Chapter 29
A Tale of Two Plans
It was a surprise to discover a distinct similarity between his Commander and that of the Autobot army, but as Starscream climbed cautiously out of the ventilation system and into Optimus Prime's office he realised that the two opponents spent vastly too much time locked away in their private space away from their troops. It had been a frustrating wait, sitting in the dark, claustrophobic vent, desperate for Prime to take his leave, but his patience had paid off and now, finally, he was able to get Megatron's plan underway.
In other words, 'Plan A'.
He walked across the vast room and carefully climbed up onto the desk, watching the doorway as he approached the enormous console. Once again Starscream found himself wishing for his Cybertronian senses – it would be just his luck for the door to slide open the moment he began working – and his shoulders tensed despite the faint hint of pleasure he was deriving from his current situation.
As seemed to be the norm when it came to fooling the Autobots, it was all too easy. The computer remained on and whilst the colossal keyboard did pose a challenge, a short display of athleticism – and perhaps a little dancing – soon resulted in reaching the installation screen. Starscream reached into his jeans pocket and extracted the small metallic box Thundercracker had given him. Opening it carefully, the human removed the drive containing Soundwave's programme and inserted it into the console hastily.
Reams of Cybertronian script scrolled furiously over the blue screen as various windows opened and closed, firewalls crumbling and then reinstated as the programme began to imbed itself within the Autobot network. Starscream drummed his fingers impatiently on the desktop as he knelt in front of the machine, hoping like slag that Soundwave's stupid programme would do what it was supposed to quickly. Not that he was relying on Plan A so much, it just seemed to be such a slow and drawn-out plan, one that was preventing him from making any progress on Plan B.
Prime's computer began to shut down as a small smirk began to form on Starscream's face. Ahh, how pleasing it would be if he managed to find the solution to his horrible situation without Megatron's slagging help. The look on the tyrant's face as Starscream returned in Cybertronian form to the Nemesis, told the slagger what he could do with his useless plan and threats...it would be priceless.
The computer began to reboot itself, and a voice made itself heard from beyond the doorway.
"...agree tha' th' human needs protection, Prime, but ah reckon he'd be safer somewhere else right now. Outta th direct line of firin', so tah speak."
The human sneered; he could pick the unmistakable drawl of Ironhide anywhere.
"That is something that we will need to discuss with Sean. Whilst he is willing to accept our help and protection at this stage, he may not be willing to leave his life behind. We have seen many humans take the risk of remaining in the past...and you know as well as I do that we can't blame them for wanting to stay."
They were so disgustingly pathetic, trying to do the 'right' thing by the miserable human race...it made him feel sick to the stomach just thinking about it. But there was no time to waste on such thoughts as the voices drew closer; it seemed Prime was planning on returning to the solitude of his office.
"Slagging hurry up..." Starscream hissed as the computer whirred back to life to finish the installation. Cybertronian characters returned to the screen as the process was finalised, and Starscream ripped the drive from its slot as the door unlocked with a click.
Without a second thought, the human hurled himself off the top of the desk and sprinted back to the ventilation shaft. He had desperately hoped to avoid that horrible system of tunnels on his exit, but as the door slid open he realised he had no choice and scrambled into the darkness as quickly as possible.
Ok, so perhaps it had been a little arrogant to assume he'd be able to walk out of Prime's office via the door...
Over the vorns, cursing Megatron had become Starscream's national sport – that, and trying to overthrow him. But Starscream didn't remember having dedicated so many colorful terms to his insufferable leader as he had done during the past few hours. He had also used new terms acquired during his human experience, which he couldn't wait to shout personally into the junk bucket's face once Starscream recovered his real frame. Of course, he was sure that Megatron would beat the slag out of him after being called 'motherfucker', but Starscream would take ten beatings in a row just for the priceless expression that his fearless leader certainly would have.
Ah, the small joys of life…
But any kind of verbal or physical revenge would have to wait. He had other priorities for the moment, such as how to avoid falling to an imminent death.
As Starscream made another attempt to climb through the ventilation shaft, he realized that the one thing he missed the most about his real self was his ability to fly. Never in his life had heights or gravity been a problem, but recently they were turning into threats to his life worthy of being considered… just like the situation he was currently in. The Decepticon Aerospace Commander, the fastest Cybertronian flier, the Vosnian Prince… struggling to avoid falling from the slippery walls of a simple, ordinary and orange ventilation shaft…
Nothing could be more degrading.
He was wrong. There was something worse, as he realized when his hands and body slipped on the slagging flat surface and he reencountered the familiar feeling of a free fall, only that this time he didn't have his thrusters to save him at the last moment.
The grill of the ventilation shaft at the bottom of the metallic tube was the only thing separating him from the abyss. By Cybertronian standards, such fall would mean nothing, but a human couldn't expect to survive. Starscream hoped, truly hoped, that the grill would hold his weight.
When his body hit the damn grill he sighed – and groaned – relieved. It had hurt like hell, but at least he wouldn't end up a pulp of blood and bones on the floor after all, not precisely the kind of death he considered glorious. A creak beneath him proved just how wrong he had been.
He was doomed after all.
He cried. Unceremoniously, he was certain, but since he was about to die he didn't give a slag about the honour a Decepticon warrior should have at the moment of his termination.
An anticipated thud ended his fatal journey, much sooner than expected... and considerably softer. Had he hit the floor? It couldn't be; more than crashed, he had landed on something, something flexible, gentle…
"Are you okay?" a deep and peaceful voice said.
A voice he knew too well.
Starscream raised his head and had to make a big effort not to turn his expression of astonishment into a grimace of hate. It had been a while since he had seen Skyfire for the last time. If it were up to him, the slagger would be buried under ice for another four million years.
"Yesss," he hissed. "Thanks to you, I suppose."
Skyfire smiled candidly with that big, disgustingly kind face of his, and leveled the hand sustaining Starscream to his huge optics. If Skyfire had been considerably taller than Starscream before, now he looked like King Kong.
"So you are Spike and Carly's friend, right? I heard some of the Autobots saying you were going to stay here for a while, but I haven't had the chance to meet you because I was out on an exploration journey. It's very nice to meet you."
Nice? Nice would be to shoot you right between the optics, you loathsome loser. "Mm… The pleasure is all mine. I'm… Sean."
The oversized dolt grinned. "I heard that too. What were you doing in the ventilation system? Did you get lost?"
Once again, Starscream had a hard time forcing himself not to grimace, or at least telling that annoying slaghole what an insufferable moron he was. Millions of years may have passed, but Skyfire was still the same dolt he had always been. There was no wonder why he had never given Skyfire what he had always wanted from him.
"I was exploring," Starscream said, a part of him eager to shout in Skyfire's face how he had been hacking Optimus Prime's personal computer. "And I don't know why I ended up in that ventilation system… It's so big in here."
His excuse was lame and he knew it, but he also knew that Skyfire had a naturally trusting nature and wouldn't think that one human would be involved in something dark, especially considering how fond he seemed to be of the fleshlings.
"Another reason why you should be more careful, Sean. Were you looking for Carly and Spike? They are outside, playing with Bumblebee. They brought Chip too. Do you wish to join them?"
"Em, no… perhaps later. I was actually looking for Wheeljack's laboratory. Do you know where it is?"
"Two corridors to the left… I don't mean to pry, but why are you interested in Wheeljack?"
Of course you meant to pry, you always mean to pry! You were never able to stay away from my slagging business! "I heard that he's a scientist and I wanted to know if he needs an assistant. I'm kind of interested in science myself… and I'm sure I could learn so much from your kind."
Skyfire's grin increased. "Oh, so you like science? How curious, I am a scientist myself too."
You don't say… "Really? Of course you must be... You said you were out on an exploration journey."
Skyfire nodded. "Yes, to the Amazon Jungle. I'm currently undertaking an investigation into giant anacondas, some of the most fascinating creatures I have found on this planet."
Starscream repressed a shiver, remembering how one of those 'fascinating creatures' had scared the slag out of him when he and the Decepticons had found the Nemesis buried in the terrestrial zone known as South America. He didn't want to imagine what that same creature would do to him in his current shape…
"Right… So you said I could find Wheeljack three corridors to the left?"
"Yes. I was heading there, so I'll take you myself."
"Ah, that would be good, thank you," Starscream said as politely as he could.
Skyfire smiled, and lowered his hand slightly as he began to walk through the corridors of the Ark. "You know, I think Wheeljack will enjoy having another helper about the place. He's been able to achieve so much with the help of Sparkplug and Chip in particular, it's amazing how many inventions they've been able to create that are hybrids of Cybertronian and human technology."
Once again Starscream repressed his desire to grimace. Hybrid technologies...it was no wonder why the stupid slagger Wheeljack never seemed to create anything that worked, corrupting the purity of Cybertronian technology with such inferior slag.
"Well, I'm certainly looking forward to seeing their achievements," Sean said warmly. And he wasn't necessarily lying either; he was looking forward to seeing something in particular, although it wouldn't be his first time.
"Wheeljack will be more than happy to show you, I'm sure of it," Skyfire said, approaching a large set of double doors.
He'd better be... "Great, I really can't thank you all for your generosity, really."
Thousands of vorns of practice had made of Starscream a master of hypocrisy. Ever since his youngling days as a science student, he had been able to mimic expressions and feelings he was very far from computing. That had gained him an important amount of favours, a wide variety of lovers and an increasing number of enemies.
One of the very few positive sides of being human was that he had a considerable amount of muscles in his face, all able to be used for those purposes of pretension. And he was certainly doing a great job, as his current position in the Ark proved. There he was, the most hated Decepticon comfortably installed within the enemy's nest. Being human seemed to be enough for the Autobots to automatically like him, but being the target of the Decepticons had made him an instant magnet for everybody's sympathy. Shallow minded as they were, the Autobots were easily guided by dysfunctional feelings such as pity and heroism, all weaknesses that Starscream loved to exploit.
Of course, there was a limit to playing the nice, stupid guy, and Starscream was currently reaching it, as he listened for the fifth time the same explanation of a procedure he could have done with his optics offlined, over energized and with one, perhaps the two, hands tied at his back.
"… and then we weld the secondary circuit. See?" Wheeljack said, apparently very happy at having a human pupil eager to watch his mad, and potentially dangerous, experiments.
"Awesome," Starscream said, using his latest acquisition of human language. He had detected several anomalies in Wheeljack's methods in just one morning. He made a mental note to keep that junk scientist functional. The Autobots would never win the war if they had such pathetic specimens among their science crew.
But Wheeljack had also his displays of genius. Not caring, and actually not listening, to whatever Wheeljack was saying, the humanized Decepticon took a discreet glance over his shoulder, fixating his anxious stare on a distant machine stored at the back of the laboratory. Salvation covered by a blanket, the only hope of returning to his real self without submitting to Megatron's antics to blackmail him.
"You have a lot of things here," he said, casting a glance over all the machines spread through the room.
Wheeljack stopped welding the computer motherboard and followed Starscream's gaze with some melancholy. "Ah, yes… old inventions, some of them not very functional… even slightly dangerous."
Starscream sneered. "Really? What is that one, for example?" he said, pointing toward a spider-like device that he couldn't figure out by himself.
That picked Wheeljack's interest. "Oh, that's the anti Robo-Smasher."
What the frag… "The anti… what?"
"The anti Robo-Smasher. You see, Sean, the Decepticons had an evil piece of machinery named the Robo-Smasher, which they used to reprogram Cybertronians and turn them evil. My version does something similar, reprograms Decepticons and turns them good… in theory."
Starscream frowned. Was that lunatic talking seriously? The Robo-Smasher had been a complete failure since the very beginning – he had mocked Megatron endlessly for that, which gained him a couple of beatings that had been worth every broken joint. But seeing the bizarre Autobot version of such monstrosity made him want to purge his lubrication valve in pure disgust. Were all the Autobots morons? There was no doubt that Megatron was an old fashioned, incompetent fool if he couldn't defeat mechs with such loathsome processors.
"I see," Starscream said, trying not to laugh. "And have you used it?"
"Er, no… I mean, yes, just once… but it didn't work. I shot a Decepticon with the anti Robo-Smasher but nothing happened to him."
Starscream rubbed his chin. Now he remembered… He had seen Wheeljack using that piece of junk to shoot a pink ray at Ramjet once. Aside from complaining about having tickles for a week, no change had happened to his relentless former wingmate.
"Well, it may work next time, you never know…" Starscream said, turning to the real object of his attention. "What about that one?"
Wheeljack put his hands on his hips and straightened his stance proudly. "That, my little friend, is one is my biggest achievements. Please your eyes with the only technology available to transfer a human's mind into a Transformer's body."
With that, he removed the big blanket. Starscream blinked when the dust spread above his head, but looked hungrily toward the big, yellowish machine before him and the two thick helmets.
"Really?" he said, trying to sound genuinely surprised and hiding all his second intentions. "I wasn't aware that was even possible."
Wheeljack chuckled. "Neither you nor anybody else. This is an experimental invention, actually. I built it for an emergency situation, when Spike's body was so damaged that his mind needed to be away for a while to allow the proper repairs to happen. In that time, we transferred his mental impulses to the body of Autobot X, an experimental project that Sparkplug developed."
Of course Starscream knew that, but he had to keep going with the useless questioning before getting to what he wanted. "And… did it work?"
"Oh, affirmative, although not as I expected."
"What do you mean?"
"Well…" Wheeljack sighed, his head-fins dimming in shame. "Spike's mind wasn't comfortable within a Transformer body. He was nervous, unstable… at the end being outside his real self turned out to be a threat to his sanity, so as soon as his body was repaired, we returned his mind to its proper vessel."
"Still… the procedure worked. Could you do it again, with another human?"
"Yes, I guess I could… Why? Are you interested in giving it a try, Sean?" Wheeljack chuckled.
Starscream hurried to shake his head. "Not in a million years. I wouldn't change my real frame for anything else."
Wheeljack seemed somewhat confused by Starscream referring to his body with the word 'frame', but the Decepticon wasn't paying any further attention to the Autobot scientist. The Autobot Spike experiment had been a failure because the human germ was nothing more than that, a fleshling with a lifespan shorter than a sigh and a mind unable to process the complexities of a Cybertronian body. Starscream, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. He was sure that if the process was applied to him, the result would be a success. Perhaps he would be able to tell Megatron and his sick little games to frag off after all.
But for that, he would need to find out everything he could about that bizarre machine and manage to steal it to use it on himself.
Submerged in his thoughts, he didn't hear the door opening, but Wheeljack's shadow towered him as the Autobot stepped forward.
"Hey, Carly!"
Starscream grimaced. Give it to the annoying female pet to arrive with the perfect timing to ruin everything.
"How you are doing, Wheeljack? I was wondering if you could lend me your assistant for a while."
Starscream looked at her bruised and bandaged form suspiciously. If that request would have meant getting naked with the human and fragging all her ports off, he would have gladly considered it, but knowing how boring and stereotyped her personality component was, her request for his presence was a complete waste of time, especially considering how close he was to the only thing on that planet that could give him his body, and dignity, back.
She smiled at him, an unexpected – and not entirely unwelcome – change in the attitude she had had concerning him so far.
"Have a nice time, kids," Wheeljack said, covering Starscream's hopes with the blanket again. "Come back whenever you want, Sean."
Oh, he would definitely do so.
To be continued.
Do you guys remember the Robo-Smasher, the one that Megatron used to turn the Constructicons evil – even though in another chapter they were the ones that built Megatron? Yeah, we also thought that such machine was rather absurd. If one machine could turn good robots into evil, then the Decepticons would have won the war in two days.
There is also a wink to the famous scene in which a giant snake – we suppose it was an anaconda – falls over Starscream. Now that was a BIG snake! See what you can do against that one, Jennifer López!
And, of course, you may remember 'Autobot X'.
We hope you enjoyed the chapter and that you are still enjoying your December celebrations. Thanks for all your support, guys :o)