ometimes I can be quite…presumptuous, I suppose is a good word for it. Whenever a problem arises, I tend to think long and hard about it until I arrive at a reasonable and satisfactory resolution to the problem at hand, whatever it is. This, of course, is not a bad thing. The problem, though, is that once I decide upon that resolution to a problem, I am usually so certain that the solution that I’ve devised is the only correct one that I often miss vitally important elements in the original problem. In short, in arrogantly presuming that I have reached the only logical solution to a problem at hand, I have a tendency to very often miss the blazingly obvious.
And as I unpacked my gear and began to put it in some semblance of order, it occurred to me that Starscream, long ago, had been the one who had often pointed out to me exactly those blind spots in my careful, methodical reasoning. He had always had the innate and, to me, completely incomprehensible ability to get to the very heart of any problem almost instantly, to understand it fully without becoming mired in endless hours of analysis, and to solve it in what seemed to me to be the blink of an eye. That insight was a quality that I had very quickly come to admire and to rely upon. So now that Starscream wasn’t around, I felt bereft and anchorless and incomplete. That feeling of incompleteness pervaded, of course, many different levels, but at the moment, I was very much missing Starscream’s unique brand of insight, the kind that would likely quickly solve the problem that my mind had been chewing on over the past several weeks. Except, of course, that the problem involved Starscream himself, and he’d already proven that he couldn’t solve this problem himself…but I put that thought carefully aside, moving on to the next one.
Starscream had always understood people and their emotions so well. That had always been an understanding that was far beyond my own grasp, although I had certainly come to take Starscream’s knack for understanding people for granted, all those years ago. In truth, I had to rely on him because, if left to my own devices, I tended to handle individuals and troubling situations like I would handle a box full of disorganized spare parts. I would patiently and emotionlessly dissect, organize, and categorize everything and everyone, put them in their proper place, and then the problem was solved or the person was safely placed in his niche. No emotional attachment or empathy was necessary. Simple, clear, logical, detached thinking was all that was required to handle any person or any problem. Or so I thought, at least.
That sort of detached analysis was exactly what I had been doing concerning the issue of the current Starscream. Ever since the incident in the Arctic several weeks before, I had been determined to find a way to remove my former mate from his situation with Megatron. I had had a long time to think about the problem, since it had taken me a while to choose where I was going to set up my base, so after much careful thought, I had reached a reasonable solution and was quite confident that Starscream would understand and accept it. I had only to find him again, at an opportune time, when he was alone...
That time, I knew, would come eventually. For now, I contented myself with setting up my temporary camp on a small, deserted island in the Indonesian archipelago, an environment that was as far from the arctic as I could possibly find. And it was remote, as well, which I found somehow comforting. There were no humans for hundreds of miles in all directions. My only companions were the ubiquitous sea birds that inhabited the area and the waves that constantly crashed on the shore. Others might have thought it lonely and desolate, but here…here, in this place, I was at peace. I belonged here, as much as one such as I could belong anywhere on a bizarrely alien planet such as Earth. I was content. I even hummed a mindless tune while I worked.
I had just set up and turned on the small solar-powered energon generator that Wheeljack had given me just before I had left the Autobots, when I heard the distant sound of low-flying jet engines. Alarmed, thinking that the Decepticons may have discovered me, I backed up against the beach cliffs, concealing my bulk as best I could, and drew my gun. I looked up, squinted into the midday sun, and I felt a twinge of joy when I saw the familiar color and shape of the rapidly approaching red and silver F-15. I put my weapon away, but still stayed close to the cliffs as Starscream landed and transformed. After being shot twice by Starscream recently, I had learned that it was best to keep a little distance between us until he had made his intentions clear.
As I watched Starscream come in for an easy, graceful landing, I wondered, briefly, how he had managed to find me. I had used the bond between us to find him in the Arctic, and I imagined that he could have done the same to find me. It seemed odd, though; Starscream had been so adamant about the bond between us being dead, extinguished as though it had never been, that I couldn’t imagine him actively using it in order to find me. Was it a subconscious use of it, perhaps…?
I supposed that I would just have to wait and see if I could find out the answer to my questions. I couldn’t imagine Starscream coming here unless he intended to talk to me, so…talk to him, I would. Before that, though…I wanted some idea of what I was in for, so for a while, I just watched him, curious about what he would do now that he was here.
Starscream appeared to be in better shape than he had been at our last encounter. From my position, I could see no obvious injuries, and his movements were smooth and sure. He stood in the spot where he had landed for a long moment, glancing distastefully around my makeshift camp and the energon generator, taking in everything around him. Then, finally, he looked at me, right at me. There was no mistaking the look he gave me; his whole bearing seemed pensive and dark. Then, without saying a word, he walked over to a large storage container that I had not had a chance to empty yet, turned his back to me, and sat down on it. I watched him for a few moments, thinking that he’d eventually turn around and say something to me, tell me whatever it was that was on his mind…but he didn’t.
So, I warily approached him and even more warily sat down on a large boulder next to the storage container. Now that I was closer to him, I saw the telltale signs of newer damage that had been inflicted on him, no doubt by Megatron during one of his perverted temper tantrums. Starscream’s red paint was scratched off in several places and he had a few odd looking dents here and there. Although these new injuries were not nearly as severe as the previous ones I had seen, it still distressed me greatly to see them, even more so because I knew that Starscream, for some reason was allowing that sort of damage to be inflicted upon him. Before he had left me in the Arctic, he had said that I would never understand him. I hoped that that did not prove true…but at that moment, if pressed, I would have had to admit that Starscream, as deeply and intimately as I knew him on one level, was a complete stranger to me on every other level.
I watched him as he just sat there, looking down at the sand around his feet, his arms folded tightly across his chest. I couldn’t see his face because he was looking down and I was looming above him, but I could easily imagine the scowl that must have adorned it. Such an expression would, after all, match the anger that was radiating from him in almost palpable waves. Still, even though I knew that there was something bothering him profoundly…There was so much I wanted to say to him, anyway, so many things I wanted to ask. Our last encounter had revealed much about Starscream’s current life, but it also left me with many more questions, questions far more disturbing than the few for which I had found answers. There was so much I still did not understand, but I was determined to return things to rights in whatever way I could. I decided to start by breaking the silence between us.
“I see you have taken some minor damage, Starscream,” I said neutrally. “I have been collecting medical equipment for the past several weeks and—”
His head still hanging down, Starscream interrupted me with a dismissive wave of his hand, claiming that he didn’t need my help, that Megatron had just lost a powerful potential energon resource on some strange, remote island, and that he had a tendency to knock everyone around when something like that happened. The story only made me sigh in resignation. Starscream was making excuses, and I suddenly felt a strong desire to point out that fact to him.
“But…he does not appear to ‘knock everyone around’ in quite the same way that he does to you, Starscream,” I observed quietly, and as Starscream’s gaze slid sideways to regard me with what appeared to me to be thoughtfulness, I added hurriedly, to take advantage of his perhaps thoughtful mood, “Why are you defending his actions? Why are you making excuses for him?”
I thought perhaps I had asked too bold and demanding of a question, and I expected a fiery response, but instead Starscream acted as if he had not heard me at all. He had jerked his gaze up to meet mine as I had spoken to him, but now his gaze moved away from me and settled with a far-away look in his eyes on the blue-green ocean spread out in front of him.
“Someday, Skyfire…” he said quietly, almost dreamily. “Someday, I will catch him when he is at his weakest. I’ll destroy him and then take my rightful place as leader of the Decepticons. Then there’ll be no more failed missions, no more retreats. Only victories. My victories.”
I sighed heavily. This was the “new” Starscream who was speaking, the Starscream whom I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know. His obsession with power was disturbing. I was certain that Megatron had implanted it in him because it certainly hadn’t been there when I had known Starscream. I leaned forward and tried to get Starscream to look at me while I spoke, but he stubbornly kept his gaze fixed on the watery expanse in front of us.
“But don’t you see, Starscream?” I said imploringly. “Megatron knows that you are not a threat to him.” He looked at me in that sideways manner again, his mouth twisting in an expression that was half question and half disdain. He said nothing, though, so I continued, “He dangles the possibility of leadership in front of you like bait in a trap, and every time you take that bait, he ensnares you and pulls you farther in. He is a manipulator, Starscream, an individual who lives for those sorts of games. He tried them with me once, and he failed. And I think he has been playing them with you for so long now that you are completely unable to see them for what they are.”
For a brief moment, Starscream’s face softened, and he tilted his head just slightly to the side, appearing to consider the words I had spoken. I should have closed my mouth then. I should have let the words that I had said sink in. I should have allowed Starscream to come to his own conclusions. But I didn’t stop. I wanted so badly for him to see the truth. I wanted the beatings and the pain and the lies to stop. Most of all, I wanted him back with me, where I knew that he truly belonged, where he would be safe, where I could protect him for the rest of my life. So in my ignorance and self-assuredness, in my arrogant assumption that I had all the answers and that Starscream would heed me because I was right and he was wrong, I continued to speak.
“Megatron will never love you as I love you, Starscream,” I told him. “He is full of nothing but hatred and anger and greed. He is not capable of giving you what you deserve.” I reached over and laid my hand on Starscream’s shoulder, continuing to speak passionately, relentlessly, ignoring the fact that he flinched deeply when I touched him. “Megatron will not always be there for you, Starscream,” I continued relentlessly. “Not like I will. Eventually, he will find it more prudent to leave you than to keep you. If he does not kill you, Starscream, he will desert you somewhere.”
I realized too late that I had pushed Starscream too far. His shoulder stiffened in my grasp, and his eyes suddenly blazed a few shades brighter with a fury the likes of which I had not seen since I had refused his order to execute several Autobots in the Arctic shortly after my reactivation. Growling, he swung an arm around and slapped my hand off his shoulder before standing and facing me. His whole body was shaking in pure rage as he pointed an accusing finger in my direction.
“You are a fine one to speak to me of abandonment, Skyfire!” he spat contemptuously at me. “You left me a long time ago, and you’ve been gone for millions of years! Megatron has never deserted me, but you certainly have! Twice now, in fact!”
With that, he folded his arms defiantly across his chest and glared malevolently up at me. I could only stare back, open-mouthed, at him. I was shocked and confused at his reaction. Once again he was defending the one who I believed brought him so much pain, and I could not understand that at all.
“But Starscream, he…hurts…you,” I said, in a small, bewildered, hesitant voice. It was all I could think of to say as I recalled my experience in the Arctic, when I had inadvertently experienced a mere symbolic, surreal image of what Starscream went through on a regular basis with Megatron, of what he had been going through for I knew not how many years now. Why did he not see that his life was in danger? Why did he not see that he did not deserve the type of treatment that he received at Megatron’s hands? It was completely incomprehensible to me.
“No, Skyfire,” Starscream was saying, meanwhile, in a deceptively calm and almost patronizing voice. “You hurt me. You hurt me far worse than anything that Megatron could ever do to me. I trusted you, you see. And you threw that trust away like so much scrap when you decided that taking a risk to satisfy your damned scientific curiosity was more important than staying together. You insisted on doing that, you know. And I nearly killed myself looking for you after you crashed. I barely made it back to Cybertron because I was so desperate to find you. I searched as long as I possibly could. But you had deserted me. You deserted me last year, too, but worse than that, you deserted me long, long ago…” For a moment he seemed to slip into a trance, and he seemed to look right through me, as he added in a near-whisper, “And Megatron found me…”
His words, like the fangs of a cobra, pierced me to my very core. And just as snake venom paralyzes the snake’s prey, the poisonous implications of what Starscream had said slowly worked their way to my brain, causing a sort of mental paralysis.
Starscream was right. He had said weeks ago in the Arctic that his current situation was my fault. I had not at all understood what he had meant then, but now I knew that he was horribly, dreadfully right. Sudden waves of guilt crashed over me as Starscream stared angrily at me. His expression demanded a response, but I was certain that I would not be able to formulate a suitable one. Still, I tried.
“But…there were…I mean, I…I did not know…” I stammered feebly.
Starscream’s scowl deepened – if that was possible – at that, his eyes shooting lasers into mine as his fury continued to burn.
“Don’t give me that!” he spat contemptuously. “You knew exactly what you were doing, Skyfire. You knew the standard procedures for entering the atmosphere of an unknown planet with unstable and unpredictable weather patterns. I still remember them even now! And I reminded you about them back then, too. Repeatedly! But noooo! You insisted that we look closer, caution be damned. You and your damned stubbornness, your stupid need to know! You called me silly for being fearful. You wouldn’t listen to me. Why does no one ever listen to me?!”
Silence hung between us for a moment after Starscream’s plaintive last question. Neither of us said anything during that moment, I because I could think of nothing to say in my own defense, he because he needed to catch his breath in order to finish his tirade. His face wrought with an all-consuming fury, Starscream raised a trembling fist and pointed a laser rifle at the center of my chest, point blank range. For some reason, perhaps because my thoughts were otherwise reeling, my attention was morbidly drawn to the way the bright sunlight glinted from the weapon’s sleek curves and angles.
“I…hate…you!” Starscream growled quietly, meanwhile, his voice seeming to come from deep down in his chest, from deep down in his soul. And somehow, that seemed worse to me than if he had yelled the words at the top of his voice.
Time seemed to stand still as once again I looked down into the barrel of my former mate’s gun. All of my carefully thought out deductions, all of my logical reasoning, my simplistic rationality, had suddenly come crashing down around me in a worthless, shameful heap. In my arrogance, I had thought that I could solve all of Starscream’s problems with a few warm sentiments and a stream of loving, softly-spoken, supportive words. As if a few words could heal all of the damage that had been done him.
How, I wondered as I stared at Starscream’s weapon, could I be so very blind?
I looked into the eyes of the person that I loved more than life itself, and I saw only anger and pain in them. Pain of which I had been the ultimate cause, of course. And I thought, at that moment, that I deserved nothing less than death, that perhaps my death would be true justice. If killing me would bring Starscream some measure of happiness, however fleeting, then I was completely willing to submit to him, to sacrifice myself.
But just at the moment that I had reached that conclusion, that I had decided to tell Starscream, in all seriousness, to kill me, that I had locked my gaze calmly and levelly with his in preparation for my death, Starscream cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at me, raptly studying my face for a moment that seemed to last forever.
“I know that look,” he said flatly after a long moment of staring at me. “You’re thinking, aren’t you? Well, that’s just marvelous!” he announced as he threw up his arms in frustration. “I guess some things really never change, do they?” He paused and crossed his arms over his chest then, and an icy coolness settled over him as he watched me, replacing the fiery rage of a moment before. “Fine, then,” he said with a distinct chill in the tone of his voice. “You think about it, Skyfire. You think about all of it. You think long and hard about what you did. Perhaps someday you’ll understand. But know this: What we had in the past means nothing to me anymore. Do you understand me? Nothing! That’s what I came here to tell you today. So just stay away from me. Leave me alone. In fact, you can sit here and rot on this Primus-forsaken beach for all I care, because I’m never returning!”
He spun around then, transformed, and took off, his afterburners kicking up hot sand into my face. I hardly felt it, though. My mind was reeling in shock, and my body was entirely numb. I listened as the sound of Starscream’s jet engines grew fainter and more distant, until once again I could hear only the rhythmic crashing of the waves on the shoreline and the cries of the screeching seabirds that circled high overhead.
Now it was my turn to stare down at the sand around my feet. I felt completely broken, utterly desolate, wondering how I could have been so foolish? I had betrayed Starscream’s trust not once, but twice, first when I stubbornly ignored his advice and ended up trapped in a polar ice cap on a then-uninhabited planet and then again when he and his comrades had revived me and I had subsequently turned my back on him and joined the Autobots, his enemies. And now I just expected him to trust me, to return to me as if nothing had happened? What had I been thinking? My own self-righteousness, my own stubborn and rigid sense of right and wrong, had caused me to be blinded to the truth, blinded to Starscream and his situation.
And why had Starscream not killed me just then? I was convinced that I certainly deserved it. But perhaps he was right, after all. Perhaps this was the best punishment for the crimes that I had committed against him: To sit…and think…and dwell…