And then another chapter. :)
Starscream watched the leaving fliers over one of his shoulder vents. "Stupidity" he hissed, if his trinemates thought that they could trick him, their CMO to think this was first time they truly were naïve. Of course he would notice their poor patch ups; they may have been trained in field repair, but nothing they could perform with their untrained servos would go unnoticed by a true medic.
"Why do I keep accepting their childlike behavior?" he sighed. He had noticed the patch ups some few months ago, at first just frowning. But when he continued to find traces of their uneven soldering on their frames he became more and more mystified; nothing in privacy when he were there had changed among them, so why did he keep finding new spots recently soldered, and not by Hook or his own servos?
Today had been different he mused. They had really done each other good, deep gashes had snaked their way through both their frames, ending here and there, showing signs of a fight where no one had held back his power, and still he had watched them supporting each other as they walk through the door to the med bay; it would have been a comical sight, if not for his wasted patch up few hours earlier. No wonder he was angry.
Leaving the med bay to Hook, his work with the patients and the cleaning of the equipment done, Starscream stretched his backstrut before exiting the doors. Out in the corridor he felt cramped now that his work with the injured no longer distracted him from his returning need to fly. This was one of the reasons why he kept make his statements regarding joining the forces in battle, his excuse for leaving the sunken spaceship, the underwater environment claustrophobic to any flier. Hook and the rest of the constructicons, being land based handled the fate of being resigned to stay on the Nemesis, and not join the raids unless their skills were needed far better, and while they didn't join the raids much they still got out at those times, but Starscream mainly as a medic and scientist would be leaving their base far less than the builders.
A quick decision made him turn in the direction of the exit, and not their quarters, he needed to feel the air under his wings, and he especially needed to vent his frustrations regarding his trinemates. He had no clue concerning their unusual acting up, and he felt dread for the future, sensing that these events that seemed to happen more and more often, increased in intensity as time went by. He hoped the feeling of wide expanses and air surrounding him would ease his CPU, making his processor work more fluid, hopeful that he might come to a solution or even just a reason to their behavior.
Sideswipe had to check is locator twice as the blip occurred; he was at his fifth patrolling spot, and as he had studied his surroundings with boredom the sound had startled him as he had already resigned to the obviously dull patrol, not expecting any reaction from the equipment.
"Yes" the frontliner jubilated as the blip once again occurred, this time closer. Raising his optics to the dark faintly clouded sky he tried to locate the source, shifting to infrared.
The decepticon was flying in a straight line, at a relaxed pace, making it unclear whether it was one of the seekers or land based decepticons.
As he got the warmth signature in his vision he could make out the outline of a plane, "So a seeker" he mused, wondering what one of those was doing alone as he contacted autobot base.
"Report Sideswipe" the stern voice of Prowl greeted him.
"Decepticon sighting at sector 5 alpha; one lone dot, seeker." He dutifully replied.
"Acknowledged, direction?" Prowl asked.
"It is headed west north west, at a steady pace, flying in a straight line."
"Not any identifications Sideswipe?" Optimus' voice joined.
"Sorry Sir, flying to high."
"Good work soldier. Follow and report in case anything happens. I wouldn't suspect Megatron to have cooked up a new plan this fast, but it can never hurt to keep optics on any strange behavior."
"He definitely doesn't follow their usual patrolling pattern." Prowl agreed.
Sideswipe closed his Com-Link, transformed and revved his engines; the hunt was on. Had he been in root mode you would have noticed his predatory smile. The seeker was sure in for a beating if he came close enough.
Back at the Nemesis Starscreams trinemates wondered where he was. He had yet to return to their quarters, and their recharge cycle was soon to begin. Frowning Thundercracker Com'ed the med bay; their trineleader might have been caught up in his duties which wasn't first time such would occur. But he was disappointed as he was greeted by Hooks uncaring voice.
"Yes he has left, he did so a dozen or so minutes ago, and no I don't know where he went if he isn't with you. Now if you please, I'm busy." Hook gruffly answered the unspoken questions and then closed the Com without any further hesitation.
Back at the shared quarters of the command trine Thundercracker shared a look with Skywarp, the purple flier sending him a concerned look.
"Think he still is mad at us? Punishing us?" Skywarp asked anxiety clear in his vocalizer.
At times like this it reminded Thundercracker that the three of them, despite being commanding officers still were fairly young. Before their landfall on Earth and their million years long stasis they had almost just entered mechhood when they joined the war, fresh out of the War academy. In Starscreams case it had been the Science academy, after he had been deemed more useful in the art of science and knowledge than the art of warfare. He had spent some time at the War academy before his transfer, and they had come to know each other quite well, the transfer not making it any different to Thundercracker or Skywarp, even if their mentors wanted them to pick another member for their trine.
"He'll come around, don't worry 'Warp." He reassured.
"Hope so, and soon; don't like him mad, he always yell and preach. We just need him to start throw stuff at us like I have heard the autobot CMO do." The purple seeker grimaced.
Starscream was unaware of the predicament he soon would find himself in as he continued his straight line of flying, caught up in thoughts, not aware of his surroundings and his stalker on the ground.
As his HUD told him that he was low on fuel his attention finally changed and he became aware of the distance he had traveled while he had been caught in his deep thoughts. He banked and made for a U turn facing the direction back to base as a signal he had been unaware of blipped in one of his indicators; the autobot signal clear as day.
"Slag, how did I miss this brat?" he cursed, attempting to identify the signal.
"Oh no" he hissed, followed by more cursing as the identification of the culprit came back, showing the decepticon CMO that his stalker was none else than the red jetjudo twin, the complications obvious to his processor.
The warning in his HUD became slowly higher and more irritating; he KNEW already that he was low. Fear rushed his mind as the fuel indicator reach the critical red field and he realized that he wouldn't make it back to the base. Scolding himself for the mistake of not refueling before takeoff and then losing contact with reality as he flew he tried to find a suitable hiding spot, the plain field beneath him unfortunately not giving much cover. The occasional blip alerted him that he still got the autobot on his tail as he scanned the ground below frantically looking for any place to hide.
It never occurred to Starscream to just face the frontliner, the autobot was a powerful warrior, and he himself was only equipped with his own null rays; non-lethal weapons that would only just stun the warrior thus only giving him a short respite. They were useful during battle where he could incapacitate the enemies coming at him, leaving the stunned bots to the rest of the decepticons. On his own he was best off in the air, out of their range of fire, but as his HUD told him, he would crash land within ten minutes if he stayed airborne, so that strategy was useless.
Sideswipe watched the seeker return the direction it had come from increasing its speed drastically, the loud boom signaling the entry of supersonic speed only to a few minutes later slow down, almost wobbling in the air as it descended coming in for a landing in the far distance.
Curious he revved his engines and headed in the direction, briefly contemplating contacting the base, the behavior was strange definitely, but he still didn't know what he would have to deal with when he reached the landing spot, crash site?
As he closed in on the decepticon he noticed that so far there was no sign of smoke or fire in the area, so this was definitely not a crash site, which made him wonder what could cause a seeker to land; the proud seekers despised being on the ground and only left the sky under dire circumstances.
Before his optics he saw a small gathering of trees shielding the seeker from sight, making it hard to identify the identity by optical vision, but as he assessed his systems he got the positive feedback: Starscream.
'Oh my, this is my lucky day' he thought as he watched the seeker touch a digit to his helm, optics flashing briefly, the telltale of a comm. communication.
Aware of his own duties he forwarded his own comm. to the base.
"Sideswipe to base" he reported.
"Prowl here, report." the stern voice of the SIC returned
"Confirmation, seeker identity Starscream, location, grounded sector 5 beta." Sides' responded.
"Grounded?" the incredulous voice of Optimus asked bemusement clear in his vocalizer.
"Yes Sir. Slagger landed at a gathering of trees, currently communicating through comm., orders?"
"Standby, I'm sending your brother and Ironhide to your location, this opportunity is too good to waste" Prowl replied. They rarely got the decepticon SIC this vulnerable; he was always followed by his trine close by.
"Understood" with a salute he closed the comm. returning his attention to the still grounded seeker less than hundred feet away.
Grumbling Starscream paced; the trees were not nearly enough to shield him completely from sight, but it had been the only cover in miles. He had comm. Thundercracker, embarrassed that he had to unveil his failure, but he knew when to ask for help. He was vulnerable out here, unable to stay safe in the air. The knowledge that he couldn't get airborne was enough to rattle his processor, and even though he was out in the open he felt the fear of being grounded and the creeping claustrophobia.
Thundercracker had scolded him for taking off alone, not telling anything to anyone, but at the same time Starscream had sensed relief in the others tone as he organized with Skywarp to go gather their trineleader.
"We will be there in twenty minutes. Hide and stay low until then, we will hurry" Thundercracker had reassured him, before closing the comm.
Unfortunately the Autobots wouldn't make the retrieval of their lost trinemate easy, as Starscream was unaware of the three sets of optics studying him from a distance.
Sunstreaker and Ironhide had just arrived at the location a few minutes before, and watched the seeker pace under the trees.
:: Too bad he aren't airborne, would be fun to teach him a judo lesson. Not often we get a chance to show his holiness our thing personally:: an evil smirk on Sunstreakers faceplate.
::True.:: Sides' calmly responded, disappointed that he hadn't had a chance at the seeker himself.
"You two scraplets ready?" the gruff voice of Ironhide asked beside them, not happy having to work this around with the twins.
Optics shinning with mischief was all he got in response, the faces of the twins twisted in big smiles. Oh they were more than ready.
Starscream didn't know what hit him before he found himself sprawled on the ground, weight on his chassis pinning him to the ground.
A shriek of outrage left his vocalizer as he fought to remove the weight, not able to see what was pinning him. The object however didn't budge and the more he trashed to get up the more scrapped his wings got. Finally, when Ironhide had had enough he powered his cannon, efficiently quieting the trashing.
Starscream stilled completely at the sound, well aware of the owner of this particular weapon. He had patched enough mechs together to know the damage done by those cannons; Ironhide was a perfect shooter, and the weapons specialist wasn't known for his mercy in battle.
"Keep still 'con!" Ironhide snarled at the prone frame covered by red and yellow autobot.
"Yeah wouldn't want to damage those pretty wings more than necessary." Sideswipe teased, firmly keeping the lower part of the seeker prone to the ground.
"I hear they are one of the most sensitive parts of a seeker" Sunstreaker voiced, letting a digit trail the rim of the left wing as he said it. An evil laughter escaping his vocalizer as Starscreams wing began trembling under the ministration.
Guilt flooded his mind as the last thought filling his processor before he entered a forced stasis was of his trinemates and what they would do when they arrived and he wouldn't be there. Then all went black.
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