out for the sake of the others" the red seeker said to Blitzwing and the Constructicons.

He seized Bonecrusher roughly by the shoulder and led him towards the door. "I can help you with that! And will you sacrifice yourself, soldier?" he shouted at him, presenting him to the void of space.

"No!!!" screamed the Constructicon warrior, clinging to Starscream and the door frame with all his might.

The air commander shoved him back inside, searched him for weapons and stripped him of his blaster.

The rest of the gestalt team and the other Decepticons got rid of their shooters reluctantly.

"Don't worry, soldiers, you'll receive new weapons once we'll be back on Cybertron."

Then Starscream walked towards the end of the shuttle where Soundwave and his Cassetticons watched over a severely damaged Megatron.

"Soundwave... Give me your shoulder cannon, please."

The blue Decepticon looked at him shortly, no emotion readable on his visored face. Then, very slowly, he removed his weapon and gave it to the second-in-command. Starscream threw it out and then removed his own null rays, remaining missiles and cluster bombs. The final one to get rid of his weaponry, Starscream contently came back to have a look at Megatron. With the time he had spent without him, he had learned to miss him, the Megatron of old that used to call him "traitor" and "fool". Megatron had not become Galvatron. That purple monster was someone else; nothing had remained of Megatron in that insane mechanism that was Galvatron. Megatron was just reduced to an empty shell to be inhabited by Unicron's pawn.

Yes, during his so long journey through space, when he was nothing but a swirling orb of light, Starscream had missed a few acquaintances. Megatron, Skywarp and Thundercracker, the ones he had killed that day and who had been taken by Unicron. Even if it would change nothing in reality, he wouldn't let it happen this time.

He knelt next to Soundwave. "How is he faring?"

The cassette holder was surprised, even if he showed nothing of it. "Status: Online, suffering."

Starscream had a closer look. Megatron's armor was dented and bent in strange shapes, lifefluid leaked from open lines and circuit boards sparkled. The red seeker conveyed energy to his fingers and started to use the thin lazer to patch the most important lines to prevent further loss of vital fluids. Meanwhile, he fried exposed neural circuits to numb the pain.

Black fingers suddenly clamped themselves around his wrist. They squeezed, but were not strong enough to cause pain.

"Starscream..." Megatron rasped. "What...are you...doing...traitor?!" His hand was shaking.

"Starscream: repairing you, lord Megatron," Soundwave answered, knowing that Megatron would trust him more than the seeker.

Megatron stared at his second-in-command who stared back at him, his countenance impassive. The overlord must have calculated his chances, because he released the blue hand and smiled- a slight smile, but it was a smile- letting his head fall back on Soundwave's lap. Megatron entered stasis.

"He'll trust you... this time," was all Soundwave said for the rest of the journey back to Cybertron.

Starscream did his best to keep Megatron alive and, to his own surprise, managed to. Soundwave had watched him closely as he worked on their leader, keeping an eye on what he did and wondering why the air commander acted like this. It wasn't like him at all. The blue telepath knew Starscream very well; he had been around him for nine million years. He was far too selfish to care about anyone's well being; his sudden concern for Megatron certainly hid obscure intentions. Anything he would have in hand for the Decepticon leader couldn't be pleasant. By no means Soundwave would ever trust the second-in-command.

Soundwave attempted to access the seeker's thoughts, but it was useless: strong mental barriers were in place, preventing him to enter Starscream's conscious. Starscream always protected himself when Soundwave was around. Even when he wasn't too.

When Megatron's neural systems were stabilised and all his lines patched, Starscream let him in Soundwave's care without a word and went to see his unconscious wingmates. Soundwave watched as he bent towards them and knelt to check on them. It was nothing unusual, for the air commander himself often attended to his wingmates when they were wounded in battle. Those repairs usually were accompanied by insults and rants about how useless Skywarp and Thundercracker were in their commander's opinion. What was not usual this time, though, was the way he touched them. Soundwave couldn't believe he would once think of the word 'gentle' was appropriate to designate any of Starscream's actions.

But it happened right in front of his visor: Starscream softly touched Thundercracker's face to turn his head and check the wires of his neck. He ran the tip of his finger along a crack in the blue flyer's shoulder and drifted to a fissured wing, careful as if he was afraid to break it further.

He patched and welded the wing back together with intense concentration until the limb was completely flight-worthy again. Besides traces of patching that would disappear with a good layer of paint, the work was perfect, far more thorough than normal field repairs. When Thundercracker's wings and most hampering wounds were taken care of, Starscream turned his attention towards Skywarp and attended him with the same caution he had attended the blue seeker with.

Astrotrain had reduced his speed, not drastically, but enough to compensate for the slight overcharge. Thus, the travel back to Cybertron seemed incredibly long for all the passengers. Thankfully, the ones that may have physically suffered the extra time were in stasis. The others were just resting or chatting between themselves. Starscream didn't care what they were talking about, even if he heard his name whispered here and there. He knew he wasn't acting like his old self and this probably disturbed the other Decepticons, but it was of no importance. They were all dead for a very long time anyway.

He hadn't changed that much after all; he was still being selfish, taking care of the wingmates he had once killed only to ease his remorses. Or was it only for that? Something had certainly changed in him, after all that time being able to do nothing else but think, he was now able to be honest with himself and recognise that his sickening pride and ego had often taken the best out of him, making him look stupid while he was intelligent and also act like the biggest jerk ever while he was... well no, he wasn't exactly nice.

Being nice wasn't in the Decepticons' programming, but that didn't mean that friendship didn't exist among the troops. Starscream had just ignored his emotional needs, convinced they were useless and would make him weak. He had systematically repelled all who had tried to seduce or befriend him, without even trying to know if they were worthy or not. Well, sometimes he had teamed up with some of them, but only to reach his own goals and had disposed of them once they ceased to be useful to him.

Result: he had lived millions of years, existed in afterdeath for trillions of years... and he was still a virgin…

He had never been able to be pleasant to anyone ever since he had joined the Decepticon army. The end of all was maybe a good time to start trying again? He smiled bitterly at these thoughts while welding a significant crack on Skywarp's leg. He didn't realise that two bright optics were staring at him in utter confusion.

"Screamer?" Skywarp muttered, a hint of surprise in his voice. He even backed off slightly.

Starscream suspended his work and looked at his wingmate. "Am I hurting you?" he asked with concern.

"Not much..." the black-and-purple seeker answered, wondering if he wasn't imagining things; was it really his commander who was kneeling in front of him and looked at him as if he cared?

"Then hold still while I finish this."

Starscream resumed the repairs. Skywarp watched him work for a while and when he was certain he could trust his doings, he directed his optics toward Thundercracker, ready for the worst. To his welcomed surprise, his blue friend was almost fully repaired, nothing like the poor wreck he had looked like before Skywarp had fallen in stasis. The seeker extended an arm and touched Thundercracker's vents experimentally; they were cycling air at normal revolution speed, meaning he was just recharging. Skywarp sighed in relief; he had been convinced this was the end for them.

Starscream had finished his leg and he had felt almost nothing. Skywarp shivered when Starscream stroked the back of his thruster.

"Can you feel this?"

"Yes..."

Skywarp moved his leg away from Starscream's hands. This was strange. This was not the first time his commander repaired him, but usually, the seeker captain was harsh and cold. He used to act like it was a privilege for them to be repaired by him and never, oh never was he gentle. All unlike now.

Skywarp, who wasn't as dumb as he was generally thought to be, understood quickly that Starscream was acting out of his programming.

"Screamer?" The black-and-purple flyer leaned in to observe his leader's face.

"Yes?"

"You tolerate that I call you "Screamer"?"

"Hardly. But it won't change the fact you always call me that," Starscream said, and shrugged.

"You are acting weird…"

"Maybe." The air commander tilted his head to the side.

"You seem different."

"Maybe I changed a little, I've been thinking a lot recently." Starscream smiled and this frightened Skywarp even more.

"That's not like you at all!"

"It could be that I'm fed up of being a pain in the aft. You know, I haven't always been like that."

"Are you saying that you will stop shouting at us all the day out? You will not wake us up in the middle of the night for 'special night manoeuvre training'? You will share your high grade with us? You will stop calling us names?"

"I think I want to try."

"And I think you've been hit on the head, badly!"

Skywarp suddenly seized Starscream helmet and started to check his cranial unit for cracks. The only thing Starscream knew was that no one had touched him for so long that he had forgotten the feeling. Skywarp's hands were warm and he sighed because it made him feel good. Alive.

He was alive.

Until the end of times.

To be continued