Title: Deus Ex Machina

Warning: Reprogrammed/Coerced Combaticons. Stunticon dislike. Cockroaches. A joke yoinked from Eddie Izzard (bonus point if you spot it).

Rating: PG

Continuity: G1, Backstage AU, somewhere in the middle of Stage Hands but after Sound Crew.

Characters: Decepticons.

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): Commission from ThePopetti: "Return of Starscream." Thank you!

[* * * * *]

Starscream was dead, but eventually all good things must come to an end.

Megatron leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, resting them on the meeting table. "We need a miracle."

"We've brought the 'dead' back before," Thrust objected. "Nobody even blinked all those times you dragged him off to be executed and he turned up a week later. No explanation needed!" He turned up his hands and shrugged. "It's Starscream. The Autobots think he's a cockroach."

"Cockroach?"

"Bug thing," Thrust said to Ramjet. He pinched his fingers together in illustration. "Tiny little fraggers. Really hard to kill. Squash them and they keep crawling."

"Used in lower levels for security purposes," Soundwave droned.

"Ohhh, those things." Ramjet shuddered, as did most of the Decepticons around the table.

The Autobots regularly hacked through most conventional security devices, experienced as only war could make them, but never let it be said that the Decepticons weren't inventive. The overarching Decepticon ploy meant Soundwave required immediate notice of Autobot arrival without betraying to spies that they'd been had. Fortunately, one of the base prankster's lesser known duties was that of unofficial security officer. If Skywarp could get past or sabotage surveillance and security measures, he then turned around and improved them until he couldn't. He'd filled the lower levels with mounds of scurrying, chittering, and above all crunchy-shelled tiny creatures, and even Jazz had failed to realize the nasty crunching served to announce Autobot infiltration.

It worked so well that Skywarp had found different critters for every vulnerable entry point around the base, thus leading to Decepticons cringing at anytime there was a ronch! noise underfoot. Soundwave could pinpoint location just by the tone of a crunch. Stepping on Skywarp's latest 'prank' resulted in immediate, covert scrutiny.

Skywarp was also the reason why using the launch tower unprotected led to crabs. Someone always had crabs. The little menaces kept breeding in people's ankle joints.

Given their effectiveness, the Decepticons didn't want to get rid of the various pests. Which was good, since the only population control method anyone had found to keep the creepy-crawly hordes at bay was periodic extermination, and that never worked for long. Fumigate, blast with acid, scour with flamethrowers, and still the place would be repopulated within a week. Destroying the cockroach infestation really only resulted in a cull of the weaker, less hearty bugs, leaving the fittest to take over. Very Decepticon of them. It wouldn't surprise anyone if someday the bugs evolved metallic chitin and enlisted.

In the meantime, it kept the Stunticons busy and out of the way of secret meetings. They were in the lower levels right this minute cursing at the many-legged survivors of last week's firebombing. Soundwave swore he could hear the cockroaches laughing.

"Autobots aren't wrong," Astrotrain mused. Heads nodded agreement around the table. Starscream did bear a certain resemblance, now that they thought about it.

"Focus!" Megatron barked. "A week can be covered. Two weeks, perhaps, but a month without a sighting will make the Autobots curious as to how he came back." And suppressing curiosity was how his master plan had gotten this far. What the Autobots didn't wonder about, they didn't investigate.

"Time limit for reasonable error by Shockwave: exceeded. Autobots will require explanation." Soundwave looked down the table. "Suggestions welcome."

Everyone pondered. Megatron scowled, tapping his fingers together. This was the problem with impromptu changes to his plan. Shockwave had improvised as necessary, and Megatron commended his quick action, but Starscream's death and return had to be incorporated seamlessly into the fake war here on Earth. Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Starscream were too distinctive to hide on Cybertron for any length of time, even if Starscream had the patience to keep his head down, and there wasn't another conquest scheduled to ship them off to before the Autobots on Cybertron found them out. Besides, Megatron trusted his Second to run military campaigns for the Empire, but assume command on Cybertron? No.

Blitzwing folded his arms and threw an idea in. "Miracles, huh? Kidnapping Mother Teresa got lotsa attention last time." He'd been cross at all the 'Breaking News!' interruptions to the football game that week.

Rumble - or was it Frenzy? One of them was off Earth at the moment, but the way they switched their paintjobs, nobody could tell which it was anymore - shook his head to nix the suggestion. "No way. Not again, mech. She's got that crazima stuff comin' out her squishy ears. Last time, she converted Sunstorm!"

"Charisma," Scrapper corrected.

An unheard correction, as Blitzwing spoke over him. "He can do miracles now? That's pretty convenient. Bridge him from Cybertron and get with the miracling."

Astrotrain looked at the other triplechanger sidelong. "That ain't how conversion works."

"I thought it meant turning one thing to another."

"No - well, yeeeees. Sort of. But I don't think she turned him into a miracle machine. It's more like she converted him from following Primus to following Cathol."

Bombshell leaned forward to see around Onslaught. "Wait, who's Cathol?" After years in the SouthEast Asia area, he had a good grasp on local religions. Terrorizing the natives into adding the Insecticons to the pantheon reliably inspired righteous fury from the Autobots, so he felt his interest to be rather professional.

"Cathol. You know," Astrotrain gestured as if sculpting a human god out of thin air, "the religious figure. Really big in Europe for a while. The Teresa human converted Sunstorm to following him."

"That…doesn't sound right."

"Catholism, mech! The teachings of Cathol and everything he stood for."

For a few seconds, the whole table simply sat and stared at him. Blitzwing started to say something a couple times only to subside into confused silence.

Bombshell eventually said in a slow, doubting voice, "That definitely doesn't sound right."

Astrotrain glared and sat back, huffing out his vents as he folded his arms again. "Fine. What do you think it means?"

"Not that, that's all I know." The Insecticon shrugged dismissal and disappeared back behind Onslaught's bulk.

The Combaticon looked between them, uncertain if Astrotrain would go through him to pick a fight. Astrotrain's engines rumbled angrily. Onslaught slouched in his chair, opting to project 'ignore me, I'm not here' vibes as hard as he could.

It worked insofar as Megatron's optics skipped right over him, but that was normal. The Combaticons were beneath his notice. Blitzwing's proposal held his attention for the moment. "I don't care if he follows toasters in his spare time. Can Sunstorm pull off a miracle or not?"

Astrotrain tossed his hands up, exasperated. "No! If any religion had a 'press here for miracle' button, we'd have signed up ages ago!"

True enough. Decepticons around the table looked rueful.

"Yeah, an' that ain't how Catholicatimacism works," Fren-umble said. "We gotta kidnap saints for that."

Blitzwing perked up. "It'll ruin the season, but I'm all for this plan!"

"Wha - ?" The Cassetticon slapped a hand over his visor. "Wrong saints!"

"You sure?"

Megatron's cannon hummed the familiar sound of high-powered weaponry, and everyone suddenly found the table extremely fascinating. They'd just...stare at it for a while. Silent thought would be wise. Testing their leader's patience would be unwise. No more arguing inanities instead of coming up with intelligent ideas, sir yes sir.

Even if Blitzwing really, really wanted his own football team.

Given his position among the Decepticons, Onslaught knew full well he should be seen and not heard. Blast Off and Vortex were out on patrol. Swindle and Brawl were on Distract Spying Autobots duty playing a version of Russian Roulette in the halls. As their commander, even as a paroled prisoner he was granted access to important planning sessions. It was simply assumed he knew not to forget his place as prison dregs.

However, right now nobody dared speak up. There was no better time for him to break the silence, and Onslaught needed a chance, just a chance to curry favor. He had to risk it. "Ruling out a miracle of religious origins," he began diffidently, careful not to flinch as Bombshell's attention snapped to him, "that leaves time travel, finding them in space randomly, or an undead return."

"Nooooo, not time travel," Rum-nzy moaned before realizing who had spoken. He shot upright, visor narrowed, and Soundwave's visor was just as narrow.

Onslaught kept his gaze on Megatron. Fingertips tapped. The level optics of the Decepticon Supreme Commander bored into him, judge and jury in one, and Onslaught didn't have to look to know Bombshell waited on their leader's decision. Things could be made exceedingly unpleasant for the Combaticons if Megatron decided Onslaught spoke above his station. Their Insecticon parole officers brought out the worst side of creativity when it came to reminding them where they belonged: at the bottom, in chains, laboring to redeem themselves.

Megatron's optics slid toward Soundwave, and Onslaught found himself in the unsettling position of missing Starscream's presence. The Air Commander was never benign, but he could be benevolent when it suited him. Thrust, acting Air Commander for the ongoing farce, looked at Onslaught like something he'd pried out of his thrusters. Soundwave was as impassive as a wall.

A wall that Swindle regularly sucked up to, and Brawl had been doing that subsonic flirty thing he did where he insisted he wasn't doing anything but his engine thrummed anytime he was around the Comm. Officer.

Soundwave considered Onslaught's words for a long, agonizing minute. "Relevant," he decreed at last, and the Combaticon very nearly sagged in relief as the noose tightening around his neck cut loose.

It freed the other Decepticons to react to his words as if he were a peer instead of scum. They still sneered at him. He counted it as a victory anyway.

"No time travel!" Fre-mble immediately repeated at a much louder volume. "It ain't worth it!"

Scrapper nodded earnest agreement. "Normally I'd consider it an impossibility to begin with, but - " Everyone glanced at the Cassette. He scowled back at them in thunderous remembrance of medieval times and a monumental amount of bird crap. "Ahem. It's Earth. These things happen. We'd have to make up an explanation for the time paradox, in any case, and even Shockwave's best psuedo-science babble wouldn't slip something of that nature past Perceptor."

"Inadvisable," Soundwave said. "Undead plague inadvisable for similar reasons of tenuous credibility."

"It's a shame we can't manufacture a fake plague," Scrapper said. "It'd be a pain in the afterburners dropping the victims where the Autobots would stumble over them, but biomechanical warfare's a frightening specter for anybody who's seen a real plague run its course. Set up all the hallmarks of an illness, start dropping victims around an area we want cleared, and the Autobots would quarantine sectors for us. Keep the outer fringes looking like ghost towns, and we could start rebuilding the city centers for occupation." His visor glazed in open longing for the massive building project.

"The war's not yet won," Megatron said sharply, rapping the knuckle joints of one hand on the table to bring Scrapper back to reality.

It failed to interrupt the Constructicon's dreaming. "We know," he said, speaking unconsciously as the mouthpiece for his whole team, "but Pentayear has advanced so far. Cybertron's far behind in technology and development in comparison, even importing their innovations. A colony outpacing our homeworld is disgraceful. We need to rebuild. Do you have any idea how long it'll take us just to catch up?"

Soundwave bent a reproving look on Megatron. The warlord had the grace to at least grimace under it. Uncomfortable, everybody else at the table looked everywhere but at Scrapper. Veteran warriors avoided meeting each other's optics. They had no desire to cut the sparksick longing in Scrapper's visor off at the knees. Ruthless killers they might be, but nobody wanted to be the one to crush Scrapper's vision for the future of their homeworld. They sort of wanted to shuffle their feet, shamefaced, and apologize for making him wait for them to end the war. So sorry. They'd just finish off that pesky Autobot resistance so he could get to work, shall they? Righteo, on with conquering the galaxy, pardon their slowness, can't wait to see Cybertron reborn, carry on.

Chairs scooted tiny inching retreat from Scrapper's wistful sighs. Guilt loomed as a thick presence over their shoulders.

This. This was what happened when Cybertron's greatest build team was taken away from major projects and plopped into the middle of the stupidity of Earth. Sure, Megatron's deception of the Autobots was dead serious. It was a hugely important plan, a giant step forward for the war effort. The Constructicons were needed here for their ability to pull Weapons of the Week out of their collective afts, but it wasn't what they wanted. Bonecrusher and Long Haul enjoyed fighting, but the Constructicons didn't consider war to be their primary function. They stuck out among the rest of the Decepticon Elite as creators among destroyers, and they wore their desire to make like neon signs.

The conquest of Pentayear had simply been the last straw for their restless, repressed need to make things. Important things. Big, grandiose, useful, permanent things like…cities. Entire cities. Crystal City had been a warm-up exercise, long ago finished and cleared away to make room for the real deal. The siren call of architecture and associated engineering echoed along the gestalt bond, singing about transportation structure, building foundations, and waste disposal systems. Scrapper rested his chin in his hand and looked off into a happy daydream, visor disturbingly unfocused.

Megatron pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. Clearing his throat, he said in a gruff voice, "Civilians are not pets."

"We wouldn't force them to relocate," Scrapper said in all honesty. "Maybe collect some of the Decepticon civilians attached to the bases and…and build them a place to stay, and work, and stay, and…we'd have to build a wall, of course. To keep the Autobots out, but for internal security as well. You can never have enough of that what with how mechs are. They always have to alter our designs. Can't have that, no, so a wall, and good security so we can observe how the city structure needs to be tweaked. Yes…"

"That sounds like a cage," Ramjet muttered uneasily to Thrust.

"Civilians are not pets," Megatron repeated more firmly. "They're not collectable, they're not for sale," not once Shockwave got the memo about bribes being taxable, "and they're not kept in pens like slaves." Because obviously that's where the slaves were kept. "Anyone found catching stray civilians for any reason other than security of already-established military installations will be prosecuted for kidnapping at the very least, if I'm in the mood to let the perpetrators survive until trial." He closed his hand into a fist slowly, and the Decepticons straightened in automatic respect.

Fear, respect, same difference.

Civilian rights, as Pentayear had recently reminded them, were a Big Deal for the Decepticon Empire. Their Supreme Commander apparently wanted everyone aware that he would protect his Empire even from itself - and especially from overeager construction teams who couldn't wait to rebuild Cybertron, whether or not the people they built for wanted to live in their cities.

Scrapper blinked, coming back from imagined blueprints in time to receive the full force of Megatron's disapproval. He wilted. Turning his head, he reset his vocalizer and mumbled something about Cybertron not having enough civilians to really build for anyway. The mumbling trailed off into awkward coughing as Megatron continued to stare him down.

Once Scrapper finally fell silent, Megatron released him from his glare. "I won't approve a plague, real or not. Resorting to biomechanical warfare on Cybertron would prompt the Prime to return." He did not want that. With his luck, Optimus would take a major injury and end up getting his head screwed back on straight during repairs. The plan would go out the airlock if that happened.

Trying to stay properly respectful, Onslaught opened his hands on the table and pitched his voice low. He hoped it didn't sound as much like an ingratiating whine as he feared. "It would be less suspicious to find the Air Commander in space. His 'death' is based off of a supposed space bridge malfunction. It wouldn't be a stretch of logic that the malfunction transported him to a random sector in space." He inclined his head slightly in a hint of a bow to Megatron. "A reasonable excuse for how we located him would be enough, I believe?"

The last part definitely came out wheedling for approval, and he stopped a reflexive cringe at hearing himself talk. Primus, smite him now. Beside him, Bombshell hummed amusement, and Onslaught hated the sense of relief that flooded his tanks. He wouldn't be punished for speaking!

He lowered his gaze to the table, ready to fade into the background. It was just a suggestion, an unobtrusive aid to the discussion, that's all, and he had every intention of returning to the respectful silence he should keep while sitting among his betters. He knew his place. Now that his idea was out there, somebody else could take it up and maybe, possibly, his humble contribution might be remembered the next time the assembled Elite thought of his team.

The Combaticons' luck had never been that good, however. Scrapper sighed at the same moment painful stab of alarm and excitement jabbed Onslaught through the gestalt bond. Russian Roulette with a tank had apparently ended on predictable note.

"I'll handle it," Onslaught said to the Constructicon leader. His chair squeaked back from the table as he rose, ready to go haul Swindle to the repairbay. Hook's ire would be easier to endure than usual, today. Playing distraction meant the Constructicons had to treat his team like regular Decepticons, not pariahs. That didn't mean Onslaught was looking forward to whatever spectacle the Constructicons had in store to keep Autobot attention fixated on the repairbay.

"No. You," Megatron pointed at Scrapper, "go. Deal with your crew. You, sit."

The order swept his free will out from under him via loyalty programming. Strings cut, Onslaught swallowed hard and plopped back into his seat like a puppet.

"As you command, Lord Megatron." Visor marginally wider than usual, Scrapper stood to obey. A Decepticon knew he'd lost face when Megatron favored a Combaticon over him. The Constructicon bowed low, arm across his chest and fist pressed over his spark, and backed toward the door in a show of submission. The humiliation stung almost as much as the prickle of optics on him. They felt like targeting lasers on his plating. Worry sped his fuel pump rate. The witnesses here would spread the word of Megatron's displeasure, and there were always ambitious mechs hovering like vultures, ready to take advantage of any shift in power.

Decepticon internal politics were brutal. The Constructicons needed to regain Megatron's favor, and fast.

Onslaught wasn't the only mech making a high-priority mental note about how he treated civilians from now on. He hadn't been about to go around picking on civvies, but their lack of status in the military might have tempted him to attempt pulling might-makes-right against them. Lesson learned: not a good idea. He'd be passing the lesson on to the rest of his team ASAP.

Megatron deliberately turned his optics on Onslaught instead of the Constructicon leaving the room. "How do you plan on implementing this supposedly 'reasonable' excuse?"

It took him a second to yank his mind back onto the correct topic. Apprehension and anticipation jockeyed in his spark as he did. The leader of the Decepticons was asking his input for the first time since his release from the Detention Centre. Oh, Primus, don't let him screw this up.

He didn't screw up. A niggling doubt told him that didn't mean he'd succeeded.

Four days and two solar systems later, Blast Off informed him in a flat voice, "I hate you with the burning fire of a thousand novas." It was the most he'd spoken since leaving Earth, and his tone held every vile epithet bottled up since Onslaught volunteered him for the mission.

"It was a good idea at the time." It was a weak excuse, but evidence to the contrary, the plan was sound.

A metal fist bounced a metal head off of a metal wall nearby. Even with the blast doors between deck and cargohold locked shut, the impact was painfully loud. In the case of Blast Off, that translated to just plain painful, as it was his wall Motormaster was backhanding underlings into. Onslaught winced at another resounding CLAAAAANG! Back by the door, Vortex held onto his seat with the look of someone at his wits' end. The left side of his visor periodically gave a convulsive twitch at the rude rev of engines on the other side of the door. The bangs and whacks of Motormaster's version of team discipline made his fingers dig into the bottom of his chair.

Somewhere in the cargohold, Swindle's voice soared in querulous demand. Two other voices razzed back at him, and a horn blatted. Motormaster roared anger, hopefully at the Stunticons harassing Swindle instead of at Swindle himself, because Vortex had sworn to tear apart the next idiot Stunticon to race up his leg and knock him down. He'd sworn variations on that oath three or four times in the last few days - they all had - but that was a solid negative on the helicopter taking another round of peacekeeping duty riding herd on the worst bunch of crazy fools ever to think they were Decepticons. Vortex hadn't recharged his patience circuits enough to take his turn carsitting again. Onslaught himself had zilch tolerance left for being ordered around by the faction's fragged-up mental cases, which was why Swindle was fighting the good fight back there alone.

Swindle had a surprising amount of patience for putting up with Motormaster's violence, Breakdown's paranoia, and Wildrider's insanity. He'd thought ahead and brought video games to keep Drag Strip occupied attempting to take high score. Dead End's orders barely made a dent on any of the Combaticons' flattened egos. "Hold the mirror higher, please," was an easy order to follow. Swindle could even keep a strained smile pasted on while being bossed around, which was more than the rest of the Combaticons could manage. He claimed being ranked by Stunticons had nothing on working customer service.

Onslaught didn't know anything about that, but he knew Swindle was a godsend on this mission. That said everything there was to know about spending four days in the company of Stunticons.

"You know Lord Megatron agreed to this plan of yours in order to punish us further," Blast Off said as if to rub it in. Chains and parole officers weren't necessary to make them suffer, not when they were trapped in space with the Stunticons.

Onslaught peeled his fingers off the console. They were starting to hurt. "I know."

"Notice how the Insecticons declined to come with us."

"I noticed." He'd known the mission was a bad idea when their parole officers merely smirked and saluted jauntily as Blast Off's hatch closed. The Combaticons hadn't been left unsupervised since their reprogramming. Being let off their leash was less a gesture of a trust than an snide way to point out that they had nowhere else to go. The loyalty programming kept them under Megatron's heel, and even now they could feel him grind their servitude in.

In truth, they would return to the Decepticons with or without the programming. There wasn't one of them that didn't regret betraying Megatron by now. None of them wanted to be on the losing side, after all, and it was pretty clear to that the Cause would win this war. The real Decepticon Cause, not whatever joke the Stunticons thought it was.

Onslaught had to admit that the Earth-mad combiner team fulfilled their function well, despite them obviously having no clue that their function was Example Of Earth Madness. Someday their cerebral circuits would be repaired, and they'd be sane. He'd relish reminding them of their behavior after that. In the meantime, they were a loud, shiny pack of loonies that attracted Autobot attention like honey attracted flies. Hence the reason the Combaticons were condemned to spending a month in their company. The mission called for investigating a large energy signature supposedly detected by one of the Decepticon exploration drones.

The Autobots didn't consider that suspicious. The Decepticons investigated energy signatures all the time. On the other hand, sending the components of both Menasor and Bruticus to investigate stamped 'ALERT ALERT WATCH THIS CLOSELY IT'S VERY IMPORTANT' all over the mission. Skyfire had been lurking at the edge of Blast Off's scanner range since they'd left Earth, stealthy as a flying brick.

Blast Off hadn't tried to evade him. Stealth was not the name of the game. The overconfident show of force served to throw off suspicions that the energy signature wasn't real.

It was fake. It was thoroughly fake. Soundwave hadn't bothered to check if there was even a planet in the general area he'd slapped the false signal. It wasn't as though they'd reach it. The real objective of the mission was to spot a strange flicker of a distress beacon sometime around the middle of Week Two. Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp were out in the next sector ready to be found.

Found sooner rather than later, or the Combaticons would murder the Stunticons. Onslaught flinched at another resounding whack of metal-on-metal, and tires screeched. Somehow, his fingers had clamped into the console again.

"Just imagine Starscream being stuck with them on the way back," he said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"We're going to be stuck with them and Starscream," Blast Off growled. "Inside me."

Onslaught paused. "Ah. A good point." One he hadn't really thought through. Starscream, Air Commander of the Decepticon Empire, was a far cry from Starscream, shrieking buffoon of Earth. It hadn't occurred to Onslaught which personae would be present with the Stunticons trapped in close quarters with them. The Decepticons didn't drop character around the Stunticons.

"Skywarp," Vortex muttered, visor twitching. They were going to be trapped in an enclosed area with Skywarp's stage personae. Primus spare their sparks.

"I blame you for this," Blast Off said. The gestalt link spat utter fury at Onslaught.

Motormaster yelled something profane loud enough to rattle the walls, and four cars clattered about in what had to be an attempt to race in the shuttle's small cargohold. Swindle screamed a curse that all but curdled air. Blast Off grunted in discomfort as multiple metal objects going too fast hit his interior walls. Onslaught winced. That even sounded like it hurt. Vortex hunched further in his seat.

Brawl, of course, had fallen asleep.

Yeah, the Autobots wouldn't question this ship of fools stumbling over the supposedly dead Seekers out here on the edge of nowhere. An intentional retrieval mission this was not. There wasn't a chance in the Pit this level of incompetent stupidity could be pretended. Genuine idiocy, the real deal. The only way these mechs could plot something sinister was if they saw it on TV first. The Combaticons didn't even have to put on an act. They just had to herd the parade of poor choices and bad decisions in the right direction.

Onslaught pried his hand up off the console and put it over his visor, hiding from Blast Off's judgmental glare. It didn't matter that the shuttle had to use his internal cameras to see. There was judgmental glaring going on in here, and Onslaught deserved every second.

It was still a good plan. The kind of reactions the Stunticons gave couldn't be scripted out. None of the Decepticons were that good of actors.

"Ahhhh! It's the Wicked Witch!"

"Throw them back out!"

"Kill 'em!"

"Can we?" Vortex looked up from checking Starscream's vitals, and his visor gleamed in disturbing eagerness. He wasn't a half-bad actor when it came to playing his particular role.

"No," Onslaught said curtly. "We need to return to Earth immediately."

"You don't give us orders, Combatiscum!" Motormaster bellowed, nevermind the fact that Onslaught was standing right beside him. Indoor voices had never been a Stunticon strong point. "Megatron gave me command of this mission, and finding a bunch of flyboys doesn't mean we turn back!"

That put an unforeseen hiccup in the plan. Swindle coughed loudly to cover Vortex's protest, and he smacked the 'copter upside the helm the same moment Brawl did. On orders from Onslaught, admittedly, so Vortex couldn't object to suddenly faceplanting into Starscream's chest. He picked himself up and turned to the next unconscious mech. He concentrated on checking Thundercracker, ignoring the funny looks the Stunticons threw him.

Onslaught concealed any hint of how his mind scrambled to rethink the plan. "I would think it obvious we don't have the medical equipment necessary to take care of them. Lord Megatron will want to know of his Air Commander's survival, and surely we'll be hailed as heroes for rescuing him." There, an appeal to Motormaster's need to please Megatron.

The Stunticon commander grunted, a piggish look of cunning in his narrowed optics. "It'd be too bad if we didn't have the right equipment, eh?"

Things were taking a terrible turn. "We don't have the fuel for three drained jets and all of us if we proceed," Onslaught countered. "We've no guarantee the energy signature is anything harvestable. It's not worth the risk. Turning back is the logical choice."

Logic had very little to do with Motormaster's thought processes. "Yeeeeeah, it'd be a shame if we had t' choose who starves, out here without fuel. A cryin' shame. How much fuel they got left?" he demanded from their makeshift medic.

Vortex glanced at Onslaught, unsure what he was supposed to say. It wasn't a lack of fuel keeping the Seekers offline, despite what he'd reported after they'd been hauled into the shuttle. The Seekers were on internal timers. Starscream wouldn't wake up from stasis for two more days, as planned.

"I can't tell," the 'copter temporized. "I don't have that kind of access to their systems."

"Find out! You're an interrogation specialist, aren't you?" Motormaster smiled a nasty smile, the sort of smile that made any attempt at subtlety null and void. The bad feeling in Onslaught's tanks became a full-on sense of impending horror.

Vortex stared, flabbergasted. "You want me to hack the Air Commander? I - can I do that?" He blinked and looked to Onslaught, but Onslaught was just as stunned. "I don't have authorization to do that!" Sadist he might be, but he knew the chain of command. Interrogation of a superior officer wasn't lightly done, and never without orders.

Motormaster laughed in cruel amusement. "Sure you do. I told you to do it, you do it. Besides, he's not the Air Commander. You were there. You heard Megatron. Thrust's the Air Commander. He got promoted, and Screamer here," he smiled that nasty, gloating smile down at the stasis-locked Seeker, "is officially offline. You're hacking a dead mech."

"Ew." Even Vortex had standards.

"Excuse us, sir. Vortex has a minor disciplinary problem we'll solve in a few minutes alone," Onslaught said, smooth and formal. Cold as ice, too. He grabbed Vortex by a rotor blade as he strode past, heading for the deck without giving Motormaster a chance to stop him. Blast Off slammed the door behind them so quickly it clipped his heel.

"I can't do it!" Vortex hissed the second the door shut. "Onslaught, I can't! He'll wake up before I'm halfway through his firewalls, and I'm slagged when he does. You think things are bad now, you haven't ever seen the Air Commander lose his temper at us flyers." His visor flicked around the shuttle deck, looking for an escape that wasn't there. "I'll be praying for the Box by the time he's done with me!"

"We won't make it back to Earth. He'll kill us all if you hack him," Blast Off predicted.

Vortex's engine whined a thin, weird sound. Onslaught wasn't used to hearing him panic. "I can't do it!"

"I know." Onslaught paced the length of the deck as his thoughts frantically whirled. Motormaster outranked him on this mission, but the mission wasn't what the Stunticons thought it was. Neither was Starscream. This clumsy, heavy-handed attempt at a power-grab was based on how Decepticon politics worked on Earth, and as far as Motormaster knew, he was doing everything right. Onslaught should, by everything the Stunticons knew, be not only willing but happy to go along with what amounted to passive assassination. Letting Starscream die of fuel deprivation would be completely in line with Decepticon infighting on Earth.

Of anything the Stunticons could have learned from watching Starscream, this was the absolute worst choice. No one had taken Motormaster's innate ambition into account while planning this deception, and here the Combaticons were in the middle of a rapidly fubarred situation. Motormaster thought he was taking out the annoying, screechy traitor that Megatron loathed anyway, a mech with a title but no allies or actual power. In reality, he couldn't be more wrong, but Onslaught couldn't let him know that. Onslaught didn't have the authority to change the plan approved by Megatron and Starscream, and he didn't dare break character to outright refuse what Motormaster was pushing.

He was fragged hard, dry, and sideways no matter how he wracked his mind for a solution. They'd achieved the mission objective, retrieving the three 'dead' Seekers in such a way that the Autobots saw what a random coincidence it was, yet they were poised on the edge of failure.

Dear holy Primus, now he knew what Thrust felt like the day Megatron promoted him. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't…

"Access his systems," he said, hearing himself as if from a distance. His voice was calm, cool, and collected, nothing like the hoarse, desperate rasp he thought it should be. "Wake him up. Starscream can hold him off if he's awake. You can tell Motormaster waking him up was an accident, and maybe the slagger will be smart enough to go along with it. If Motormaster orders us to attack before Thundercracker and Skywarp wake up, we'll just…not." He met Vortex's visor and wished the gestalt link wasn't a churning morass of fear for how this would end for them. He'd think of an in-character reason to stop Motormaster's plot. He had to.

"We're dead," Blast Off said.

The tips of Vortex's rotor blades trembled. "He won't give us the chance to explain. You know he won't." Starscream wasn't known for his forgiving nature. Forcing access was going to earn them a quick trip to the smelter, not an opportunity to explain themselves.

"He will. We're playing our parts. Just adding some ad-libbing toward the end to save the day, right? He'll understand." Onslaught tried his hardest to believe his own lines.

They needed a miracle.

[* * * * *]