Seeker In Crisis.
Chapter Three: The Descent Of Starscream.
A/N: 1 orn is equivalent to thirteen human days. 1 joor is roughly 6.5 human hours. The Treaty of Iacon is my own invention.
"Ratchet, he's been struck!" Mirage said unnecessarily. When he received no reply, he turned to see Ratchet disappearing out of the control room doors at a run. Mirage turned back to the screen and got the computer to work out roughly where the Seeker would land. When the computer gave him the figures, he databurst them to Ratchet, then Cliffjumper put a confused com from Ironhide, who was on gate-duty, on speaker for the benefit of all in the room,
"Gate to control. Ratchet has just gone roaring out in alt-form, at a speed I am sure is breaking the speed limit. He gave me no explanation, just let loose with a stream of invective when the gates were too slow to open for his liking."
Mirage blew air through his vents.
"We just saw Starscream in a bad state getting hit by lightning," he explained. "I think Ratchet's decided he's a patient. You know how wound up Ratchet gets when he's worried about a patient."
Ironhide databurst a sound of irritation.
"Yeah, right, we might all regret his repairs next time we end up in a battle against Starscream. If I were Ratchet I'd solve all of Starscream's injury problems permanently, with a pulse blast to the spark-chamber, and solve his problems and one of ours all in one go."
Mirage smiled but made no comment: he wasn't about to get in an ethics debate with Ironhide, particularly when he knew that Ironhide, for all his bluster, would never carry out his threat. Mirage knew that to blast an enemy when they were injured, down, and unable to put up any sort of defence went against the big Weapons Specialist's honour-code. Shooting an enemy dead in a battle was one thing: shooting them when they were injured out of battle was a different matter altogether.
Turning back to the screen, Mirage continued to check things.
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Ratchet reached the area Mirage had helpfully given him the co-ordinates for and was relieved to see it was relatively remote, there appeared to be no humans in sight. Scanning the area he detected a large metallic mass and a Spark-signature and as he had many times before, aired a silent thanks to whatever powers might exist that the alt he had scanned was built for offroad conditions. His tyres gripped the rough ground and he moved forwards, quickly reaching the crash site. Closer to the area of impact, he converted to his robot mode and climbed down to where the twisted body of the Decepticon lay.
Another quick scan confirmed that Starscream's Spark was still alight: although damaged and mostly offline, his form had survived the impact far more than if he really had been an Earth jet. He carried out a deeper scan as he also looked at the damaged Seeker with a practiced optic. Had he been a human, the results of the scan would have caused him to wince: Starscream wouldn't be going anywhere very soon, at least not until Ratchet had carried out several days' worth of repairs.
Stooping, Ratchet made a few spot-welds to ensure that the Seeker would not fall apart anytime soon as he moved him, then dragged him near a road, making sure the Seeker was hidden by scrub and trees from the roadside. He folded down into alt beside him, and sent a com to the Base.
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"Incoming transmission," Cliffjumper said. "It's from Ratchet."
"Put it on speaker," said Optimus, who had come to the control room to check that everything was fine and had been appraised of the situation by Mirage. He wandered over to the communications station, standing behind Cliffjumper.
"Ratchet to Base, are you reading me?" came Ratchet's amplified voice.
"This is Base, Ratchet, Optimus Prime here. Go ahead."
"Optimus, I need to bring a large patient back to the base," Ratchet replied. "Could you and Ironhide come to help? Bring your flatbed, lots of rope, and several large tarpaulins. We need to wrap him up to keep him hidden and secure him to your flatbed to bring him back to the medical bay. He's in a very bad way, he needs a lot more than I can do for him in the field, so I'm bringing him in for repairs under Protocol Five of the Treaty of Iacon."
"Base to Ratchet, send us the co-ordinates and we'll be on our way," Optimus replied. "We'll bring Hound to camouflage us while we get him ready for transport." He sent a com to Red Alert to replace Ironhide at the gate as he told Ironhide that Ratchet had requested him.
Ten minutes later, the odd assortment of an eighteen-wheeler truck, a pickup, and an army jeep rolled out of the gates of the Autobot Base.
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When Ratchet saw them arrive, he was relieved. He had filled up the time while waiting by making many more detailed scans of Starscream, and now he was just eager to get him back to the Base and begin the substantial repairs he would need to carry out to get the Decepticon functioning and airworthy again.
Hound arrived first, using his holoform to unload several orange cones and two ROAD CLOSED signs, putting them out either side of Optimus, who was pretending he'd had an accident, he and his flatbed stretched diagonally across the road. Hound then took some images of the local countryside and used them to conceal Ratchet as he changed into robot form, wrapped Starscream in tarpaulins and secured them with lots of rope. He and Ironhide parked behind a set of cones each and created police-officer holograms to turn back the traffic.
Hound then created a hologram of Optimus' truck form to cover the real thing as he evened himself up, and then Ironhide ducked behind the holo long enough to change into robot form, help Ratchet load the tarpaulin-clad Seeker onto the flatbed and tie him on securely, and go back to alt. Hound was then able to disengage his holograms, and he and Ironhide's holoforms packed up the cones and signs. Ironhide took point in front of Optimus, who was followed by Ratchet and then Hound. Although they were all alert for any possible Decepticon activity, they arrived back at the Base without incident, where the tarpaulin-wrapped Seeker was quickly taken to the medical bay.
Ratchet consulted with First Aid, who immediately volunteered to help, for which Ratchet was grateful. The medic could see that if he were working alone, it would take a good orn to get Starscream back the way he should be. Contacting SecDef Keller, he asked for and was granted a suitable amount of the radar-absorbent material and paint they would need.
Although Ratchet didn't voice the thought, he wondered just how and why Starscream had ended up in such a state in the first place.
Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, he nodded to First Aid, and set to work, beginning to make the first of a long series of repairs.
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Ten Days Later.
When Starscream opened his optics, for a moment he wondered why he was on his back, where he was, and what was going on. Then the memory of the deaths of his trinemates and the subsequent events returned to him all in a rush, and he tensed and screamed.
A blur of green moved in, and as hands gently pushed down on his shoulders, his optics focused and he saw the green figure was the Autobot medic, Ratchet.
"It's okay, Starscream, you're in my medbay. Are you in pain?" Ratchet asked in concern, for that scream had sounded agonised.
"Not in a way you can relieve, medic." Starscream said, as he lifted his arms and then reached up to touch his own chest and wings. He was gratified and surprised to find that he was, physically, back in shape. The burned-out sensors had all been replaced, and all the radar-absorbent material he'd lost had been replaced.
He sat up, and as he checked out his legs and canopy Ratchet moved away, returning with a cube of energon, which he pushed into the Seeker's hands.
"Thank you." Starscream said as he drank the energon, which had an unusual but not unpleasant aftertaste.
"Starscream, when we found you, you were in a very bad way," Ratchet told him. "All indications suggest you received all this damage in one or maybe two incidents. What happened? Why are you being so careless with your body? You were lucky I found you."
"That is nobody's business but my own, medic." Starscream said. "I am grateful for your repairs but don't push it. It is something no mere grounder could understand."
Ratchet would have liked to have continued the conversation, but the Seeker was in serious need of recharge and Ratchet did not want to risk Starscream walking out on him before he'd recharged and given him a final check and refuelled him. If necessary, he'd take up the issue again when Starscream had rested, perhaps a recharge might improve his temper, although Ratchet held out little hope for that.
"Okay, if you follow me, I'll take you to our biggest recharge unit, which should be able to accommodate you." he said, biting back a retort. He reflected, not for the first time, that despite changing his specialty to repairs from negotiation prior to the war, his medic work often required much of his negotiation skills with certain patients. With some, a glower and a muttered curse quieted them and made them comply, but some others required more tact.
He settled Starscream into the recharge berth, setting a three-joor recharge cycle, then went off to another, for after two nineteen-joor shifts with a two-joor recharge break in-between, he was exhausted.
Setting his own dial for two joors, he lay down and slipped immediately into recharge.
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"Starscream. Starscream."
The voices, barely a whisper, jolted him out of his recharge when he was barely a joor in, for the voices were those of his wingbrothers.
"Skywarp? TC?" he cried out loud, reaching out for the trine-bond to find them. "You survived!"
His quest for his trine-bond only found that yawning black emptiness he had found before, as the voice of Thundercracker confirmed his worst fears.
"No, we didn't survive. We're dead, floating in the cold of space. It's your fault, you let us down, we're dead and it's your fault."
He whimpered.
"No, it's not me, I wasn't anywhere near you, you can't blame me for what happened, I wasn't even there!"
"Exactly!" came the accusing voice of Skywarp. "You weren't there to help, you didn't come to our aid. As a trine we're meant to help each other and you weren't even there. You didn't even try to come to our aid!"
"I was too far away, you were dead before I could even get out of the room!" he said.
"You went on ahead, left us to follow," Thundercracker's voice said in his head again. "We did, we followed and we died, because you had to be first. You went on ahead and left us to die!"
"No!" whimpered Starscream, clawing at his own face in distress. "I came to prepare a Base for you, to prepare the way for your arrival."
"We could have come together, together we would have survived." Skywarp's voice said. "Do you remember the warmth of our trine-bond? Do you remember how we could reach out to comfort each other in times of need?" Skywarp's voice was tinged with a malice Starscream had never heard directed at him before. "Remember it, Starscream, and know you will never feel it again, and that it is all your fault!"
Starscream screamed again, and although it filled the recharge chamber it did not quite drown out the voices.
"Skywarp, TC, please! Please don't do this to me, I loved you, I loved you more than I ever admitted. Please, don't blame me, it wasn't my fault!"
"But it was." Thundercracker said.
"And you should pay for it." Skywarp's voice told him.
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Hound was startled from his inventory of their remaining supplies that Ratchet had asked him to carry out by a scream. He looked up, moving through to the recharge room, where he saw Starscream half-sitting up in the recharge chamber. He appeared to be talking, although Hound couldn't hear the words. Neither could he see anyone who Starscream could be talking to.
He saw Starscream open a hand and hold it out as if in entreaty to someone, heard the tone rise pleadingly, although he still could not hear the words. He supposed Starscream could be on the com to somebody, but Hound had a feeling this was not the case.
Moving to the recharge chamber containing Ratchet, Hound turned the dial to zero. As Ratchet stirred and unshuttered slightly bleary optics, Hound lifted the recharge canopy.
"Ratchet, I'm sorry to cut short your recharge, but something's up with Starscream," Hound explained. "He seems to be talking to himself."
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He could see them in his head now as well as hear them, and it was not a comforting sight.
Thundercracker's blackened, semi-melted form turned its head to look at him, red and orange light like flames from the depths of the Pit flickering in the optics, remnants of the fire that had consumed him.
"You betrayed us, betrayed our bond." he said. Starscream looked from him to where the upper body of Skywarp hovered, seeming to defy gravity, one arm missing, the other an unrecognisable mess, the shreds of once-proud wings clinging to his dented and battered back. His optics were as cold and dead as the body.
"You dishonour the bond we had," he said. "That you should live when we died is the greatest dishonour you commit. You should have died when you crashed. You must right that wrong, only then will you gain any peace, only then can we all gain peace."
"A trine should be together. It is not right that we are separate. Do the right thing, Starscream." Thundercracker said. "Join us in death, bring us together again, then you can finally find the peace you crave."
"Yes." Starscream whispered. "TC, Warp, I will. I will join you."
He received no reply, for with those words, the voices and images left him.