Title: Improv Act
Warnings: "Well, of COURSE Starscream's dead!"
Rating: G
Continuity: G1
Characters: Shockwave, Starscream, Skywarp, & Thundercracker
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): Afterward, Megatron found Shockwave's casualty report hilarious.
[* * * * *]
Sometimes, the inevitable wasn't as inevitable as it seemed. Especially when Shockwave saw it coming.
Another day, another mission. Shockwave's Tower was a beehive of clandestine activity preparing to send another brigade of Decepticons through the spacebridge to another world, to start yet another conquest. Drone reconnaissance had reported a planet with abundant resources, but on the heels of that information had come video of huge, sprawling cities full of lights. The civilization seemed highly advanced, and that called for a well-planned invasion instead of mere raiding.
Shock troops and ground support would be necessary, but the air above the cities teemed with aircraft. That meant a lot of air support would be needed to take on the people of this world. However, the skies had been windswept and iridescent with heavy metals, which also meant most of the air ranks needed to be refitted for filters on their intakes in order to protect their engines.
And where the majority of the air ranks went, so went the Air Commander.
"Ah, slag me," Skywarp had moaned right before the Constructicons tackled the lead trine for intake modifications. "Not the face, not the face!"
Shockwave coordinated the war effort from his tower, speaking as Megatron's voice on Cybertron as the Decepticon Empire expanded. In technical terms, he punted Decepticon warriors left or right depending on Megatron's orders. In much the same way, Starscream acted as the warlord's hand in battle. He fought in the front lines even as Megatron distracted Optimus Prime back on Earth. They all knew their roles. They all knew that, eventually, the Autobots were going to catch on to what they were doing, and continued conquest was going to get a whole lot harder from then on.
It just so happened that that day was not today.
The last of the brigade had been transported already. Starscream's wing had come from Earth only hours ago, since they'd had to put in a last appearance to the Autobots on Earth. Being the last through was necessity, not choice, as the filter-intakes installed by the Constructicons were large and obvious and couldn't be fitted on while still on Earth. That meant Starscream had to slag off Megatron publically and get sent to Cybertron as part of Megatron's parting 'Get out of my sight!' order, and then get the filters installed. Commanding an invasion from the back with real-time reports unavailable made for a grumpy Air Commander while the Constructicons worked.
The spacebridge was spooling up, energy connecting across the universe with its receiver. The three jets stood inside looking annoyed (Starscream), bored (Thundercracker) and irritated (Skywarp claimed the air filters itched like cosmic rust). Business as usual, basically, at least when 'usual' was conquest and deception in the same day.
Shockwave nearly suffered pump failure when an entire wall of his tower suddenly collapsed, spewing broken drones and Autobots into the room.
Starscream shrieked unholy dismay, but Shockwave beheld a moment's inspiration like a Decepticon on Earth spotting an escape route from the Stunticons' latest fiasco. "No!" he yelled, straining his normal impassiveness and ensuring that the horde of Autobots looked squarely at him instead of the suspiciously-modified group of Seekers. "Don't fire! The spacebridge will malfunction!"
Predictably, one of the Autobots took a shot at the nearest console. It exploded.
Shockwave couldn't have gotten better results if he'd held up a cue card.
That was all the time needed for the spacebridge to complete its power-up and actually beam the Elite Decepticons away, but under the cover of the initial chaos, Shockwave keyed an emergency code into the console he stood at. Things started exploding everywhere: wall panels blew out into the middle of the room and took out two Autobots in the way; the floor buckled and heaved under their feet, belching fire upward; the ceiling crackled, creaked, and gave every indication it was about to collapse; computer screens flared a dizzying array of psychedelic colors and spat miniature lightning bolts in every direction.
Shockwave stumbled and fell, yelling in patently overdone panic, "You've destroyed them! You've destroyed us all!"
The Autobots grabbed a few energon cubes and fled his tower, congratulating themselves all the way and not even vaguely aware of what they'd failed to uncover. Shockwave wobbled back onto his feet - sometimes only having one hand really was a disadvantage - and entered another code into the nearest console. It stopped the chain of flashbang bombs he'd installed around the room and disabled the program causing the computers to emit extra electricity. The light and noise subsided. Thing stopped shaking crazily.
The one-opticked loyalist looked around at all the cosmetic damage to be fixed and nodded in satisfaction. The thing about seeing the inevitable coming was that a logical Decepticon could put contingence plans in place against it. Business as usual, with a slight twist on the day's definition of 'usual.' Megatron would commend him for this.
A ready-light beeped steadily from the communication console, and Shockwave strode across the unstable floor paneling to answer it. "Starscream. I presume your arrival was less celebrated than your death?"
"Oh, is that what happened? Interesting." Completely unruffled by the news of his own death, Starscream eyed the damaged room and shook his head. "What did the empty-headed fools take?"
Shockwave took a quick inventory. "They've stolen all the energon cubes from the instant-response kit the medics insist be kept near the spacebridge." It had saved a few Decepticon lives in the critical dash from spacebridge to Medical Center, which meant he'd have to restock it or the medics would whine to the Constructicons, who would then shunt his building projects to the end of their wait list. A bothersome chore, but hardly the end of the Empire. "The likelihood of discovery is nonexistent. If I leave the damage, they will continue to believe in your death until it is proven otherwise."
"I'll have time to fully subdue the planet, then," the Air Commander mused. "Excellent. Contact Megatron and inform him of the changed timetable for the invasion, and of my tragic demise. I'm sure he'll have trouble keeping a straight face." He scowled suddenly. "Wind and weather ground me! My supply chain just got cut off cold!"
"Pillaging the natives! My favorite form of troop deployment!" Skywarp's voice put in from offscreen.
"That's not a reliable method of resupply," Thundercracker said back, deep voice coming from further away and growing more distant as he moved. "Horizonline! How soon can we have a solar energy collector set up? We'll need fuel by…when our…first…"
"Resupply efforts can be undertaken by the other worlds with spacebridges," Shockwave said, mentally shifting resources along alternative routes to the newest warfront. Cybertron's spacebridge being temporarily 'destroyed' would be more of a problem than he'd initially thought; it stranded several garrisons off-planet until they could connect their own spacebridges to conquered planets closer to Cybertron. It wasn't an impossible situation, and he was certain Megatron would prefer it over their massive deception being uncovered by the Autobots. Still, it wasn't ideal. "Set supply priorities and update upon engagement with the enemy."
Starscream blew air out his intakes, briefly framing the screen in a glittery cloud of heavy metal that had already caked in the filters. "Other than the air itself becoming lethal to half my forces, our initial supplies should last until Skywarp's primary mission objective is fulfilled." Skywarp crowed "Yes!" in the background. "The metal concentration is denser than expected," the Air Commander continued over the sound of his trinemate assembling a strike squad for looting. "I'm seeing a correlation between higher winds causing the toxicity to spike in higher altitudes. The worse the weather, the poorer our engine performance." He looked off to the side and frowned. "My strategist is having fits. He's recalculating probabilities for dogfights with the natives' aircraft. If the natives hide in lower altitudes during calmer weather, I won't be sending in the flight ranks except in high altitude bombing runs. Order the Constructicons to assemble a better filtration system for the flyers. I'll capture aircraft for analysis and work on a makeshift solution from this end."
"Acknowledged." Shockwave made a few notations and sent off messages to both Supply and Engineering.
Supply would declare rearranging their transportation chains to be an impossible task, then do it anyway. Engineering would waste time sniping with internal memos until someone actually got design specs back from the Constructions, whereupon a blitz of productivity would occur. The part that interested him was the ultimate result, not how it happened. In theory, logic ruled in his Tower. In practice, nothing got done unless there was utter chaos among the various Decepticon divisions, creating a seething mass of creativity, bureaucratic backstabbing, and competitive complaint marathons. Trying to impose efficiency on said chaos would only screw things up. Only an idiot commander interfered in his command's methods of production.
Offscreen, Skywarp was singing a rendition of an odd song; something about "Intergalatic, planetary, planetary, intergalactic - piracy!" An appropriate theme song for the mission, but Shockwave had never heard the song before. That didn't surprise him much, as Skywarp had always had a better grasp on popular culture than him.
Starscream seemed to be giving his exuberant wingmate a repressive glare. "I thought life was supposed to be easier once you're dead," he said dryly.
"An easy life after death is as improbable as Prime abandoning his faction to fall in love with Megatron."
The Air Commander looked alarmed, attention snapping back to the screen. "Don't say that. The Autobots on Earth do weirder things on a daily basis."
Shockwave thought that terribly unlikely. But as he closed communications with Starscream and prepared to contact Earth to deliver his after-action 'casualty report,' he reflected that strange things did tend to happen on Earth. He should make a contingency plan. Just in case.
[* * * * *]
[ A/N: The song Skywarp is mangling is the Beastie Boys' "Intergalactic."]