Life Interrupted.

Summary: When an attack by humans destroys Starscream's body, only Soundwave has the means to save his Spark. But will the solution be acceptable to all, particularly his wing brothers, Starscream, and Soundwave himself.

Continuity: Movieverse, but with G1 colour schemes, concepts and characters thrown into the mix.

Disclaimer: Transformers and all characters therein belong to Hasbro and Dreamworks/Paramount.

A/N: I was checking out something in "Too Useful To Waste" and this bunny jumped up out of the blue and bit me. I have no idea what it's gonna do. Thus it may be a bit slow to be updated. Bunnies with minds of their own...bleagh...

Life Interrupted.

When Thundercracker and Skywarp appeared with a bang of displaced air in the centre of the Decepticon Base, the twisted form they bore between them was not immediately recognisable. It was the greyed colour of Thundercracker's paintwork and the stricken looks on the faces of both Seekers that gave the first clue to any of the other Decepticons that the broken body the two held was that of their wing brother, Starscream.

Nobody moved, nobody knew what to do when the two lowered the pile of scorched and warped metal and circuitry to the ground and crouched by it, keening softly and stroking the ruined face, in which one optic still glowed. It was only when Thundercracker lifted his head, energon streaming from broken tubing in his optic sockets streaming down his own damaged face and said "Well don't just stand there, help him!" that any of them realised the Air Commander and Decepticon Leader was still alive.

As they all looked at each other to see who would make the first move – for no Decepticon medic had yet arrived – Soundwave pushed two of them aside and stepped forward.

"Explain-situation," he asked.

"We went to refuel at a human Air Force base. Starscream was leading and we headed down to land, but the humans must have recognised us, because they attacked us, and were using those Sabot rounds. Skywarp and I were able to veer aside, but Starscream was right in their line of fire and he took the brunt. We barely got away with him, and now he's dying!" Thundercracker explained.

Soundwave quickly scanned Starscream, his sensors having the right settings, and as he totted up the damage he realised the other two Seekers were correct, even Ratchet, were he there, would be unable to repair Starscream's body in time to save his fading Spark. The situation seemed hopeless, but Soundwave wasn't about to give up on the Seeker yet.

"Thundercracker,-Skywarp, find-something-to-use-as-stretcher. Others-leave." Soundwave fixed the others with a glower as he took Starscream's battered form from the other two, who headed off to look for an abandoned flatbed or something of a similar size to put their trine-mate's body on. Once everyone had left, Soundwave let some air through his vents. Finally, he could get what was necessary done without interruption. He didn't actually need a stretcher for Starscream's body, only for Starscream's wing brothers to be out of the way while he did what was necessary.

From a compartment in his arm he took out a specialised tool, and, forcing open Starscream's ruined chest, he slipped the end of the tool into Starscream's Spark chamber. As the Spark-collector did its job, he deployed his tentacles, which found easy access into Starscream's body via his injuries. Tapping directly into the Seeker's processors, he downloaded everything in Starscream's memory. He noted that much of the data was corrupted or incomplete, so much damage had been done to the Seeker, who must have met the hail of bullets almost directly head-on. Setting himself a memo to try and retrieve all he could, he put everything downloaded into a separate file.

Once that had finished, he reached into his chest and found his last empty cassette, which as he recalled was flight-capable. Once the Spark-collector beeped, signifying it had finished, Soundwave withdrew it from Starscream's now-inert body, and carefully opened the chest of the Cassette. He put the Spark-collector in it and reversed the setting from "Collect" to "Release." As the Spark rushed into the Cassette's Spark-chamber, the optics glowed and the wings twitched, but as the body was not yet energised, nothing more happened. Picking it up, Soundwave slipped it inside to charge. He then used the injuries inflicted on the Seeker's helm to gain access to Starscream's processor clusters and memory chips, carefully removing them and storing them in a compartment in his arm. Then he stood upright and headed back to his room, now ignoring the remains of Starscream's original body.

What would happen now was open to question, but Starscream's Spark was now in a safe environment. Now he was in no immediate peril of dying.

When Thundercracker and Skywarp got back, they were at first confused, for although Starscream's body was inert, they could feel through the trine-bond that he was not dead. They went to Soundwave's room, where they found him, and asked him what had happened, why was Starscream's body inert while their trine-bond indicated that their wing brother was alive? Soundwave told them: he had transferred Starscream's Spark into a Cassette. They were at first angry about this, but Soundwave cut off their angry accusations.

"He-lives. That-can-change." At the not-so-veiled threat, they shut up, both hoping Soundwave was bluffing but not willing to call his bluff in case he was not. He looked at them.

"Why, though?" Thundercracker asked. "Why would you do this to him?"

"So-he-lives." Soundwave replied. "Humans-say-where-life,-is-hope."

A/N So, opinions please! Do I continue this or just put it up as a one-shot? I do have ideas but no framework to put them in as yet. Is there anyone else you'd like to see in it?Ideas? Love it? Hate it? Please contact me!