Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, its characters, or its content. I am not making and do not intend to make any profit off this story or its chapters.
Chapter 3: Spare Parts
The sunrise, along with a very persistent canine, woke Elaine about a half an hour earlier than usual. She was close to protesting in a very loud and undignified manner when she groggily realized what day it was. Friday. Spare parts day. Time to pick up parts she had ordered from both the auto parts shop and the hardware store in town. After that, she and her loyal, early-rising companion would drive to the next town over and dig through Jerry's scrapyard for anything of use.
She managed to drag herself out of bed and was ready nearly 35 minutes later. Trudging to her old truck, she loaded Titan into the vehicle and set off towards town. The loud grumbling of the engine of the aging vehicle kept her awake and she decided to pass the time by speaking to her dog and playing the oh-god-don't-let-me-spill-my-coffee-on-myself game.
"So, we're going to go into town first and pick up the parts I ordered last week. I only have to stop at the parts shop for a few minutes and then it's off to Jerry's for a couple of hours. You'll get to play with Bella while I'm digging through stuff."
Titan visibly perked up at the mention of Bella. Bella was the center of Titan's world on Fridays. The large female Tibetan Mastiff guarded the scrapyard and doted on her 68 year old owner, Jerry. Weighing in at 110 pounds, she was a great deterrent to would-be thieves and hellraisers. The doberman absolutely adored her, even though she was almost twice his size.
"You know, you should really just ask her out, Titan. I don't know how that works with dogs, but you've got a lot going for you. And you probably want puppies someday. All dogs do. Bella would be an awesome mother." She took another sip of her coffee. "Come to think of it though, you're probably handling it all just fine. I'm pretty socially inept..."
Titan just grumbled at her and looked out the window.
"Fine. I was just trying to help. You don't have to be so irritable, you know."
They spent the rest of the trip in silence; Elaine was trying to stay awake and Titan was staring at the trees by the road, slightly embarrassed by the conversation they just had. Well...as embarrassed as a dog could be anyway.
Everything had started off well that day, for the most part. Skywarp hadn't missed his work detail and was on time for once. Thundercracker had monitor duty that night, but was reorganizing their shared quarters for the time being and trying to conserve his energy. With the purple and blue seekers occupied, Starscream had some time to work in his lab in peace. For months now, he'd been stealing time whenever he could to work on anything he could busy himself with. It was one of the only places in the base the scientist-turned-warrior felt any sort of peace or familiarity. He continued to examine the screen after analyzing all of the samples he'd collected, becoming increasingly frustrated with his findings. Or lack thereof. There wasn't a single sign of anything resembling natural energon on this planet. He had taken so many samples from so many different sites, he was beginning to lose count of them. His wings lowered in disappointment and he sighed. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to hold off the Autobots and manage to swipe a decent amount of converted energon before being forced to retreat. With the troops weakened from being low on fuel for so long, the chance of success was even lower. And now it was at an all time low for the Decepticons. Megatron's leadership was going to be the death of them all.
"We're slagged! There's no raw energon on this dustball! Not a single scrap!"
He slammed his fists down on his station.
"What was that, Starscream? None at all? Despite your reassurances that there must be something of use on this planet?"
The biting voice of his leader startled the seeker as he scrambled to attention.
"Lord Megatron, sir! Forgive me! I didn't notice you there!" The seeker nervously replied, backing toward the lab's exit. "I was just disgruntled, my lord. There has to be something here; I just haven't found anything yet. I'm bound to come across a source of energon soon! Just give me a few more-"
"Give you a few more what exactly? Weeks? Months? It's been far too long already, Starscream. You've failed me yet again and wasted precious time!" The tyrant was inches away from him now, reaching toward his neck.
"P-please, my lord!" Starscream scrambled to get away, but was caught by his wing and thrown to the ground. He screeched in pain as the sensitive wing was dented.
"SILENCE! I've had quite enough of you and your meaningless drivel! You have brought the Decepticon Army nothing but shame! I have no use for you or your blundering trine of idiots any longer; you've all proven yourselves worthless to me!"
The flier could see that the tyrant truly meant it this time when he looked into his optics. Whether it was out of madness or just rage, he knew that if he and his trine stayed at the base any longer, they would be offlined at Megatron's servo, or the servos of the other Decepticons. Their leader had finally snapped, so to speak. By the looks of this whole situation, he had planned the whole thing in advance and hoped to take Starscream off guard. Sending a quick, frantic message to Skywarp and Thundercracker, he fled.
Megatron roared and lunged at him, knocking over much of the lab's equipment in the process and setting off several potentially harmful chemical reactions. Thankfully, Starscream was the quicker of the two mechs and managed to escape into the hallway. A split second later, a flash of light appeared and he was grabbed by a mech of the same build, but slightly smaller than him.
"Gotcha Screamer!"
Skywarp warped the two away from the dangerous scene and outside of the base where they met Thundercracker on land. They immediately took flight and attempted to get as far away from the conflict as possible.
"Are you alright, Starscream?"
"I'm fine, Thundercracker."
"You don't look fine..."
"Just shut up and fly, you morons!"
Thundercracker silenced his worries and followed after Starscream, Skywarp gliding beside him. Truth be told, he was in the worst shape out of the three. The larger mech had been giving more energon to Skywarp as of late out of worry for the youngest member of their trine. He was slowly succumbing to exhaustion at the worst possible moment, not to mention he had sustained a few damages while fleeing the base.
"TC? You don't look so good..." Skywarp noticed the blue jet's decrease in speed.
"I'm alright, 'Warp. Just follow Starscream. Keep going. I'll keep up." He replied. His voice was quieter than usual.
He tried to ignore the warnings flashing across his HUD; he was at 65% fuel. Shutdown to conserve energy was a possibility at this point. Staying in the air was taking most of his strength. They were quite far from the base at this point, having flown as quickly as they could. They had warped a couple of times to put an even greater distance between them and the Nemesis, but had stopped when Skywarp could no longer expel excess energy on warping. The fact that he was able to do so at all was impressive, but it was most likely due to the extra energon TC had been sneaking him.
Starscream recognized the area they were in immediately; it was the same place he took them on their weekly flights, far out of the watch of the other Decepticons. They often had to use Skywarp's special ability to even get there, but it was well worth it.
Thundercracker slowly started to descend in altitude. Starscream and Skywarp were immediately attentive towards him.
"Thundercracker, what is the fragging problem? What are you doing?" Starscream screeched.
"I...can't stay up. At 46% fuel. I'm going to go into stasis lock soon..."
"TC, just hold out a little longer!" Skywarp whined back. "We have to get to a safe spot to land. Then you can rest."
Thundercracker had no strength left and kept descending, picking up speed on the way down. Starscream and Skywarp banked and tried to catch him. He was halfway to the ground when the trine leader and the purple seeker both grabbed ahold of him and started to slow him down.
"Thundercracker, you have to transform. You can't land like this! You'll damage us all!" Starscream was all but screaming at him now.
It took the last of the large blue seeker's strength to transform in the air before he went into stasis lock. Starscream and Skywarp were able to get a better hold on him and proceeded to lower him to the field below. When they finally got him to the ground, they set him down gently. Starscream began to inspect him for injuries while Skywarp looked around to see where they ended up.
"Screamer, this is the farm we fly by every week."
"Great observation, 'Warp. How's that supposed to help either of us right now?"
With that remark, it started to rain. Starscream groaned; did Primus really hate him that much?
"We have to get Thundercracker out of the rain. His armor is cracked in one spot and one of his lines is leaking." Starscream said.
Skywarp looked at their surroundings before turning to his trine leader.
"Star...we could put him in that garage over there. It's a really big building. I bet all three of us could fit in it if it isn't full of stuff."
"For once, you've come up with a halfway decent idea. Let's get him over there first, then we'll see whether or not the building needs clearing out."
With that, they both hefted Thundercracker up and supported his weight as best they could. They had him over to the barn in about a minute before setting him against the building. Starscream all but tore the door off to get inside. The wood splintered against the force he used.
"There's some sort of red tractor in here. That's the only thing taking up any considerable space. Help me push it out of here so we can get TC in." Starscream ordered.
It took them a few pushes, but the tractor rolled out of the barn and into the field without any considerable damage. The two seekers picked up their fallen friend and half-carried, half-dragged him into the shelter. Leaning him against the wall, they found a couple of lights, turned them on, and thought about their next course of action.
"Starscream, what are we going to do?"
"We'll patch him up the best we can right now, but he needs a medic."
"But we don't have a medic anymore..."
"As the fleshlings would put it, no shit, Skywarp."
The two seekers began to look around for supplies. Starscream had a small medical kit in his subspace that would take care of some of the damage, but he needed materials to patch the wound with.
"Skywarp, go inspect the metal on that tractor. Tear off any sheets that don't look that dirty. Make sure there's no peeling paint or rust on them. Take the hydraulic lines off it too. We'll need them to patch a section of line that Thundercracker damaged when he was getting off of the Nemesis." Starscream gave the instructions calmly, now focused on the task at hand.
"Okay. What if the lines have leftover fluid in them?"
"They'll need to be flushed and dried. There should be a hose around here somewhere. It'll probably be small, but do your best."
Skywarp went out and got to work while Starscream cleaned the blue seeker up and got him ready for repairs. This was a nightmare of a situation. They were stranded on a small farm, miles away from any help, and they had no fuel. Worse yet, if they couldn't get Thundercracker patched in time and refueled to a certain level, he would offline permanently. Starscream sighed and fought the urge to break down. They were all running on low at this point, but the situation at hand kept he and Skywarp going. They couldn't lose their trinemate. They had to find a way out of this mess. Losing Thundercracker would destroy both of them.
After the rain had gotten the best of them, Elaine loaded up the parts and covered them so she and Titan could go home for the night. They had made several good finds that day, but it was Jerry that made the most interesting discovery. He found two twisted machines at the end of his property that had just been dropped amongst the scrap there. The old man said that it looked like they 'fell out of the damn sky'. Elaine agreed to take a look and after about 45 minutes of inspecting the mangled wreck, said she couldn't figure out what the hell they were looking at either. She told him they sort of resembled fighter jets after finding a couple of wings, but the wreck was so twisted, she couldn't tell.
Jerry sent her home that day with several salvageable parts from the pile the machines were in, all things she had never seen before in her entire life. They were completely alien to her. Along with the parts, he said he drained gallons upon gallons of a really odd fuel from some of the lines on the machines. After figuring out that it ate through most containers, he ended up putting it in a shitload of 3.5 gallon Pyrex solution bottles.
"Where the hell did you even get these, Jerry? And how are the bottles still intact?" Elaine asked, puzzled. "It looks like lab equipment."
The only man just grinned and winked. He helped her secure and load up an entire covered trailer full of the bottles of unknown fuel.
"Jerry, why are you giving me this stuff? And why did you save it? No one's ever seen this crap and the pile of weird parts kind of corroborate the whole 'alien' theory we talked about earlier. Shouldn't we call the authorities and have them look at it?"
"Well, first of all, it could be expensive, so I didn't want to waste it...but it could also be radioactive or somethin', which is why I'm letting ya have it. I don't want it sittin' around. And I'm the only authority around my yard. I don't want a bunch of government creeps pokin their noses around here, diggin through my stuff. You call 'em to your farm if you'd like, but leave me out of it. They ain't nothin but trouble. I'd rather have you look at the stuff and figure it out. Yer smarter than the rest of 'em. You'll come up with somethin'."
Elaine sighed. Well, that's how she ended up with a trailer load of very strange pink liquid and was now driving at 25 mph down her bumpy road, trying not to break or spill any of the bottles. And there were certainly plenty of them. It would take her forever to unload both the truck and trailer. She would likely just back the trailer into the barn out of the rain and unload it tomorrow. Where she would store it and what she would do with it was something she couldn't figure out.
The dark haired woman turned the last corner and pulled up her driveway. She was about to turn the GMC toward the barn when she saw something out of place. Her tractor was sitting outside of the barn, in shambles. Metal was ripped off its sides in sheets and she could see, even from a distance, that parts and pieces were on the ground around it. The lights in her barn were also on. Someone was down there. Or something. Whatever it was, it had to be a big son of a bitch to rip metal off a machine that size. The tractor was a Massey Ferguson MR 8690; needless to say, it wasn't a small piece of equipment. For Elaine to take it apart and fix it, it usually took a quite a few tools and sometimes an extra hand to get the job done. Titan looked into the field and whined, then began to growl and bark at the building on the other end of the property.
"Titan, I'm going to go get the shotgun. You stay here until I get back. Don't go down there without me." She said quietly.
When Titan flattened his ears against his head and growled, but stayed in the truck, Elaine knew that whatever was down there was going to pose a problem. Titan was never hesitant when it came to the safety of their home, but the big dog was cowering in the truck and making no move to come out anytime soon.
"Stay." She repeated, and made her way up to the cabin, leaving the truck door open in case Titan had to flee.
She opened the door to her home and reached to the right, grabbing the gun and making her way back outside. She had shells in the truck, but the shotgun was already loaded. It was a 12 gauge Mossberg 500 that her father bought her for her 15th birthday. Elaine silently thanked him now. She always kept it clean and practiced with it, but had thankfully never had to seriously use it over the years.
She slowly began making her way to the barn. Titan fell into step beside her, going silent other than the occasional growl. The rain kept pouring down on her and the doberman as they made their way across the field.
Skywarp perked up at the sound of a door.
"Starscream, did you hear that?"
"For the last time Skywarp, no, I did not! Now try to get some rest. We need to conserve what strength we have so we can find fuel when this fragging rain stops."
"But I heard a noise...Maybe it's the human that lives here."
"...You are trying my patience! Please, 'Warp. Just settle down. It's been a rough cycle."
It was then that Skywarp really looked at their trine leader. Starscream was exhausted. He had fixed Thundercracker to the best of his ability, but the day's events had taken their toll on him. He was sitting by Thundercracker, leaned up against the adjacent wall. His once brilliant red paint was faded a bit and his optics were duller than normal.
"I'm sorry, Starscream..."
"It's alright, Skywarp. I know you're worried. We'll be alright."
Skywarp was about to speak again, but was interrupted when he heard something shift the smaller door behind them. He turned to see a dark haired human woman with gray eyes, probably in her mid 20's holding a firearm in her arms. In a split second, the gun was pointed right at his face. At this point, Starscream had also noticed the small female and her now growling animal companion.
Elaine's eyes were a bit wide as she attempted to unsuccessfully stare down her visitors. She had the gun aimed at the smallest one's head while the red one looked on. The blue one looked like he was unconscious. 30 feet tall metal robots? Yeah, shooting them probably wasn't going to help...
"You know...ripping someone's tractor apart and fucking up their building isn't exactly a nice way to get to know them."
And that was the line that got her involved in a situation much bigger than she could ever imagine.