Title: Backstage: Just Act Natural
Warnings: Drunken Stunticons, implied violence, mental torture; looking "behind the scenes" of G1's funny Decepticon villains.
Rating: G
Continuity: G1
Characters: Thrust, Dirge, Ramjet, Stunticons, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Starscream
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): Odds of a million to one
[* * * * *]
"Envy?" Dirge asked, level optics cold as a glacier and voice promising gradual, creeping death from that consuming ice.
Skywarp remained sitting behind what had been Starscream's desk, unimpressed by the theatrics. Dirge used his ability to induce fear on one and all, but constant exposure to the subsonic noise produced by his engine had given most of the Earth-bound Elite partial immunity. If nothing else, it made it easier to tell the difference between induced and genuine fear. Skywarp knew he had nothing to fear from this jet. Not here, not now.
"You can't tell me you're not envious I was promoted," he said, tilting his head to study the Conehead standing in the Air Commander's – in his office.
Dirge looked away, turning to study the sparse office. Starscream hadn't been enough of a fool to expose anything important to possible theft or vandalism, so there hadn't been much for Skywarp to move out or redecorate when he'd taken over both position and office. The black-and-purple jet had moved all the furniture around a bit, possibly just because he could. He'd set the desk at a right angle to the door instead of facing it as Starscream had positioned it; the shelving units now sat on either side of the door instead of lining the opposite wall. It appeared that Skywarp had filled them with junk from his quarters. Dirge couldn't tell what half the stuff was, nor did he care. The placement looked inconvenient and the decorations tacky, but Skywarp's taste in decorating wasn't the point.
The point wasn't what had been changed so much as the statement being made by the changes: I am Air Commander now, the room said. Starscream is exiled from the Decepticon Empire. Air Commander Skywarp now stands by Lord Megatron's side.
It was a reward for eons of loyalty. Skywarp had, at long last, triumphed over Starscream's superior flight ability and Thundercracker's quiet persistence. Success at last: Skywarp had been award the position every flyer in the ranks lusted for. Air Commander Skywarp, head of the Deception air ranks.
Skywarp had asked a completely relevant question about envy, but when Dirge met his optics again, there was nothing but unexpected reserve in the Conehead's expression. There was none of the sycophantic congratulations showered upon him by Thrust and Ramjet, or even the wry concession offered by Thundercracker. It was oddly unsettling.
"He didn't execute him," Dirge said instead, strangely removed from the powerplay. "He could have," should have, in all honesty, "but he didn't."
Skywarp stiffened indignantly as that struck right into the heart of his hidden insecurity. He didn't have to ask who 'he' was, nor who wasn't dead. Starscream had been exiled, not executed as a traitor should have been, either out of respect for ages in service to the Empire or…or…
"Megatron didn't need to," Skywarp said, but his dismissive tone fell flat into uncertainty. Even to himself, he sounded like he was trying to convince someone. "The Combaticons will turn on him soon enough. Exiling him on that asteroid is delayed execution out where the Autobots can't use it for their propaganda." A reasonable answer. A logical one that rang hollow as an empty grave, because all it meant was that Starscream wasn't in it. And so long as that grave was empty, there was the niggling question over whose body would ultimately be buried there.
A million to one chance that he'd return, but Starscream had played politics and wartime games for so long only historians remembered the name of the Air Commander before him. He held all the traces taunt, restraining every flyer with ambition in the air ranks like a fisherman reeling in nets full of sharks. Now that controlling hand had been removed by the Supreme Commander of the Decepticons, and the ropes had slipped away. Ambition had been freed.
Megatron had bestowed a title on Skywarp. It had not, pretensions of loyal service aside, been earned.
By the time that title had come to Starscream, he'd conquered the flight ranks as brutally as Megatron had taken Kaon. Starscream had choked every contrary voice and hung like a stranglehold around their necks. They'd all known he controlled them long before Megatron had finally deigned to acknowledge their prince, their captor, with a proper rank befitting his power over them. He'd gone before Megatron cloaked in invisible chain-links tying him to a network of assassins and informants, a thousand spying optics and ready mouths serving him, and he'd knelt before the warlord needing only that official turn of the key in the lock he'd forged around them. Megatron had granted it because that's what rank was. Officers just had fancy titles in the Autobots, but power could not be given in the Decepticon ranks. Decepticon officers took their power, and rank was granted based on that power.
When Starscream had pulled rank, it had tightened the garrote over the air ranks' throats. What did Skywarp have to pull but a couple of flimsy words before his name?
Already, poison words spread in their ranks. Dirge had heard from Ramjet, who'd heard it from Soundwave - who was now holding that favor over their heads, and with Starscream's garrote-string spiderweb gone, what would protect them from the communication officer's subtle manipulative threads now? - that Shockwave had put forth his own candidate for the position. Shockwave's candidate, who didn't have to stay on Earth playing an idiot half the time; who had a reputation and established network among the Cybertronian air ranks. A flyer backed by all the power of Megatron's one-opticked loyalist. Only the risk of compromising the massive deception on Earth and the difficulty of sneaking someone through the space bridge had prevented assassination attempts so far.
But there were far more effective ways to remove obstacles. Assassins were notoriously unreliable, especially when simple warfare provided so many more opportunities for an Air Commander to, ah, fail his duty.
Thundercracker had already relocated across the base from their old quarters, citing that until a third mech entered the equation, it hardly made sense to pretend they were still a trine. Anyone with half a functioning mind could see the blue Seeker was trying to put distance between himself and the new Air Commander. Megatron would probably take Shockwave's candidate as the replacement jet for their wing, but Thundercracker had survived a rank-assembled trine before. He'd been placed in Starscream's wing by Megatron, and he'd accept whoever replaced the screechy Seeker with strict neutrality. Thundercracker had every intention of surviving the succession battle by taking himself out of the power game completely. Let Shockwave's candidate and Air Commander Skywarp fight it out between themselves while he stood far, far off to the side, ready to hail the winner.
Dirge didn't have that kind of freedom. His trine had been promoted under Starscream. By Starscream's will had they kept their positions. If they played the odds right, they might keep their lives. The upcoming internal warfare in the air ranks was going to require choosing a side, and the Coneheads had already held counsel on this subject.
No way would Shockwave's candidate choose to keep them directly under his command here on Earth, well within backstabbing range. Not when the better option was to replace them with loyal troops from Cybertron, freshly promoted into the Elite and grateful to the mech who'd promoted them. That meant the Coneheads were going to come to unfortunate ends here on Earth very quickly, or…well, it said something about the situation when even Thrust opted for the less blunt option of demotion. It'd be humiliating, yes, but voluntarily appealing to Megatron - through Soundwave, who'd smoothly made the offer with only the vaguest hint of what he expected in return for that favor - for demotion from the Elite might just save their lives. Relocation back to Cybertron meant they'd have a better chance of hiding among the air ranks.
There was a million to one chance that Starscream would return, but Dirge gave Skywarp's continued survival even lower odds. He hoped rather morosely that he wasn't betting blindly on his own life.
Sp Dirge gazed back at the Air Commander and pondered how very temporary that title was. "No," he said slowly, "I don't envy you."
And whatever he heard beneath the icy fear in the Conehead's voice made Skywarp look away first.