ighting alongside Soundwave is not my idea of bliss, and it isn’t just because Soundwave, so it’s said, can read my mind. No, I dislike fighting alongside of Soundwave mostly because he’s always so damned calm about it all…and I’m not. It’s petty, I know, but I hate being shown up like that. Soundwave is all, “La dee dah…blam blam blam!…La dee dah…Oh, look! An Autobot. Boom!…La dee dah…” And I’m all, “Oh, dear, sweet Primus, help meeeeeee!”
Quite the contrast, isn’t it?
Of course, I might be much calmer about fighting, too, if I had a small horde of crazed, overzealous, pipsqueak minions to send prancing off to the front lines of a battle in my place…but I don’t have that luxury. So for that reason amongst many others, that serene calm in battle that Soundwave has in spades is something that is far beyond poor, pathetic little Thundercracker’s grasp. In fact, utter panic seems to be more my speed, although I at least hide it well. Usually.
Except from Soundwave, of course , one amused member of the chorus of voices that resides in my head suddenly, cheerfully burbled at me. Which, of course, Soundwave probably “heard.” Which was just…great.
That was the point that I realized that I needed a distraction, and that I needed it like now. Otherwise, those inner voices would take over in full force, which often had a rather paralyzing effect that was quite the handicap in a battle situation. One would think that there would be distractions aplenty in the middle of a pitched battle with the Autobots…but, in my case, one would be wrong about that because I seem to have this peculiar and dubious talent for multitasking. One half of my mind can become fully engaged in cheerfully attempting to blow Autobots to kingdom come while the other half sits back, gets comfortable, and delights in heckling me, wanting to know why I’m blowing Autobots to kingdom come in the first place, much less why I’m enjoying doing so.
The multitasking thing does come in handy at times, though. Like, for instance, right at this very moment, when people are shooting at me but my mind still insists on strolling off down all sorts of interesting philosophical paths. Thanks to that ingrained “sixth sense” of mine, I managed to duck just in time to avoid having my head blown off by a laser blast that one of the Autobots lovingly sent my way. As I straightened up again, I longed more than anything to take to the sky, which was generally the place where I felt the most comfortable and secure and in control and all of those good things. But, at least for the moment, no one else was doing that…
And you don’t want to look like a big, fat chicken. “Ooooh, can’t touch me, ‘cuz I’m waaaaaaay up here, and I move fast!”
“Quiet!” I hissed at myself.
And I hissed it aloud, unfortunately, which prompted Soundwave beside me to shoot a quick glance in my direction. Now, I wouldn’t say that Soundwave looked “oddly” or “questioningly” at me because, when all is said and done, any one glance from Soundwave tends to look pretty much like any other. Expression in any sense of the word is not his forte, and it isn’t just because of the unreadable faceplate and visor that make up his face. No, Soundwave could be deliriously happy or profoundly furious, but you’d never be able to tell the difference from any of his body language or from any sort of inflection in his voice. Still, even though the look Soundwave shot me lacked anything remotely resembling emotional expression, I sensed – or, more likely, feverishly imagined – a faintly disapproving vibe emanating from him…Yeah, he’s thinking, “The schizo’s hearing voices in his head again! Must tell Megatron!”…and used that as a convenient excuse to edge away from him. I didn’t edge away too quickly, though, because the ingrained urge not to appear poultry-like was strong.
But as far as I was concerned, fighting alongside anyone else was preferable to fighting alongside of Soundwave. Fighting alongside that Nightbird thing across the way there was infinitely preferable, even. At least she…or it…or whatever…couldn’t read my mind and probably wouldn’t be interested in doing so anyway. Besides, if I could find any possible excuse to sidle away from Soundwave, I was surely going to take it.
Had I known that the battle would abruptly end about three minutes later, I might not have bothered with the whole effort of moving away from Soundwave. But I didn’t know that the end was near, so to speak, so as quickly as dignity allowed I worked my way away from him. I narrowly dodged multiple laser blasts as I did so, although one of those blasts managed to splat rather painfully against the side of my shoulder, and consequently I ended up heaving myself in a barely-restrained panic behind a convenient group of boulders for some cover. After subsequently climbing to my knees and spitting out a mouthful of Earth’s disgustingly ubiquitous dirt, I fully intended to use that well-defensible position to continue merrily blasting away at the Autobots, even though the battle seemed to be more or less at a stalemate, and stalemate tended to mean that Megatron would shortly call a retreat for some mysterious reason known only to him. And then, of course, we’d all high-tail it back to Headquarters with absolutely nothing to show for our wacky adventures other than, in my case, a blackened right shoulder and a pronounced tendency to avoid Soundwave for the next week or so.
From my position I ended up having a pretty good view of what would be the entirely unexpected end of the battle at hand. Because a moment later, a brief flash of bright red and a splash of sunlight sparkling off of painstakingly-polished silver metal caught my attention, just on the edge of my field of vision. It was Starscream, of course, lurking behind a column of upthrust rock not far away from me, just a bit off to my left. He was avidly watching the battle, apparently waiting for something.
Was I surprised to see him there? Nope. Not one little tiny bit. Starscream, after all, is nothing if not resourceful. And as we’d left our little “secret” base to go rescue a damsel in distress, so to speak, I had highly doubted that our illustrious Air Commander would manage to remain caged and meekly awaiting Megatron’s victorious return. For some reason, I didn’t think Megatron thought that Starscream would stay caged, either…but that’s an entirely different and much creepier issue. In any case, there Starscream suddenly was, as if on cue.
And so, several minutes later, in the wake of Starscream nailing Nightbird with his null ray – or so I presumed, at least, since she merely collapsed in an askew heap instead of ending up in a zillion scattered bits – and after Megatron, predictably, dove into a tearing rage as a result, we were all ordered simply to get Starscream. So we had all obediently taken off after his rapidly-retreating form. Starscream being Starscream, however, he quickly left us all in the proverbial dust, so we were all reduced to hunting him down like a pack of completely clueless hounds pursuing a particularly sly fox. Each Decepticon went his own separate way in the hope of reeling in the prize catch of the day because catching that prize would curry tremendous – though naturally quite temporary – favor with our glorious leader. Of course, Skywarp and I stuck together. Favor for one of us was favor for the other. Sort of, anyway. That was one of the good things about being half of a package deal. Besides, two sets of sensors were better than one. Or they would have been, at least, if we were really inclined to actively search for our wayward wingmate. Which we weren’t.
Not that it mattered what Skywarp and I wanted to do, of course. What mattered was that Megatron had – as usual when it came to Starscream at his most outrageously uppity – completely switched mental gears in the space of a nanosecond. Suddenly, he didn’t care at all about the Autobots, nor did he care about a chip containing information about Earth’s myriad energy resources or about a usefully-dim human-made robot. Megatron suddenly didn’t care about those other things because Starscream had shown up and had had the unmitigated gall to steal Megatron’s thunder. That was all that mattered to Megatron. Well, that and the prospect of making Starscream pay for his audacity, of course…
It was amazing to me how often the strange dueling-egos dynamic between Megatron and Starscream tended to interfere with the smooth, orderly progression of the Glorious Decepticon Cause. As far as I was concerned, if either of them knew – or cared – what was really good for said cause, they’d knock it the hell off. And personally, reflecting on the whole thing while theoretically searching for Starscream, I wished to Primus that they would knock it off… Of course, I didn’t make that wish for the sake of The Cause. More and more often, I found that I couldn’t care less about The Cause. I made the wish solely for the sake of my own sanity.
… If you can still be considered “sane,” that is, one of the voices suddenly burbled at me. It could be argued that sane people don’t generally hear – much less occasionally have extended conversations with – resident voices in their heads, you know…
I sighed inwardly at the voice without having an extended conversation with it this time because at that particular moment, a flash of black suddenly appeared out of nowhere and then whizzed by me, which adequately served to interrupt the disordered, brooding, and distracted chain into which my thoughts, such as they were, had settled. Skywarp looped lazily around me and then serenely settled himself just off my right wing, where he usually tended to hover whenever we flew together. He had flitted off somewhere for a while. My broody silence had no doubt had the effect of boring him to death, and he’d quickly tired of his usual game of verbally poking at me when the poking had no detectable result. So, off he had teleported to Primus-knew-where where he had done Primus-knew-what for half an hour or so. But, like a big black-and-purple homing pigeon, he had inevitably returned to my side, where he belonged. And he was even quiet for a moment as he flew there alongside me, silently pacing me. But, Skywarp being Skywarp, his silence lasted only a short moment.
“Like the saying goes…” he said, his tone of voice typically cheerful, “’Penny for your thoughts?’”
“I don’t think they’re worth a penny,” I sullenly growled back at Skywarp, without thinking.
My rather snappish tone seemed to take Skywarp by surprise; he was uncharacteristically quiet for several long moments after I’d spoken. But then he finally and rather smugly announced, “I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah,” Skywarp replied. “You’re thinking, ‘What are we going to do if we find him?’”
“Your psychic powers are truly stunning today, Skywarp,” I answered sourly, but Skywarp merely snickered at my grumpiness.
“Whoa! Grouch alert!” he teased lightly.
I made an exasperated noise at that, thought about making the effort to come up with a witty retort, but then ended up simply answering dispiritedly, “Grouchiness…is just what I do.”
Skywarp made a weary and slightly rude noise back at me.
“Like I don’t know that already?” he grumbled ruefully, and then a moment of silence followed while Skywarp apparently thought about things. Again. But, like his previous silence, Skywarp’s bout of thinking lasted only a moment, too. “Sooooo…” he tentatively ventured. “What are we going to do if we find him, Thundercracker?”
Well, wasn’t that just the billion-dollar question? And I certainly didn’t know the answer to it. I’d been thinking about it for quite a while now, as we’d searched for Starscream without, admittedly, putting all that much serious effort into the task, but I hadn’t come up with any definitive answers. So…
“I have absolutely no idea, Skywarp,” I answered truthfully.
“Do we…bring him in?” Skywarp asked after a moment of silence between us, his voice tinged with an odd and uncharacteristic uncertainty. “If we find him, I mean. And I really hope we don’t find him, you know, because then we’ll have to decide what to do with him which will be kind of a hard decision to make, because…Well, I don’t know about you, but—“
“Skywarp?” I interrupted wearily.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up,” I said without heat. “I can’t hear myself think with all the babbling.”
“Sorry,” Skywarp answered, although he didn’t sound at all apologetic. Amused, yes; apologetic, no. “Babbling’s what I do,” he added brightly.
“Like I don’t know that already?” I immediately fired back, attempting though not quite achieving the same sort of light tone that Skywarp had used a moment ago. “And to answer your question,” I continued in a decidedly heavier tone, “I don’t know whether we should bring him in or not, either.”
Another long moment of silence hovered between us, lasting until Skywarp again chose to break it.
“OK,” Skywarp suddenly declared. “I think we should bring him in.”
Because, you see, Megatron isn’t the only one in the universe who can switch mental gears in half a nanosecond flat. Skywarp is another master of that particular art form, as he’d just demonstrated. Only a moment before, he’d been tentative, uncertain, but now his voice was suddenly ringing with the familiar and, to me, comforting decisiveness that I deeply admired in him.
Except, of course, when it completely pissed me off.
“You would,” I snapped, my tone of voice, in hindsight, regrettably harsh.
Sometimes, it is a total pain in the thruster to be bonded to one of Megatron’s favorites. After all, because of that exalted status that he enjoys, Skywarp’s first, unconscious impulse is always to "toe the party line," as it were. Even if he wasn’t intensely loyal to Megatron – and I know that he is, and I even understand why he is – the fact is that, since he’s favored, Skywarp hardly ever sees any reason to question doing anything that strikes Megatron’s fancy. Whereas I, of course, question everything, at least in my head if not out loud. In that sense, Skywarp and I balance each other well, as we do in so many other ways.
On the other hand, though…Well, most of the serious arguments that Skywarp and I have had have arisen out of that very basic difference between us, the difference between his blind, unquestioning loyalty to Megatron and my eternal doubtfulness. We argue about Megatron and his direction…or we argue about Starscream, who has a singular, unerring talent for bringing out the worst in both of us, usually at the worst of times. And this time, in a sense, we were arguing about both of them at once.
“Well, why shouldn’t we bring him in?” Skywarp was answering me now, his tone suddenly defensive. His defensiveness was, under the circumstances, quite understandable. I’d served the first volley of general snippiness, and it wasn’t surprising that he would lob attitude right back at me in return. Understanding Skywarp’s surly defensiveness didn’t at all prevent me from being annoyed, though.
“Because you damn well know what will happen if we do, Skywarp!” I informed him, way more harshly than I'd intended. I was, in fact, yelling at him.
Had we not been flying, Skywarp likely would have physically recoiled from the tone of my voice. He wasn’t used to hearing me yell, after all. No one was, really. But I was yelling now, and I disliked myself for doing so. I was just about to say so to Skywarp, too, just about to apologize for my black mood and for my yelling and for my general surliness…but Skywarp spoke up before I could do so.
“I know," he said quietly and, to his credit, not at all angrily. His voice, in fact, was nothing if not full of weary understanding. "Of course I know, TC,” he continued softly, almost soothingly, before adding a bit of steel to his voice as he finished, “But I also know that it’s notour business. In fact, it’s neverbeen our business.”
“True…” I grumbled unhappily. And then I added after an uneasy stretch of silence, “But maybe we should make it our business.”
“TC…” Skywarp responded warningly.
“I mean,” I continued, heedless of Skywarp’s sudden, obvious discomfort with the turn our conversation had taken, “I don’t know how much longer I can just sit back and…and just do nothing…”
“Aw, c’mon, TC,” Skywarp cajoled me, trying as usual to yank me back from the brink of all-consuming self-doubt. “Don’t go all weird and heroic on me. It really doesn’t suit that-there symbol on your wing, y'know.”
“Skywarp,” I growled warningly. “Don’t. Start.”
“Start what?!” Skywarp responded exasperatedly. When I didn’t answer, he eventually made a weary, resigned noise at me and continued, “Look… TC… This has been going on, like…forever between those two. You know that. If either one of them was really unhappy with the…uh, situation…don’t you think one or the other of them would’ve actually gone ahead and done something about it by now? If nothing else, Screamer’s had squillions of chances to bump off Megatron – and vice versa – but neither of them has ever quite managed to pull it off, have they? So that tells me that neither of them really wants to bump off the other, for whatever strange reasons they have in their wee little heads.”
I chewed on Skywarp’s words for quite a long while. He was right, at least in that Starscream and Megatron had indeed been combative for as long as I’d known both of them. For a long time, I hadn’t thought all that much about it. Physical discipline had always been a part of "Decepticon Standard Operating Procedure," it seemed, at least so long as Megatron was around, and he didn’t make exceptions for anyone. I’d been on the receiving end of it myself more than a few times. But still, with Megatron and Starscream it was different. The undercurrent between them was different, the words harsher, the gestures more exaggerated, and the punishments for perceived insults more severe. It just wasn’t…right. That was the word. It wasn’t right.
And, in fact, the friction between Megatron and Starscream has only gotten worse over the last couple of years, ever since we’d awakened on Earth after a four-million-year-long nap. It’s been a rough stretch of time for all of us. Simply adjusting to life on a different planet, one with a completely different sort of environment than we were used to, has been difficult enough; finding ways to use the planet to our advantage adds a whole new and interesting level of stress. There have been many setbacks along the way, some at the hands of the Autobots, most just because things didn’t go precisely as well as Megatron had originally envisioned. There are too many variables on this planet, too many bizarre differences from Cybertron, too many unknowns, too many natives who seem completely random and illogical. So, I tend to think that Megatron often feels insecure and out of control here on Earth, where everything around him is unfamiliar, uncomfortable, unpredictable and, quite possibly, completely uncontrollable. And in the end, Starscream pays a high price for Megatron’s insecurity. Because so far as I can figure, Megatron takes great comfort in the knowledge that, even if everything else is spinning wildly out of his ability to control, he can still completely control every aspect of Starscream’s life.
And that notion makes me uncomfortable.
Starscream and I aren't exactly what I’d call friends. We’re wingmates because he and I have proven that we can work well together, along with Skywarp, and that relationship does tend to tie both Skywarp and me to Starscream much more closely than to anyone else in Decepticon Headquarters. I wouldn’t characterize it as a friendly relationship between the three of us, though. If nothing else, Skywarp and Starscream, fueled by a deep and abiding mutual jealousy, often bring out the very worst in each other and have been known, from time to time, to be at each other’s throats. But even besides that…I’m not really sure that Starscream is capable of forming friendships. He has a distinct tendency to push people away instead, often rather violently. I’m not sure if he does it unconsciously, if it’s just the inevitable outcome of his general snotty, superior attitude…or if that snotty, superior attitude is something that he deliberately constructed, that’s specifically designed to prevent people from getting too close to him. Whatever the case, Starscream always holds himself aloof, never sharing much of himself with anyone. And, as Skywarp had pointed out, he does nothing, really, to change his situation with Megatron, leading me to share Skywarp’s belief that on some level – possibly an unconscious level that he doesn’t recognize himself – Starscream doesn’t really wish to change that situation at all. But still…
Watching Starscream and Megatron interact in public is a painful thing to watch, and the thought of what goes on between them when they aren’t in public is, at best, extremely uncomfortable to contemplate. But my lot in life seems to be to contemplate things, and it’s usually the really uncomfortable things that most often torment my restless, argumentative little mind. In the past, whenever I had contemplated the situation between Megatron and Starscream, I had always managed to convince myself that it wasn’t my place to interfere with their whole…thing. Annoying “heroic” instincts notwithstanding, I knew that to get between the two of them was to court reprisals from both of them. So, with all that in mind, I had to ask myself why I was now so torn in the wake of this latest incident. It was really no different than the other major incidents that seemed to punctuate Megatron and Starscream’s exceedingly odd love/hate relationship with each other.
Once again, for what was at least the hundred-thousandth time, Starscream had deliberately gotten himself into hot water. Extreme jealousy had been driving him, I suspected. He had obviously perceived Nightbird’s presence as a threat to his lion’s share of Megatron’s attention, had obviously bought into Megatron’s threats to replace him. If he’d stopped and thought about it for even half a second, though, he would have realized how utterly ridiculous that notion was. The problem, of course, was that Starscream sometimes doesn’t think, not even for a moment. It was true that, if one managed to scratch the thick outer shell of Starscream’s arrogant standoffishness and catch him a bit off-guard, one quickly discovered that he was rather unexpectedly brilliant. Devastatingly perceptive, even. As a former scientist, I suppose he had to be. But unfortunately for him his emotions and reactions often seem random, completely unpredictable. The end result is that his chaotic thoughts and reactions usually tend to override his admittedly impressive higher thought processes, just as they had this time.
And this time Starscream had, as usual, made the decision to make trouble all on his own. No one had forced the decision upon him. He had no one to blame but himself. So why shouldn’t he have to accept the consequences of that decision? That was the question that was plaguing me, that I was asking myself over and over as I struggled with sudden misgivings toward the entire situation. But I knew that it wasn’t my place to intervene…
Or is it?
I heaved a silent, resigned sigh at that nagging little voice.
Second guess, second guess. That’s all you ever do , I peevishly informed it in return. Damned annoying, the voices were at times.
“I can see the little wheels turning in your little head, TC,” Skywarp suddenly singsonged at me.
Being caught thinking and second-guessing is almost worse than the second-guessing itself. Unfortunately, Skywarp is really good at, among other things, catching me while I was thinking. It’s almost as if he specifically watched for it, has some sort of radar for it…
But then, all unexpectedly, a gruff voice – Megatron’s – interrupted my thoughts and our conversation, such as it was. And in one way, the news that Megatron conveyed to us was welcome. In another way, however, it made me cringe to my very core.
“Starscream has been found—“ Megatron rumbled without preamble over the general Decepticon communications frequency. His voice sounded tinny and distant, but at the same time it held a curious combination of satisfaction and cold, quiet rage. The latter made me mentally wince.
“Oh, praise Primus and pass the peanuts!” Skywarp was happily whooping, meanwhile, drowning out whatever it was that Megatron said after that.
“—are to return to base immediately,” Megatron was ordering flatly as Skywarp was finishing his whooping.
But as Skywarp and I banked in perfect, unconscious unison and headed for home, I realized that, this time, I wasn’t looking forward to going home at all…