Chapter Text
He wondered vaguely how long he had been here. He had a strange idea that it had been a long time. Certainly he had a lot of memory files, but they were all the same. Was it a very long time? Or was it just one memory file which had become corrupted, and duplicated multiple times? The number on his chronometer was meaningless--it had glitched badly during one of his early struggles, and now operated only sporadically. He had never prioritised its repair. Secretly, he did not want to know how long he had been here for.
It certainly felt like it had been a long time.
Starscream stared at the featureless darkness in front of him. The space was just sufficient for him to move his arms across his cockpit, although he couldn't stretch them out wide. His peds had no such range of movement, they had been shackled down with heavy chains, and his thrusters disabled. His wings were also pinned, only they were held in place not by chains, but by a couple of thick bolts which had been hammered through the delicate metal. For a long time the pain had been his companion, but the wounds had healed, and only a fine coat of dried energon from the ruptured fuel lines was left. He could not turn his helm, some sort of wedge either side kept him facing straight ahead, and the thin tube which delivered his Energon rested by his audio receptor.
Starscream pulled the tube towards his mouth, sucking hard to encourage the flow of Energon. The stuff was viscous and of very low quality, probably created as a by-product from one of the ships functions. A normally functioning mech could not survive on it for longer than a few cycles, but a mech trapped in a box, with no way of escape, was not using much energy.
A wave of fear hit him suddenly, and he whimpered softly. He had been here a long, long time, of that he was sure, and he was going to deactivate here without anyone ever knowing. It was not a new thought, but it tormented him occasionally, when he least expected it. When the pain had been bad it had been easy to ignore, and push it to the back of his processor, but the pain had gone now, and it was no longer so easy to suppress. He knew that the Decepticons had all but forgotten him, and that, despite what he told himself about malfunctioning chronometers and glitched memory files, he had been here a very, very long time!
Hooking his digits into claws he raked them down the thin metal of his wings, letting pain replace the fear. The ever decreasing core of his sanity warned that this was a temporary respite, and he tore at his wings again, disused vocaliser emitting an eerie howl.
*************
“Anything else?” Optimus Prime asked, preparing to bring the briefing to a close. Since the end of the war, the regular meetings of the Autobot command staff had become less frequent, and endless reports had replaced the tactical discussions and preparing of crew rotas. Bringing Cybertron back to peace and prosperity was a long, sometimes troubled, process, but it was beginning to come together, albeit slowly. The Prime glanced around the table, nodding when his chief medical officer indicated that he had something to add.
“I have a point to raise Prime, it is about our prisoners.” The attention of every mech in the room focused on Ratchet. The imprisonment of the higher ranked Decepticons, pending a properly constituted court to assess their crimes, had been agreed by every Autobot present. After the death of Megatron, the faction had split into several different groups, and rounding up and interrogating them all was an ongoing process. Many had already been released to perform useful tasks rebuilding Cybertron, too thankful to have escaped the ultimate probable fate of their superiors to complain about the restrictions placed upon them.
“I am worried about the effect of captivity on the Decepticon flyers.” Ratchet’s voice interrupted his musing.
“You are being needlessly officious!” announced Red Alert without a trace of irony. “My observations show absolutely nothing to be concerned about. The flyers, and the Seekers in particular, are the only Decepticons who do not cause the security team any problems!”
“That is what worries me!” Ratchet snapped back. “Remember how they behaved when we first brought them in?” Red Alert took on a slightly blank expression as he replayed the cached memory files before answering.
“They required medical attention for self inflicted injuries every orn,” he mused, “but I don’t see why that should worry you.”
“I’ve had no incidents reported by any of the duty medics for a full Earth month,” replied Ratchet, “and I think that there is something seriously wrong.”
“They have just got used to being locked up,” suggested Red Alert, “Nothing to worry about at all.” But Ratchet was shaking his helm in disagreement.
“On what do you base this assumption? Give me facts, Ratchet,” interrupted Optimus before Ratchet could answer. Wordlessly, the medic plugged a data pad into the port of the console in front of him and brought up a hololithic display. There were five images visible, all in compressed real time. The assembled mechs watched, some blankly, some with concern, and Ratchet with a sort of troubled resignation. In the replay Skywarp sat rocking endlessly, servos clenched around his thrusters, his legs drawn up against his cockpit. Thundercracker paced an unvarying track back and forth across his little cell, five regular steps in each direction. Dirge lay on his berth, unmoving, optics gazing unfocussed at the ceiling. Ramjet was seated on the side of his berth, arms hanging limply, also staring at nothing. Thrust was scratching at the metal plates of one wall, dragging his fingers down them in a way which made Optimus very glad that the file had no audio. The footage displayed cycled through a full orn, the Seekers not varying their motions until the energon cube that made up their ration was placed in the cell. Skywarp ignored the energon, but the other four drank it down, uncaring of its low quality. Ratchet stopped the recording.
“That was last orn.” he announced “Red, has Skywarp taken the cube he was given earlier?” Red Alert’s optics unfocussed again as he called up the data.
“No…” he said slowly. Ratchet nodded as if this was what he had expected. “Dirge and Ramjet have also failed to refuel this orn.” All optics in the room turned to Ratchet, who dropped the data pad he had been holding.
“We have a problem here Prime!”
Optimus nodded, “Is this a deliberate hunger strike? If so, how are they coordinating it? They are all in separate cells.” He glanced at Red Alert who nodded sharply, glitch beginning to kick in at the mere suspicion of a security threat. “Jazz.” Optimus turned to his head of intelligence, “Did any of them say anything when they were questioned?”
“’Fraid not!” replied Jazz, after a moment of calling up his own files. “None of ‘em would say anything. Kept their vocalisers muted.” his visor flashed briefly in remembered irritation, “’Cept Thundercracker. He said that no Seeker would speak to ‘n Autobot out of respect for Vos.” An irritated murmur swept the table at that, and the Prime raised his servo for silence.
“Then this hunger strike is some sort of compact, made before the war ended?” Optimus half hoped that this was the case, a hope which was dashed as Ratchet slowly shook his head.
“No I don’t think so Prime. Based on standard behavioural algorithms this isn’t a hunger strike, or even a deliberate refusal to refuel.”
“Then what is it?” asked Optimus.
Ratchet vented a small noise of irritation.
“Records we have, and they are very patchy, suggest that Seekers need to fly. Locking them up is the worst form of torture we could have put them under.” He lowered his gaze to the tabletop. “There were two incidences of seekers being put into spark stasis in the Iacon records. Both previously healthy sparks faded over the course of several orns, before deactivating completely.” He looked up at Optimus, blue optics meeting blue. “These mechs will deactivate if we continue to keep them locked up.”
“Good riddance!” muttered Ironhide. Not quietly enough, as it turned out when Ratchet growled at him, optics flashing with irritation.
“Enough!” the Prime was quick to get between his two lieutenants. While an argument between the two could be amusing, now was not really the time. He focused on Ratchet again, “What do you suggest?”
“Getting them out of solitary confinement would be a start. I’ll be able to see what I’m working with at least.” There was a whimper from Red Alert at that, and Ratchet rounded on the paranoid mech, optics still flashing. “You wouldn’t condone torture, would you?”
“I don’t condone it,” interposed Optimus soothingly, “but I do need to be sure what we are seeing before I commit to any solution. I’m sure Ratchet will liaise with you to figure out how to make sure everything is a safe as possible, Red.” Ratchet nodded sharply, and Red Alert looked somewhat mollified. “If that is all?” there were nods from around the table “Very well, I’ll not keep you from your duties.” Optimus stood, gesturing to his officers to precede him, and subtly laid a servo on Ratchet’s shoulder on the way out. The medic glanced up at the Prime, but obediently hung back, allowing Jazz to exit before him.
“Well?”
“Are you sure about this, Ratchet?” Optimus’s tone was serious. “These are five very dangerous mechs, remember.”
“I’m as sure as I can be, Optimus,” replied Ratchet, shaking his helm. “My coding won’t let me just sit back and do nothing.” He quirked a lopsided grin at his leader. “Besides, Starscream was the really dangerous one, remember? Without him, the others should be easy to control.”
Optimus nodded, and gestured again for Ratchet to precede him out of the conference room. As he walked back to his office, he wondered for perhaps the hundredth time what had happened to Starscream. The lack of their brilliant air commander had been the single biggest reason that the Decepticons had lost the war. Optimus huffed a gust of air from his vents. He privately believed that Starscream had been deactivated by Megatron and that his offline frame was lying at the bottom of the ocean, along with the Decepticon’s erstwhile base of operations. He made a mental note to send a team back to Earth to strip the crashed spaceship within the next quarter vorn. The humans’ technology was not sophisticated enough to enable them to reach the bottom of their oceans yet, but Optimus did not want to leave them with any potential weapons when they finally did. Humanity was far to warlike for its own good.
***************
Ratchet caught up with Red Alert just as the mech reached the door to the control room. The security director gave the medic a sour look as he punched in the code to open the door. Ratchet followed him into the control centre, warily keeping an eye on the other’s sensor horns, which were humming ominously.
“I want you to know I think that this is a horrible idea! What if you are wrong, what if this is a some plot to escape? They are SEEKERS remember, we can’t trust them!” Sparks flashed along Red Alert’s sensor horns, a sure sign that he was becoming glitched and overwrought. Ratchet laid a comforting servo on his shoulder panel.
“I know, Red, but if I am right, and I usually am, we can’t keep them locked up. I know you won’t condone torture, not really.”
“But they are SEEKERS!” Red Alert exclaimed again, and the way he spat the last word made it sound like a curse. Ratchet remembered that Red had lived in Praxius and, unbidden, the images of deactivated seeker frames in the ruins of the city came to him. Those images had been widely circulated at the start of the war, showing that Decepticons could not be trusted if this was what their mechs would do. There had been dark hints that Megatron had been behind the bombing of Vos, and that he had done it to ensure that the Autobots would never gain the support of the flyers. Ratchet resolutely closed those memory files, and the inevitable line of questioning that went with them. Rehashing the past was no use when he had a glitchy, paranoid mech to sweet talk.
Five long joors later, after Ratchet had force-rebooted Red Alert’s crashed processor twice and endured a screamed rant about the danger which lasted a full fifteen breems on its own, they had a solution that both mechs could be equally dissatisfied with.
Ratchet grumbled sullenly about glitches and paranoid fanatics all the way back to the base medbay, startling the two mechs inside when he stomped through the doors (which parted obligingly to let him through, irritating when he really felt the need just to kick something). Wheeljack took one look at Ratchet’s expression and shuffled, trying to hide his damaged hand from the irate CMO. Unfortunately Hoist, who had been trying to repair the damaged circuitry, was unwilling to let him twist away far enough and ex-vented in an irritated huff, causing Ratchet’s attention to latch onto the patient like a sharkticon sensing energon. Cornered, Wheeljack cowered slightly as Ratchet stalked over. There was no wrench immediately in sight, but that usually only meant that Ratchet wanted to assess the damage before inflicting more. Ratchet stopped by the berth, glowering down at Wheeljack, optics taking in the corroded metal, blown relays and wrecked circuits in the inventor’s servo.
“Again?” The word held the promise of a wrench to the helm unless the explanation was a very good one.
“Um…. I … slipped?” Wheeljack cringed as he said it. Ratchet’s expression didn’t alter by a single micron.
“Slipped?”
“Uh … yeah.”
“While carrying…?”
“Um … Alpha Tetrochloric Acid.”
“Funny, I’m sure I said something about reformatting you into a wall decoration if you turned up in my medbay less than five cycles after your last stupid accident.” Wheeljack shifted uncomfortably.
“Well?”
“Um … It’s been five cycles, three joors and two breems.” He noted the faint teek of amusement in Ratchet’s field and relaxed slightly.
“At least tell me you managed to clean it up before you dragged your aft here. I do not want a repeat of that incident with the purple ooze.”
Wheeljack huffed good naturedly at the jibe, he was nothing if not meticulous when it came to chemicals. Although mentioning the fact that the acid had actually got onto his plating following a small accident with his latest invention rather than just from a simple slip of the servo was probably not a good idea right now…
Probably best not to let him know about the wall either…
Ratchet buffeted him on the shoulder armour, field now teeking fond exasperation for his friend’s clumsiness, and turned away towards the secure wing of the medbay. Usually he would have applied one of his famous wrenches to the back of Wheeljack’s helm, but he had more important matters to take care of.
The secure medbay wing had originally been designed to holds mechs undergoing decontamination treatments, or suffering from severe personality glitches. More recently it had been refitted to hold prisoners requiring medical treatment. The med berths had all been fitted with restraints and the various medical probes were all loaded with sedative coding chips to prevent potentially dangerous mechs causing problems or attempting to take hostages. Ratchet checked the set up of the largest berth, noting the restraints, and setting the monitoring station to begin a full set of scans once the patient was in place. He finished by programming an instruction for one of the two probes to download it’s sedative program as soon as the patient had been hooked up. Even if it was not needed it would serve to reassure Red Alert that Ratchet was taking his fears seriously.
A soft whirring noise let Ratchet know that the cameras with which the room was supplied had been brought online and were focussed on the med berth. A short data burst from the security director himself showed that all the cameras between the medbay and the detention blocks had been activated and that he was ready to commence the second phase of the operation.
The plan, which had been patiently haggled out, was simple. Ratchet and two guards would enter Skywarp’s cell and remove him in stasis cuffs to the secured part of the medbay, where Ratchet would run some medical tests on the Seeker to determine the scale of the problem. He would then report his findings to Optimus and the other officers to allow a discussion about what should be done next.
Ratchet took a final look around the medbay, mentally checking that every item was where it should be, and walked back into the main bay to warn his fellow medics of the imminent arrival of the seeker.