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-1Traitor

Summary: Starscream decides to punish Barricade for not joining in the battle in Mission City. This time, however, he may have pushed Barricade too far.

Rating: T for violence and mech slag-mouth.

Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro and Dreamworks/Paramount, not me. All I get out of this is the fun of writing it.

Traitor.

Chapter One.

"Starscream calling Barricade." Barricade didn't at first feel like responding. The call was repeated, followed by "Come on you slagger, respond! I know you're receiving."

The call was not at all unexpected, neither was the pissed tone of voice it had been delivered in, for Barricade had been expecting a call like this, he knew Starscream would want to know what had happened to him in Mission City.

Upon receiving Frenzy's distress call on that day, Barricade had been torn between joining his Decepticon comrades in attacking the humans and Autobots, and responding to the frantic, broken up SOS Frenzy had sent to him. Having realised that his sworn leader, Megatron, was there to lead the battle, with the backup of Starscream, Blackout and Brawl, Barricade had decided that his partner was too valuable to Megatron to ignore the distress call. Besides, Barricade knew that Frenzy would only send out an SOS if the situation was almost beyond saving.

He had assumed that Megatron and the others could defeat five Autobots and a few pathetic fleshlings, they had dealt with much more than that in the past and still come out triumphant. Barricade had peeled off just before the city and headed for where his partner's call had originated, assuming he and Frenzy would return to a triumphant Megatron, who would understand why he had left.

Of course, things had turned out far, far differently to how he had expected, so he had been anticipating this call for some time now. No, the message, and the anger of it's sender, was not unexpected, but what did surprise Barricade was that Starscream was communicating with him on an unsecured channel.

"Barricade responding, Lord Starscream." He said. "This channel is not encoded, Should we not-" Barricade was abruptly cut off.

"Silence!" hissed Starscream. Barricade shut up, knowing better than to argue with the volatile Seeker when he was in this sort of mood.

"Where were you, Barricade, when we were fighting the Autobots and their fleshy allies in Mission City? Why were you not fighting alongside us?" Starscream asked.

"I went to the aid of my partner, Frenzy, Lord Starscream." Barricade told him.

"You abandoned the battlefield to aid one insignificant Decepticon?" asked Starscream.

"Megatron valued Frenzy for his skills, and Frenzy would never send out a distress call without good cause." Barricade said.

"Megatron is dead! He no longer leads the Decepticons! I do!" shouted Starscream, his voice becoming more shrill in his anger. "Did you find the little pest, Barricade? Was it worth abandoning us to go to Frenzy's aid?"

Although Starscream could not see it, Barricade lowered his optics and they dimmed as he replied.

"When I got there, he was offline." Barricade recalled the moment he had found the little hacker's broken body. "I picked him up, but his processors were destroyed, his Spark was gone. He was beyond repair, my Lord." Barricade replied. He still had the remains of Frenzy in his chest cavity, had hoped that he had a fragment if Spark left and might self-repair, but the hacker's metal frame still lay as cold and inert in his chest cavity as when Barricade had first carefully put it there.

"So, you abandoned us all, for one deactivated hacker?" Starscream said.

"I did not know he was beyond repair until I found him!" Barricade replied.

"Silence!" Starscream commanded again. Then he sent Barricade a set of co-ordinates.

"Go to this location, and wait. I will contact you within six hours. If any Autobots or nosy fleshlings come across you, deal with them, but report to me first if it's Autobots. Am I understood?" Starscream said.

"Yes, Lord Starscream." Barricade said. He received no reply, and realised that Starscream had terminated the connection.

Barricade moved out, his tires hissing on the road, as he moved to his new location. The question still nagged at him: why had Starscream contacted him on an unsecured channel? What if the Autobots or humans had overheard? He sighed: he'd deal with that issue another time, and deal with any human or Autobot interference as Starscream had ordered.

"LORD-STARSCREAM." intoned Soundwave. "SIGNALS IN-DI-CATE-THAT-THE-AUTOBOTS-WERE-MON-I-TORING-THE-TRANSMISSION. SHOULD-WE-WARN-BAR-RI-CADE-TO-EXPECT-COM-PA-NY-AND-TO-MOVE-TO-ANOTHER-LO-CATION?"

"No, Soundwave, I am sure that Barricade can deal with the situation. He will call us if he needs our help." replied Starscream.

Soundwave didn't like it, but did not argue. Megatron was gone, and although Soundwave didn't like Starscream, Starscream was, now, the new Decepticon leader. He would have to go along with him, or suffer the consequences. Starscream disliked anything that he saw as treachery, and Starscream's punishments for such could be as inventive as they were cruel.

Although he didn't say so, Soundwave thought that Starscream had gone too far this time. However, Soundwave would bide his time. At some point, Starscream would make a fatal error, and Soundwave planned to be around to exploit it.

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