Title: Backstage: Stage Directions
Warnings: Verbal abuse and sad Skywarp.
Rating: G
Continuity: G1
Characters: Starscream, Skywarp, & Thundercracker
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): "You can't handle the truth!"
[* * * * *]
It reminded Starscream of a building demolition. Experts cleared the area, the charges were ignited, there was the initial blast, and then - stillness. The breathless stillness of irreparably damaged supports coming apart all at once. There was that timeless moment when solid became powder, and, as predicted, everything collapsed in on itself.
Skywarp cycled through all of that. The other Decepticons prudently vacated the immediate vicinity as Starscream approached to deliver the news, and an incoherent noise equivalent to "..!" burst from the black-and-purple jet like dynamite going off. Then - stillness. Too many words rushed to come out, all of them canceling each other out until Skywarp could only stand frozen, expression contorted between utter disbelief and anger as the news-bomb quietly finished its dastardly work on his thoughts. The teleporter had a surplus of enthusiasm and a taste for destructive mischief, but he was as rational as the next mech. Skywarp's towering rage quivered, slumped, and gave like a deflated balloon.
As predicted, of course. Starscream was an expert at blowing up other people's thought processes.
"Awww, that's not fair…" Skywarp said plaintively.
"Only you could be disappointed by total conquest of an entire world." Starscream crossed his arms and eyed his wingmate critically. "Our supply crisis is suddenly a surplus, there's no risk of damage at all, and we're being hailed as the ultimate party guests by half the planet. And you're complaining that it's not fair. Not fair to whom, exactly?"
Thundercracker ventured into the blast zone, since demolition of Skywarp's hopes and dreams seemed complete. The eager smile had gone down like dust settling over the wreckage and left only Skywarp's petulant pout standing. "You know him. He doesn't get along well with the natives unless there's a cordial exchange of gunfire while he's stealing their stuff."
"True enough." Typical Skywarpian logic. Starscream's critical gaze shifted to analyzing Thundercracker next. "And you? I've yet to hear any mutterings from your corner about mistreatment of the natives."
The blue jet shrugged. "The slaves are fairly content here." Where an Autobot would already be sputtering indignantly over the disconnect between those two concepts, Decepticons had absolutely no difficulty telling the difference between an abused populace and a merely enslaved one. Thundercracker's usual issues with Megatron's policies on native subjugation lay quiet. "No wholesale slaughter for sport, and I haven't heard anything about genocide or rebellion. It seems like a straightforward conquest." He shook his head, a little incredulous at the idea. "How did refugee ships manage this?"
"They sacrificed their navigators to Primus?" Skywarp suggested, viciously glaring in the direction of the closest city. "Then Primus hand-delivered them onto a world of fuzzy kittens and anti-Autobot propaganda. He said unto the Decepticons, 'Go forth and ask nicely, and thou shalt rule the world.'"
The other two Seekers just stood there, contemplating Skywarp like tourists in front of a not-particularly-exciting street performer as their wingmate descended into disgruntled noises and the occasional twitch. A fist sometimes rose to shake at the distant city, object of Skywarpian ire that it was. The Decepticon war party had sent a scout toward it, only to have him be met halfway there by an envoy wearing a Decepticon insignia himself. The envoy had insisted on giving the scout a 'Welcome to the Decepticon Empire!' gift basket to deliver to his commander. Starscream had nearly fallen over in shock when that first report (+ gift basket) had come back. Skywarp had not been pleased. Especially since Starscream hadn't shared the gifts.
"Mm-hmm," Starscream said eventually, turning back to the conversation. "See, this is why I warned Megatron against too much concentration on the armed forces. Seems that Shockwave utterly failed to recognize the need to protect the historical archives and civilian science labs in the Empire's outlying citystates. When he withdrew to protecting only the major fortresses and associated civilians in our absence, the Autobot underground turned to attacking any Decepticons left exposed." He raised his palms in helpless exasperation over events long past. "Civilian archivists and scientists were an easy target, and they knew it. When their requests for protection were denied by Shockwave, they decided to flee instead of stand and fight."
Thundercracker nodded. "Make sense."
Autobots claimed to respect the delineation between warrior and civilian, but that line could be unpleasantly blurry with Decepticons. By necessity, most Decepticons could fight. If the Autobots were coming for a mech's facility, even if the mech himself wasn't directly targeted, the choice was flee or be reclassified as a warrior because he fought. Civilians usually just couldn't do the fighting thing very well, or they had personal, moral protests to physical violence. It happened. Some Decepticon civilians chose not fight for the Empire, even though they believed in it.
Unfortunately, in many cases, that meant the civilians died. Scientists and archivists? Yeah, Thundercracker would have run for it, too. Although pitching everything they owned - including the recreation room furniture and nearest neighbors - into a spaceship and taking off for parts unknown seemed a bit…extreme.
But, well. Civilians. Who knew what they thought?
"They came here and settled. I get that," he said, waving a hand - past Skywarp's display - at the world. "But how did a bunch of civvies take over?"
"They weren't intending to settle here. The reactor on the lead ship exploded, and it was either crash-land on the nearest solid chunk of anything or drift until they got sucked into a star." Starscream was also ignoring Skywarp. Their sulking wingmate was making a loud announcement canceling the raiding party over the comm. network, and his language was more colorful than a Crayola factory. "The natives were so primitive they decided Cybetronians were gods."
Thundercracker frowned. "Founding religions based on our appearance has never worked in the past. The natives always find us out and rebel."
Starscream left optic ticced. Baaaaad memories, there. "Don't remind me. To their credit, they didn't even try that route. The historians onboard the ships wouldn't allow it. Instead, they set up a mutually beneficial treaty, trading technology for resources and help repairing the ship's reactor." Thundercracker opened his mouth but couldn't find words to say how strange he found that, so he closed it again. Starscream nodded at him. "Very much against Megatron's policies, I know, but while they were cooperating with the current generation of natives, the scientists were manufacturing an aerosol version of the gene therapy Bitmap used to subdue Cyphon 4. They somehow bound their version of it into the atmospheric elements so it permeated the planet. The next generation of natives was born just a little more subservient than the last. A little more, the next time. And so on." The Air Commander folded his arms, seeming oddly proud of the clever civilians. "By the time the ship was fully repaired, the fourth generation had accepted Decepticon rule." He smiled. "I'm going to find out which scientists were responsible for that bit of genius just so I can tell Mixmaster he can't have them."
"Taunting chemists never ends well, you know."
"The head of Research & Development pays better bribes. If the Constructicons wanted every brilliant mind I find for Engineering, they'd offer more." Starscream radiated smugness. "Anyway, they decided to stay and establish a colony in the name of the Empire instead of launching again. It's an unorthodox way to found a Decepticon colony and conquer a world, but they are noncombatants." Skywarp finished his announcement with a particularly vivid verbal illustration of spite and thwarted piracy. The other two Seekers watched him stomp off toward only-he-knew-where to do they-didn't-want-to-know-what. "Why did I promote him? It must have seemed like a good reason at the time."
"You're a completionist," the blue jet theorized. "Once you made Air Commander, the rest of your trine had to be officers, too, or you'd go quietly mad from obsessive-compulsive need."
"So why did I promote you?"
"Sheer good looks."
Starscream cycled his optics through an extended reboot, half truly checking for error and half just an incredulous blink. "…what." His wingmate gave him a placid smile, and he heaved air through filtration systems in a sigh. It was annoying human habit picked up from Earth, but at least it served a useful purpose here: not only did it express emotion, but it cleared his intake filters of accumulated heavy metals. "At least you didn't try to say it was skill. You may have vision problems, but a few knocks on the helm should fix that."
"You live in denial," Thundercracker informed him complacently.
"And you're delusional. Why did Megatron promote me, do you think?" This he had to hear.
They somewhat absently wandered after Skywarp, mostly because he seemed to be stomping toward the supply and operations encampment. Decepticon strike forces didn't really need base camps when their supplies were usually transported within members of the attack group, but the spacebridge receiver had to have some form of defensive structure in place around it. Until the actual battles started, that meant most things were stored and done there. In this planet's case, it seemed that they'd be relocating to more comfortable quarters instead of packing up their temporary base for war.
"Oh, that was skill," came the offhand answer. "He figured that between your ability and my looks, we almost make a complete warrior."
"That still doesn't explain Skywarp."
"I told you: that's your obsessive-compulsiveness at work."
"I am not obsessive-compulsive!"
Thundercracker cocked his head to smirk sidelong as his commander and - so this theory went - less attractive wingmate. "I was under orders not to inform you before the spacebridge closed that only two components of Reflector were reassigned to us from Earth."
Starscream's face became a twisted mask of sudden realization fighting irritation. Irritation won.
"Primus smelt you all," he snapped, and Thundercracker's laughter followed him as he abruptly adopted Skywarp's stomping ire. "Paceset! Foiltorn! Scramble your squadrons, find the leader of this pathetic excuse for a Decepticon colony and bring him here at once!"
"Yessir!" yelped back, and Decepticon flyers swiftly scattered in every direction like Starscream was spraying laserfire instead of orders. They didn't know what had brought on the Air Commander's black rage, but what the Autobots on Earth had forgotten was how the red jet's scratchy voice scorched the air ranks' tailfins. The poor squadrons currently panicking their way into formation didn't have the luxury of dealing with the Earth version of Starscream. The Decepticon Empire's Second in Command played the fool well, but nobody had the ball-bearings to say that it was more than an act. Not while staring reality down the null ray barrel.
"Put a guard on those energon cubes! Do you think we're dealing with Autobots here?" Just that voice giving orders lit a furnace under them, but if he had to stop to explain those orders…yeah. Bad news. "These civvies are just as Decepticon as you are, you imbecilic waste of fuel, and if one of those cubes goes missing from inventory, I'll tear your wings off and beat it out of your worthless corpse." Or worse news - if he had to repeat the orders? "I said, guard that energon, or I will shoot your empty head off and use your parts to build a better Decepticon!" The unfortunate mechs were better off drowning themselves in a bucket of bile and acid. It'd be a quicker and less humiliating way to go.
The warrior demonstrating this known fact for the others' morbid fascination was clutching his gun like a lifeline, standing shame-faced in front of the energon cubes while Starscream cursed out his circuitry, friends, and build model using three separate languages. Then he ranted for a while in a fourth, detailing down to the faulty screws the disgraced Decepticon's probable lineage.
Skywarp stopped his own animated discussion with Gravitytide to watch the Air Commander storm by dragging the poor, dumb guard's wincing unit-commander by one wing and driving a small herd of the strike force's ground subcommanders before him by ferocity alone. "What's gotten into him?" Gravitytide shook his head silently in reply, mystified.
"Jealousy," Thundercracker said from behind them. "I told him you were better at troop organization, and he just couldn't take it."
The black-and-purple Seeker barked a short laugh as Starscream screeched and the ground troops fell over themselves to get into ranks for inspection before the conquering civilians arrived and saw " - bunch of sniveling morons pretending to be Decepticons. You're the pride of the Empire, not the rejects and refuse from boot camp! Am I supposed to be impressed by that weapon? Carry it like you know how to use it, not like some weakling drone playing warrior! You in the back - I can hear you being stupid from here. Do I look like I'm talking to him? Yes, you. I've seen cleaner armor on dead Autobots!"
Even Gravitytide cracked a grin as Starscream's tirade scoured battle-proven veterans down to scared recruits being chased by their first gun-waving drill sergeant. The flyer squadrons who hadn't headed out under orders already were frantically running around in the background, thanking Primus (between swearing copiously at whoever had forgotten to bring extra armor polish) that the Air Commander had chosen to inspect the ground ranks first. The collected subcommanders standing at attention to one side cringed in unison as a particularly nasty comment in that shrill voice told the truth in the worst possible way.
Skywarp cranked his estimation of Starscream's foul mood up a notch and looked back to Thundercracker. It was hard to tear his optics from the spectacle. He had to hand it to Starscream: the mech knew how to absolutely shred a 'bot with verbal abuse alone. "No, seriously, what's up with him?"
Thundercracker solemnly shook his head. "The truth? You can't handle the truth."