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And now that you're caught up, today's work:
Prowl wanted to cry. If he had tear ducts, he would have. Three hours. Three hours and all he had gotten from the two was that they knew each other well. That was it. Oh, Prowl knew that Prime wouldn’t blame him, but the others wouldn’t. And with his position as precarious as it was, he couldn’t risk any mistakes. He remembered how it was before he had gotten lucky and landed the job under Prime. Out there, it was any mech for himself, and a glitched mech? Forget about it. Glitches were lower then Military mechs before the war, and even now they were only tolerated, not accepted. Prowl knew that he had only lasted this long as a matter of luck. That, and the fact the twins listened to him. Sometimes. That was it. That was why he had lasted 100 years, give or take 40 million. Luck and the twins. He hadn’t been part of Prime’s unit before the launch, but at the last minute the head of tactics got himself slagged and Prowl was the only tactics bot available. Shaking himself out of his self-pity, he turned his attention back to the two mechs below. May Primus have mercy on him, he had a feeling he’d need it to get though this with his secret intact.
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Ratchet stood in the middle of his (his!) med-bay. His violated med-bay. Now, normally, Ratchet had no problem with the other mechs coming in at any random time for one of the more common synths, and in fact, he had an entire wall just for that purpose, with the synths on shelves covering 1/3rd of the wall, with the remaining 2/3rds covered by a large white board with the names of every mech on base and their dose size. That was one thing. He had trained them well, they all knew to look at the board before taking the synth. But this? Not only had they taken his special sedative-synth, but they had also injected two mechs with no previous history of having used the synth, a dangerous task as a medic never knew just how the synth would react to each mech’s systems. If that hadn’t been bad enough, he had just found out about it less then a human hour ago, when they had told Ratchet to come to the brig as there was a prisoner that needed his attention. When he had seen the state his friend was in, he demanded to know why he hadn’t know, only to be told that he hadn’t been informed that he was ‘Too close to the situation at hand’. Too close? He’d show them to close! It was probably needless to say that he had had the both of them, Skyfire and what looked like a clone of Starscream, only with blue optics and Autobot insignias, moved to the high-security wing of the med-bay.
Ratchet moved swiftly to the reinforced-glass of the observatory, gazing down at his friend and the clone. As he looked down, he saw that the screen monitoring Skyfire’s CPU output had fluctuated, he was waking. He was about to go enter the wing, when a hand on his shoulder stopped him short. He glared over his shoulder at Prowl who stood there with wings erect, as unruffled by his glare as if it had been a mild breeze.
“Prime’s orders. No one goes in until they both wake up.” Prowl said. Ratchet felt his anger flow out of him, leaving him drained. It was a good idea; see what they would reveal while alone, and besides, it wasn’t Prowl he was angry at. It wasn’t his fault the poor mech was programmed the way he was. Ratchet reflected that one day; he’d have to track down that faulty line of code that inhibited his ability to show his emotions. Turning back to the room, he saw that Skyfire had sat up and was in the process of removing the connecters to the monitors so that he could close his chest plates. As Ratchet watched his friend, he neglected to notice Prowl moving up to stand beside him, watching the large mech below closely.
~~
Skyfire woke.
When a transformer wakes, it is nothing like the slow process a human goes though, the transformer is in recharge and then awake. That’s all there is to it. Skyfire used to believe that. Used to, that is, until he had entered the Science Academy and was assigned a dorm with the only other flyer in the school, a seeker named Starscream. Starscream seemed to take it as a point of pride that he took no less then 30 human minutes to fully rise out of recharge. As Skyfire looked over at his old lab-partner, he reflected on the fact that no matter how many things change, some things stay the same.
~~
Starscream woke slowly, as was his wont. He knew that he should really get around to re-programming his recharge cycle, but he had often figured, why? He wasn’t a front-liner. He wasn’t even a warrior. He was the last minute scientist Megatron brought because the mech realized it would be difficult to secure trade agreements without knowing the slightest thing of how the other side thought and reasoned.
He flickered on his optics and was on-line immediately, despite having more then ten minutes left in his recharge cycle, memories snapping into place, reminding him that he wasn’t at his quarters on the ark, this was somewhere else. He sent out a low level scan and wanted to sob at the results. He was in a cell with Skyfire. Obviously the Autobots had found out and had taken them for interrogation. He tried to remind himself that this wasn’t home, that the Cons were Bots now, with all the emotion to it, but there was still that little corner of his CPU crying out, Why? Why me? I’m nothing! Really! I mean, I’m manipulative, but anyone would be after going though the Academy! But he firmly squashed the voice and sat up, looking around. The cell was Spartan, filled with only two berths, a group of monitors, two mechs, and two cameras he could see and probably twenty more he couldn’t. He looked over at the larger mech, seeing the tired lines of his body and spoke up, because he was willing to do anything to drown out that little section of his CPU.
“So, what are you in for?” Skyfire visibly startled, obviously not expecting to hear any such thing. Once he got over his startlement, he gave Starscream a look so dirty, Starscream was surprised he wasn’t dead yet. Starscream quickly sent a message in Seeker-Cant, saying that Skyfire should, : razz lay along, slagit!:: through a quick serious of wing-flicks and engine hums.
Skyfire apparently got the message, as he relaxed and said casually “Well, I apparently did something horrendous enough to warrant my being stalked and tagged like an animal. You wouldn’t happen to have had anything to do with that, would you?” He tagged the last statement with an over-the-top glare.
“Me? Have anything to do with it? Never!” And they were off. In the middle of the friendly debate, Starscream wondered how he could have become so close to a mech in less then two months that it felt like they had been friends for orns.
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“Ah don’ know, Prime, it jus’ seems like something the ‘con’s would do.” Ironhide was standing now, staring down at the others seated around the table. Prowl met his gaze squarely before returning his challenge,
“And what would you have us do, Ironhide? We must get answers, and we must get them as soon as possible.” There was silence for a moment as the mechs around the table thought for another solution, but it was useless. They had already gone over all their choices and this was the only one that would work, something the Decepticons would do or not. After another moment of silence, Prime spoke up.
“You know your jobs, mechs. Dismissed.” However, as Prime stood the leave the conference room, he hoped that he had made the right choice.
~~
Hidden in the land above the canyon, Mirage watched the mine-shaft he had come out off not too long ago. He narrowed his eyes as he heard what sounded like boosters. Not five seconds after he heard them, Skyfire flew out of the shaft, headed west towards the ark. Mirage sent a low-bust com to his mechs. Move out.
~~
Starscream lay with his back to the wall. Everything was going to plan. He had Skyfire wrapped around his finger, his tanks were full from the energon Skyfire had brought him, and his knowledge of the universe he had found himself in was growing in leaps and bounds. Oh, he knew that the information he was getting was biased, but he was used to sifting though slag to get to the core of things. Yes, he mused, life is good. Although… He had to be honest with himself. He missed his work. He missed making a difference. He missed his lab, his humans, his Canis lupus familiaris, and, yes he was mech enough to admit it, he missed his trine. He missed Skywarp’s sparkling-like pranks, he missed Thundercracker’s domineering way of getting him to intake energon, and he even missed those idiotic trine outings that Thundercracker was sure to make him attend every human month.
Lost in homesickness as he was, he missed the quiet hisses of mechs going down ropes. He missed the thumps of their landing. He missed the rumble off their steps. He didn’t miss the sound of one of the four kicking a rock, however. Turning inquisitively to the origin of the sound, he asked,
“Skyfi-”
The rest of what he would have said was lost to history as one of the intruders pressed a hypo-spray to one of the energon lines in his neck and released the sedative.
~~
Miles to the west, Skyfire was making the final descent to a clearing near the entrance of the Ark. Transforming as he landed, he walked the short distance to the Ark. As soon as he entered, Skyfire was able to tell that something was wrong. Walking further in, he started to call out, hoping that someone was around to hear him, and that that someone wasn’t a Decepticon. At a lack of what to do, he headed to his lab, calling out on occasion. He only started to seriously wonder where everyone had gone when he passed the Rec Room and found it empty. This had never happened before. Not even in the middle of a battle was the Rec room abandoned. Skyfire picked up his pace. Perceptor almost never left his lab; he would know what had happened.
Skyfire entered the lab. Empty. He walked over to the terminal on the wall. Teletraan-I would be able to tell him. Preoccupied as he was, he didn’t know anyone else was in his lab until they walked up behind him and injected a sedative into a main energon line in his arm.
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Mirage stared at the unbelievable sight in shock. Skyfire was sitting against one of the walls talking to a seeker perched on his drawn-up knee. That would have been bad enough, but the seeker was Starscream! Skyfire, lovable, friendly, Skyfire, was a spy! Carefully, Mirage backed out of the chamber. He had to get back to the base now, so they could get Skyfire on his return.
~~
It was a dull day in the Decepticon underwater base. So dull, in fact, that even Starscream took the day off to spend it with his trine. This was why there was no-one in the Command Center except for Megatron and Soundwave when Laserbeak came in from patrol.
“Hey, boss.” Laserbeak chortled over her telepathic link with Soundwave, “This one’s a killer, you better hook me up to the computer though, ‘cause you can’t get the full affect through sound only.”
Soundwave, knowing his cassette’s sense of humor, started to anticipate what Laserbeak had dug-up. Quickly he snatched the now-transformed cassette out of the air and connected her to the computer. The large screen light up, and showed the Autobot shuttle Skyfire transforming and landing in a large canyon. Quickly, he walked over to a hole in the ground and dropped down into it. Curious, the cassette followed down the hole. She arrived in time to see sky fire sitting on the ground while listening to Starscream talk about something, they could tell as Laserbeak had been to far away to tell.
Megatron growled with rage. Starscream had betrayed him! Whirling, he stalked to the door, calling though his com to his loyal troops to find Starscream at all costs!
~~
He was found five breems later, in his quarters with his trine watching the latest in a popular holo-vid series, with all the evidence that they had also watched the three previous. According to the security tapes he had been there all day, which lead it-self to an interesting question, if that hadn’t been Starscream, who was it?
~~
The Autobot base was in a state of up-roar. Every mech there was either loudly declaring that ‘they had known it all along’, or was hotly declaring Skyfire’s innocence. The higher officials were all in a meeting, talking about what to do, and the lower forces were about to riot.
In the rec room there were two clear sides, one for finding and interrogating Skyfire to find out what he had leaked to the ‘cons, and one that was hotly declaring Skyfire’s innocence. It was a sad fact, but the first side was larger, and appeared to be winning. The only mechs declaring Skyfire’s innocence were Ratchet, Wheeljack, Perceptor, and, unknown to anyone else, as he was in the security room, Red Alert. Red didn’t believe a word of what was said. He wasn’t the Security Officer for nothing, and he could tell when a mech was playing both sides. He knew about Punch and Dealer, he just made sure that they only got the information that he wanted them to have.
Settling back in his chair, he watched the growing conflict with one optic, scanning the other feeds with the other optic. It would sort itself out in time.
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Perceptor was sitting in the Rec room, with a forgotten energon cube near-by. He was worried about Skyfire, as the mech had been so distant lately. Ever since a little after Sunstreaker got attacked by Starscream, Skyfire had vanished three times, and had just gone again! He was jolted out of his thoughts as Wheeljack sat next to him, asking
“What’s up, Perce?”
“It is like this…”
~~
From Perceptor, to Wheeljack, from Wheeljack, to Ratchet, from Ratchet, to Prowl, from Prowl, to Jazz, and from Jazz, to Mirage, along with a new set of orders, to watch Skyfire, and to follow him the next time he leaves the Ark. Jazz hoped it was nothing more then Skyfire wanting time alone, as Prowl had thought when they discussed it last sleep cycle, but Jazz wasn’t the head of Special Operations for nothing, and among his duties, along with getting information from the Decepticons, was making sure the Decepticons weren’t getting information from them.
~~
Mirage was close to screaming from boredom. There was only so long one could stare at a scientist doing experiments on a piece of algae. Mirage had hit that point one day into this assignment, and he had been here for over one human week. If he had been told to do this by any other mech then Jazz, he would have the requester, in the nicest and most polite terms of course, just where he could stick it. After all, this was one of the worst assignments a mech could get. Infiltration into enemy territory? Easy. A slash and hack into the Decepticon computers? No problem. Stalk Starscream for a month? Did it and got the information needed. Say that you’re going into enemy territory for a unknown amount of time, put your lover through untold amounts of stress, stay invisible no matter what, and keep and eye on the one scientist whose work is the most boring? No, sir.
Mirage jolted himself out of his thoughts as Skyfire stood from where he had been sitting in front of a table covered in unrecognizable objects and walked to the door. Mirage followed, hoping they were headed to the Rec room, he could use a cube.
~~
Well, this defiantly wasn’t the Rec room. Mirage thought wryly as he closed the distance between himself and Skyfire’s tracking chip. All Autobots had one, it was implanted in their first check-up, but only those who needed to know even knew about the chips, and only a few knew any of the codes. Mirage knew one. Skyfire’s. He knew that in the past he had to have known more, but it was standard procedure to have the code manually deleted from his memory core once he returned form the mission using it.
He was only one hundred meters from the tracking chip and he saw the shaft that he had gone into. Checking his radar he froze, there were two pings. One was Skyfire, but the other was unknown. Reaching into his sub-space, he pulled out some metal cable, so that he could rappel down the shaft so he could see the source of this other ping. Landing on the ground, Mirage crept forward, he could hear voices, one ways Skyfire’s, and the other seemed, familiar somehow… Turning the last corner, it was only his many vorns of experience that kept him from making any noise. Jazz was right!
~~
High on the wall of the chamber, un-noticed by anyone inside, Laserbeak perched, recording everything.
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After saying this, the not-Starscream winced and stood up, saying, “Never mind, stupid question, obviously you know me, otherwise, how would you know my name?” Not-Starscream chuckled, “Then again, it might not be a name, and instead be some kind of a curse, although from the way you said it, it seemed as if you were saying a name, am I correct?”
Skyfire nodded and was about to ask why he didn’t know his own name when not-Starscream continued, “So! I’ve a name and someone who knows me, that’s two better then I was before you came.” Skyfire was confused, what did not-Starscream mean, ‘that’s two better then I was before you came’? What did that mean? He was about to ask, when Starscream ploughed on, “I see that you have that same figure on your wings as I do, why? Does it mean something? It’s plain that you are a flyer like myself, does that have to do with it?”
Seizing his chance, and hoping to forestall any more babble, Skyfire spoke quickly, “Yes it means that you are an Autobot like myself. Now, what did you mean, ‘that’s two better then I was before you came’?”
Not-Starscream looked confused, but answered his question easily, “Exactly what it sounds like! The first that I remember was waking up here in this cave a week or so ago, and before that, nothing!” Once he had said this, his pose changed and his hands started gesturing in the air as he started to question Skyfire, “Now what did you mean by ‘Autobot’? Is it the name for the ones with wings? Or is it a name for everyone, even those without wings like my data-base seems to indicate there is? Is it the name of a political party? Is it a job? A birth-place? A-” He cut himself short, “And apparently, I tend to babble when exited, good to know. You know, Babble is such a fun word, Babble: verb, to talk and run on excessiv-” Realizing what he was doing, not-Starscream reached up and covered his mouth, “Shutting up now.”
~~
Starscream could have shouted with glee, after a few dozen years with only his trine-mates to manipulate, he had almost forgotten what a rush it was with someone completely new! Come on… He silently urged, Take the bait, that’s it…
~~
“An Autobot is a mech or femme that wishes to fight against the tyranny of the Decepticons.”
~~
YES!
~~
“Who are these ‘Decepticons’?”
“The Decepticons are a group lead by Megatron…”
~~
Starscream vented air and stared at the roof of the cave, thinking. The main difference between the two worlds, he mused, was who had gone insane. In Starscream’s world Optimus Prime had gone insane. But in Skyfire’s world, for that was the shuttle’s name, it was Megatron who had gone insane. Starscream didn’t want to think about that. Megatron? Insane? Never!
Starscream turned his thoughts to less disturbing paths. Skyfire. Starscream had spent the last few weeks watching both the Autobots and the Decepticons and he had been able to recognize either the name of the build of almost all of them. Skyfire was one of the few exceptions. Turning these thoughts over in his processor, he didn’t realize when he drifted into recharge.
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“So what you are saying is that Starscream ambushed you in Sector Gamma alongside your patrol route, and you managed to fight him off, but he flew off before you could get him in stasis cuffs?”
“That’s right, and he seemed off. It was too easy. It was almost as if he wasn’t used to fighting. He made several mistakes I’ve never seen him make before.”
A pause.
“I will bring this to Prime’s attention. Dismissed.”
~~
Skyfire walked down the canyon. He had been given this route because he was the only one who could see over the sides of the cliffs, or at least, some of the time. It wasn’t as if it mattered, really, the Decepticons rarely ever came around here, and when they did, it was usually someone looking for a place to sulk.
Skyfire scanned his surroundings idly. Cliff, bird, boulder, Cybertronian ping, cactus- Wait, what? He scanned again; yes that definitely was a ping. The ping was oddly familiar as well, as if someone he knew had somehow changed the feel, or shape of their ping…
Skyfire pulled out his rifle from his sub-space, better safe then sorry as the humans said, and cautiously followed the ping. It led him to a capillarity of the canyon where the cliffs went far above his head and there had been mining there in previous years. In fact, the ping was down in one of the old mineshafts, a place where, if his radar was correct, he would have to crouch for the first bit but after that he would be able to stand back up.
He walked to the entrance, a deep hole in the ground really, hesitated a little, and then jumped in, firing his thrusters in order to make a better landing. After landing on the bottom of the shaft, he flicked on his night vision. The ping was coming from further inside the cave. He crouched and walked a few yards, then stood up, the room he had just entered was large enough for him to stand up with space to spare, in fact the cavern was the size of half a football stadium! Caught off guard, he didn’t see the figure lying on the ground until it moved, pushing itself up using its arms.
Skyfire stared at the figure lying there on the ground. The figure looked like Starscream, but Starscream didn’t have blue optics, nor for that matter did he have Autobot symbols on his wings. And yet, he did! He was lying sprawled right in front of him!
“Starscream?” he finally asked, half dreading the answer.
“Who are you?” The figure asked, looking up at him, blue optics bright with confusion, “Do I know you?”
~~
Starscream mentally grinned; everything was going according to plan.
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Starscream had spent the last three weeks observing the Autobots, and hadn’t that been a kick in the head, discovering that they used the same name that he had at home. In his observations, he had determined who would be his target based on the fact that the target had to be a loner, and that their route had to come close to the cliffs he had decided to use in the ambush. He had two choices. One had been, in his home dimension, a Neutral artist of some renown; in fact, Starscream had one of his paintings in his quarters at the base. The other choice had been a complete mystery; Starscream had no clue who the shuttle was. But Starscream had made up his mind. Yes, Starscream grinned, Sunstreaker will do nicely.
~~
Starscream lay on the cliff-side he had decided to call his temporary base of operations. He tried desperately not to move, lest he move something and sent yet another jolt of pain throughout his body. His first mistake, he decided, was to not fully investigate his choice. His second mistake was to think that he could take on a fighter in the first place; after all, he was a Xenoligist, not a fighter, the ongoing war non-withstanding. His final mistake had been in thinking that, despite all evidences to the contrary, the mechs of this universe where anything at all like the ones in his home universe. Starscream didn’t know much about the matter, but he definitely knew that was not the fighting ability of a Neutral, pacifistic artist.
As Starscream lay there, listening to the sounds of his self-repair going over his internals, he allowed himself to think about home, something he had not done in the past weeks of his time in this universe. What would they be doing? Would they still be searching for him? Or would they have given up? Although it made his Spark clench at the thought, Starscream knew it was most likely the latter, after all, there was a war, and the resources were much better spent on other things then a reclusive scientist who was closer to the humans and the animals he studied, then his own trine-mates. They’d still be searching, Starscream knew, but they would give up, once time had reduced their searches to nothing, and they’d find another third. Starscream wished them better luck then they had gotten in him. He held no hope in his return. He knew that this entire endeavor was nothing more then an exercise to keep him from going insane. Turn his mind from the unexpected pity-party, he moved on to his next move. The shuttle. He thought, will be best, and this time, none of Skywarp’s tactics. This time I will think it all through.
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