Seeker In Crisis.
Chapter Two: Trying To Cope With The Loss.
What felt like a very long time later, Starscream uncurled from his quivering ball and looked up at the blank metal wall ahead of him. The emptiness caused by the absence of his trine-bond was like a physical ache in his processors, the pain of the absence as if his own Spark had been torn by the loss of the other two Sparks.
He huffed at how unscientific that conclusion was, but was forced to admit that as unscientific as the sentiment was, it felt emotionally accurate.
Straightening, he stood and headed for the exit. There was nobody else he could talk to, not even a grounder who could not understand how he felt, for he and Barricade had finally engaged in a major verbal showdown that had almost reached duel status. Luckily, Barricade had finally backed down, but delivered the ultimate vote of no-confidence by roaring away three days ago leaving behind nothing but a strong smell of burned ego. Starscream had not heard from him since, and did not expect him to contact him any time soon if at all.
"A flight," he murmured. "I'll lose myself in the sky, maybe then I can forget for a time." The severity of the Spark-ache he was enduring gave him reason to doubt but he shoved the doubt aside brutally. Surely something could help ease the ache he felt, and flying was the one thing he could hope to give him relief.
He reached the open air and threw himself into it with a cry composed part of relief and part of pain. He flew upwards, as high as he could without entering the thin air at the very edge of the Earth's atmosphere, then cut his engines, pulling in his limbs to make himself more aerodynamic and pointing his head and shoulders down as he let himself drop into freefall. Speed was his greatest thrill, speed combined with danger, and this he hoped would take his mind off the loss of his trine.
As he fell, he considered speeding up his descent by using his engines, but decided against it. Fuel was short enough without wasting it on achieving a velocity that at this height, gravity alone would soon facilitate. As he continued to plummet, he felt his plating first begin to heat up, then to start distorting, and finally he felt the radar-absorbent material begin to bubble and flake as the friction of his descent through the atmosphere took its toll on his disguise mode.
As he dropped faster and faster, damage report warnings began to flash in his systems. These were soon joined by another warning signal, one that warned that if he did not pull himself out of the fall in the next few seconds, he would impact with the planet surface at a velocity that he would be unlikely to survive.
For a second he entertained the thought of allowing himself to crash, the ultimate end to the wrenching pain of his loss, but ultimately his survival instinct won out. He pulled out of the dive, swooping low over the terrain, then angling upwards towards a large dark cloud that promised rain, and maybe a storm. As he flew into it, the moist water vapour that came into contact with his hot plating sizzled briefly before turning into steam. Flying deeper into the clouds, the Seeker sighed as the cooling vapour cooled his hide back down to near-normal levels.
Burned, radar-absorbent covering gone in most places, blackened and singed, and with half his exoskeleton's surface sensors burned out, Starscream knew he was in a very bad way. However the pain from his abused systems was still as nothing to the pain of the loss of his trine-mates, and as lightning flashed within and thunder sounded from deep inside the towering black cloud he was flying in, he made a decision. Perhaps riding the front of a brewing storm would help him forget for a time what he had had and was now lost?
He dropped down out of the cloud briefly to get his bearings, then headed back in to head for the front and top of the thunderhead, unaware that he had been observed.
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"Mirage, come and look at this," Ratchet called to the surveillance operative who was manning the communication console in the control room of the Autobot Base. "Something's heating up in the atmosphere, but the orbital detection satellites have not recorded any entry by anything from space."
Ratchet was on observational duty in the Autobot Base, as since Mission City, there had been few Decepticon attacks and even fewer Autobot injuries to see to. This, combined with the arrival of another medic, First Aid, meant that Ratchet could be included on the duty roster of the non-medical Base duties.
As Ratchet hit a button to zoom in on the descending object, Mirage turned a few dials and then shook his head.
"I'm listening on all frequencies, but who or whatever it is isn't broadcasting a thing," Mirage told him. "I'll keep monitoring, but I doubt I'll find anything."
Ratchet nodded, only half-concentrating as he adjusted the zoom and switched between ground cameras and atmospheric satellites. Suddenly he stopped as one of the images resolved into a familiar figure.
"It's Starscream," he said in surprise. "We haven't heard much from him since Mission City."
"What's he doing?" asked Mirage, momentarily distracted from his own readouts by the sight of the falling Seeker. "Is he damaged?"
"He must be," Ratchet said, standing and comming for Cliffjumper to come and relieve him. "I'll head out once we get a fix on his estimated landing co-ordinates, although at that speed I don't think he'll survive."
As Ratchet asked the computer to plot the Seeker's course and pinpoint a landing area, he noticed the trajectory alter. The Seeker was pulling up, still flying dangerously low, but heading upwards. Ratchet was alarmed to notice that the flier appeared to be in a bad state, blackened, peeling, armour bare and a few wires sparking, but as he tried to zoom in on the slightly unstable form, it angled up into a cloud and he swore as he lost sight of him.
"Here, let me," said Mirage as Cliffjumper came in. He waved the red scout to his own communications console as he slid into the seat recently vacated by Ratchet. He adjusted a few controls and then Ratchet could see an orange-red shape against blue and black tones.
"Infrared," Mirage said. "That is your Seeker, the surrounds are the cloud." At that moment the screen was brightened by a blue-white jagged fork that took time to clear.
"What was that?" Ratchet asked.
"Lightning," Mirage said. "Your Seeker is flying into the heart of a thunderstorm."
"He's hardly my Seeker," muttered the green medic worriedly. "However, if that glimpse I got of him shows even half of the damage he appears to have sustained, he could end up becoming my patient. Usually our kind can take a lightning strike or three before sustaining damage, but if he's already damaged…"
He let his sentence trail off, feeling no need to continue as he anxiously continued watching the screen. He brought his head up as he noticed the rapidly-cooling image of Starscream dropping down within the cloud. Anticipating him, Mirage split the screen so he could see the infra-red and the normal view simultaneously.
"Can you record this?" asked Ratchet. Pressing a button, Mirage nodded. Ratchet watched as Starscream dropped out of the cloud, looked about him, and then shot back inside it.
"Can you play that back frame by frame?" Ratchet asked. Nodding, Mirage complied.
Zooming in, and occasionally pausing certain images, Ratchet looked at the frames of the burned, damaged Starscream with growing concern.
Something was wrong somewhere, but without more information, he could not work out what that something was.
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Starscream headed straight up, his destination clear in his head. He burst out of the top of the cloud and felt his wings take the sudden strain of the blowing, turbulent winds that tried to push him back and down. The rain he had flown through was already freezing on his hide, but in certain places he barely felt it.
He knew that the numb patches on his hide, nothing to do with the icy sheen of frozen rain, were not good, but he didn't care. He pitted his body against the natural forces created by this planet's atmosphere, then stopped fighting for a time, allowing the cold air to carry him back down into the cloud's heart before fighting, flying back up towards the top of the cloud again.
Lightning flashed, at first distant, on the edge of the cloud, but then closer, then closer again. Starscream laughed, sure he could out-fly any bolt of electricity.
Then the closest fork of all jumped from the cloud to skewer first his left wing, then his body. His systems went dark, and as he lost consciousness, he wondered why this strike had damaged him when he had taken much worse on other planets without ill effect.
Offline and out of control, he began to fall.