Chapter 4
"I know the truth."
Skywarp ran as fast as she could, panting as she felt the sharp pang of pain that always followed Soundwave's telepathy.
"Spy," his voice snarled in her audio, causing her to stumble and smash her thrusters to bits. "Liar. Fake. Autobot bitch."
Shaking her head, she forced herself to go faster, to put real distance between herself and the hovering monstrosity behind her. Tears streamed down her face as images flew by of shattered corpses that made it hard to tell who were Autobots and who were Decepticons. Her intakes heaved with the strain to stay ahead of the mech behind her, straining to keep distance between herself and the mental range of her assailant.
"Spy," Soundwave's voice snarled before he was suddenly in front of her.
His optics flared behind his visor as his arms wrapped around her and easily turned her momentum against her. She was pinned beneath his bulk, struggling as her holo-emitter fitzed out and left her in plain sight of Soundwave's optics. Her chest heaved as he leant in closer, facemask and visor sliding away to show a blank slate of a face.
"Mine," he voice boomed from that empty feature before he rushed forward.
Skywarp bolted upright, flailing her arms desperately at the blank face above her. Her mouth was open, but her vocalizer had shorted out at the high intensity, thankfully preventing her from screaming at a high enough octave to break the voice scrambler. Her optics darted around the holding cell rapidly, taking in the dark walls and the glowing bars before she collapsed onto the berth with a soft wheeze of relief.
She was in the brig. She was not being attacked by Soundwave. He did not know her secret. She was going to live for another orn.
"What time is it?" she called out.
"About time you woke up," Starscream replied before he stepped into view. "You've been in recharge for quite a few joors."
"And no one bothered to wake me up?" Skywarp demanded scandalized. "How cruel!"
"A suitable punishment considering I had to deal with your latest prank trying to rip my wings off," Starscream replied with a low growl. "Now hurry up and get to the launch deck; I need you to check out some coordinates."
'And meet with Jazz; he wants to go over the newest schematics for the power plant,' Starscream added quietly over their private link that no one save for the other Spec. Ops officers knew about.
"I'll be there as soon as Soundwave turns the bars off," Skywarp replied as she bounced to her feet.
"As soon as Blitzwing turns the bars off," Blitzwing called out as the bars flashed and dissipated. "Soundwave was called up to the command center to keep an optic on something."
"Oh," Skywarp replied as she skipped over to Blitzwing and sprawled herself out as annoying as she could over the console. "So it was just you and me for a few joors? I'm surprised I didn't wake up with magic marker all over my faceplates."
"Octane took my markers away as soon as he realized I had them," Blitzwing replied before he poked her between the optics. "Otherwise, your face would be marked up with a glorious bright pink marker."
"Oh, wouldn't pink just look so fetching on me?" Skywarp asked as she bounced to her feet and cocked her hip out to the side, making herself look like one of the silly human runway models. "With a bright blue boa to match?"
"Skywarp! Launch deck, now!" Starscream screeched as he walked up behind her and started pushing her out of the brig. "Move your aft!"
Skywarp cackled with delight as she waved to Blitzwing and wished him a good brig watch. As soon as they were around the corner, Starscream smacked her painfully over the head.
"Your hips are too perfect for that pose," she growled, dropping the "mech" voice for a moment. "You actually looked like a femme for a second."
"It's Blitzwing; we always joke like that," Skywarp replied with a wide grin. "You should see him when he does something like that; those hips were made for sparking."
Starscream grimaced and covered her face, shaking it rapidly. "And Ratchet's certain we both popped out of him," she grumbled before adopting the screechy voice again. "Let's go."
Skywarp trotted after Starscream with a huge grin on her face, happy that she could still make her older sister blush with the thoughts of facing with a mech that she normally did not have any attraction for.
The launch pad was empty and Skywarp took off without a single hitch. Her "flight path" was blinking in her processor and she activated the small tracking beacon from her undercarriage and watched it fly off in that direction. With a small flick of her wings, she took off in the direction that Starscream had given her so that she could meet up with Jazz in private.
It took her a few passes over the forested area to spot her commanding officer. He was "chillin'" in the bough of a tree, tapping his foot away to some beat he had going in his headset. Landing a little clumsily on the branch beside him, Skywarp waved her hand rapidly in front of his face to get his attention. His huge grin was a welcoming sign as she dropped onto her aft to be at optic level with him.
"Hey darling; how's life in the Con base?" Jazz asked as he clapped her shoulder.
"Same old," she replied with a shrug, happily dropping her holo-emitter. "Got Onslaught with a paint bucket over the head."
Jazz laughed and punched her shoulder. "Send me a copy of that vid when you get the chance; Sides will love to see how lovely Onslaught's armor is covered in paint," he cackled.
Skywarp hitched an optic ridge at that comment. "He's not still…?" she asked before Jazz grinned devilishly.
"Oh, I'm sworn to secrecy, darling; can't tell you a thing," he replied as he crossed his fingers over his spark. "Now it's time to get serious with my favourite spy."
Looking around, Skywarp forced a big-dentaed grin to her face. "Bumblebee's here?" she demanded.
"Skywarp!" Jazz laughed before punching her shoulder. "Seriously now; second favourite."
"Mirage is here too?"
"Third."
"Hound finally cracked!"
"Skywarp! Really now!" Jazz laughed, tipping his head back so that the noise travelled through the trees. "Be serious."
"You can't be serious for two minutes; what makes you think I will?" Skywarp teased before she shifted her weight so that she was a bit more comfortable. "Shoot."
Shaking his head with a soft chuckle, Jazz brought up the battleplans. He explained the changes to them, showed her where each of the soldiers were going to be and where the resulting Decepticons SHOULD be if Starscream could fight hard enough. The Bots were willing to make small changes to allow for everything to LOOK like it was not a staged attack, but Optimus was really unwilling to let the Cons get away with any energon.
"And you are to sit here and do nothing," Jazz concluded as he poked the dark purple orb sitting up in the rafters of the power plant. "Snipe at the minis, but make it look like close shots; Ratchet is still after me for letting Ironhide get his shoulder shot the last time."
"He freaks out over everything," Skywarp growled as she memorized the battleplan and shook her head. "I once slipped and landed on my back and he kept insisting that I should let him take a look at my wings to make sure they weren't out of alignment even though Coder told him that they were fine."
Jazz watched her silently for a moment before he reached out and touched her shoulder with too much affection for her to accept as a simple move on his own part; Ratchet was near-by. "He's just worried about you," Jazz replied with a bit too much conviction.
Glaring at him, Skywarp pushed off of the tree and hovered. "Tell Ratchet to stop trying to eavesdrop on these meetings; I'm not a sparkling anymore regardless of the fact that he refuses to upgrade my chassis. See you, Jazz; I'll try not to shoot you too hard."
She heard Jazz call after her as she transformed and blasted off into the sky. She checked the progress of her tracking drone and blasted towards the base to intercept it. She caught it just before it went into visual range of the ship, throwing her holo-emitter up just in time as she raced across the ocean.
The huge tower rose out of the waves to let her land. She was barely through the door when Megatron stepped into view and she almost crashed into him. Yelping, she teleported quickly and ended up landing on Swindle, taking the surprised mech to the ground. They blinked at each other in shock before Skywarp grinned and started drawing patterns on his chest.
"Hiya, handsome," she teased.
"Skywarp, on your feet," Megatron called. "We're heading out."
Skywarp was on her feet in a sparkpulse, blinking at Megatron in unveiled surprise. "Where?"
"The powerplant," Megatron snorted as he rested a fist on his hip. "If you bothered to answer your comlink you could have met us there."
"My comlink never went off," Skywarp grumbled to herself as she shuffled over to where the Seekers were waiting.
She shot Starscream a worried look, but her older sister was watching Megatron closely. Her wings were twitching anxiously, a sure sign that she had not been expecting to head out this early either. Megatron gave his usual spiel about Decepticon superiority and how the end of the war was within their grasp. Then, they were all airborne.
Breaking away from the others, Skywarp shot off to fly far away from the others. She knew it was risky to try to send transmissions with Soundwave around; especially since the slagger was actually watching her; but she wanted to make sure the Bots knew. She managed to get one line of "She'll be Coming Around the Mountain" before Jazz sent back the affirmative and turned the link off quickly.
Relieved, she continued to fly farther away from the others for a little while, making it look like she just wanted some space to spread her wings. Starscream eventually told her to get into position before he shot her aft off, but it was only half as threatening as he tried to make it.
The power plant was deserted when they arrived. Skywarp almost marvelled at the Autobots' efficiency before she had to dodge a volley of laserfire. Megatron roared in outrage and ordered everyone to attack. Taking that as her cue, Skywarp teleported up to the ceiling and hovered there taking potshots at Autobots that happened to catch her attention. Bumblebee made a bit of a show of dodging her shot and she was tempted to hit him with a blank to make him stop acting like a loon.
Just as she was lining up another shot, half of the building blew up and sent everyone flying. She teleported on instinct, getting herself away from the heat and debris as the smoke billowed out of the destroyed wall. She could see mechs moving slowly, their coughs and shouts muffled by the smoke. As it started to dissipate, her spark went cold.
Thundercracker was lying in a pool of energon, his wing missing and a huge crater where his middle should have been.
"THUNDERCRACKER!"
Author's Notes: I should explain this now that I've touched on it a little bit more. A while ago, I was in a chat room and AKZeal was talking about having femmes becoming mechs at maturity. Safe to say this idea has stuck with me and has shaped this story a little differently than originally planned. So, the original idea is all thanks to AKZeal; if you have not gone and read his stuff, go do it now. Seriously good stuff. Link here u/385252/Kd-Zeal