12.

"Status of Megatron?" Soundwave asked as soon as the door slid open and Starscream darted into his office, looking like he had just survived sneaking through Autobot territory instead of walking the halls of the Nemesis.

"Still alive, unfortunately, and the Constructicons aren't letting me anywhere near the medbay – after all this time, can you believe they don't trust me?"

"Affirmative."

Starscream grinned, an expression that heralded an explosive end to anyone that crossed him. "They've got good reason." He crossed the room to Soundwave's desk and slumped down into a chair, his wicked smile vanishing. "We're slagged. Honestly, we're slagged. I can toe the line, but you – Megatron expects disloyalty from me, he welcomes it –"

"Reasoning: keep his skills honed."

"Exactly. But you – you don't have the leeway that I do, you're the loyal one, that's what you're good for, and if Megatron can't trust you for that he won't want you around." Starscream rubbed his optics and glanced up at the ceiling. "A traitorous Seeker is one thing, a traitorous spy with a bunch of cassettes loyal only to him… you're too dangerous like this." He looked back at Soundwave, optics dimming slightly. "He's going to kill you."

"Negatory. Megatron: requires more proof of treachery than –"

Starscream jumped up and slammed his hands down on the desk, leaning across it into Soundwave's face. "Your mistake is thinking that Megatron is sane!" he shouted. "You think he follows some set pattern of rules and sense – you think he's like Shockwave, like you, calculating and unemotional and – I am proof that he's not!" He toppled back into the chair, his sudden burst of energy gone. "Nobody sane would keep me around. And somebody sane would keep you around. And Megatron isn't sane."

"Megatron: has enough sense not to kill Communications Officer." Soundwave paused, watching Starscream avoid looking at him, wings twitching, head hanging. "Query: your reason for caring?"

"Stockholm Syndrome, you slagball." Starscream sat up and glared. "Your glitched loyalty is going to make you stay, and staying will get you killed."

"Starscream: paranoid."

"And your processor is total slag." Starscream stood up and strode to the door.

"Destination?" Soundwave asked.

"Going to assassinate Megatron," Starscream replied, his back still to Soundwave. "You can die for your loyalty, but personally, I'd rather kill for my friends."

::Houston, we have a problem.:: Starscream slumped against the door of the supply closet and waited for the footsteps to trample past. ::And it's not just that you've completely infected me with human, Megatron's out of medbay and looking for someone to kill. The Stunticons are backing him up and I wasn't about to take on a combiner team and Megatron all at once. Take my advice and get out of here now!::

No response. Starscream inched the door open and peered out into the hallway. It was empty and he slipped out into the open and started on the route to take him to Soundwave's office. ::Soundwave, Megatron is not sane, he has not been sane since he built the Giant Purple Griffin - ::

::That monstrosity: possessed designation?::

::Swindle named it. Did you hear a word I said besides that?::

::Your advice: reasonable. Motormaster: just arrived. Request: I go with him to see Megatron.::

::And…?:: When he didn't get an immediate answer, Starscream put on a burst of speed and nearly careened into a wall at the next corner. Soundwave's office was right down the next corridor, and Starscream had no idea what he would do when he got there.

He skidded to a halt outside of Soundwave's office to find the door closed. He waited for a few moments, long enough for his feet to stop sparking from their contact with the floor, before he banged on the door and called, out loud and over the comm link, "SOUNDWAVE!"

The door slid open and Soundwave stepped out into the hallway, revealing an offlined Motormaster lying on his floor. "Motormaster: taken care of. Panic: unnecessary."

"I hope you know what you're doing," Starscream said. Soundwave nodded curtly and strode down the corridor at a brisk pace. Starscream followed him, casting a glance back at the closing door of Soundwave's office.

"Affirmative." Soundwave looked back at Starscream and was probably grinning as he added, "Soundwave: superior. All others: inferior."

"Except for, as it stands, a certain Autobot pet?"

Soundwave froze and Starscream crashed into him, looking over the (now likely former) Communications Officer's shoulder at Megatron standing at the other end of the barren corridor, fusion cannon raised and pointed directly at Soundwave. Starscream turned back to the way they had entered, only to see a metal door slam down from the ceiling, blocking their escape route – since when did we have those?

"Keep in mind, I am the leader, I do have control of everything on this ship. And no, I will not be letting you leave."

"Query: reasoning?"

::Query – why the frag are we not shooting him?:: Starscream demanded.

"Don't play innocent," Megatron snapped, leveling his cannon at Soundwave's head. "Don't pretend you don't know what's going on – though I am curious as to how you roped my second-in-command into this. How long have you been disloyal, Soundwave, what exactly is true anymore?"

And then a lot of things happened at once. Soundwave's chest opened and his cassettes sprung out, Ravage diving to the wall with a furious yowl, Rumble and Frenzy ducking behind Soundwave's legs. Megatron fired his fusion cannon, his arm jerking slightly downward at Ravage's cry, and Lazerbeak let out a pained shriek as the shot collided with him and then shattered Soundwave's chest. Soundwave toppled backward and Starscream staggered, maneuvering them back into the wall. Megatron lowered his now-smoking cannon and strode forward.

"Traitors get what traitors deserve."

Rumble and Frenzy jumped up and charged Megatron, attaching themselves to his legs, Frenzy snarling, Rumble pounding his piledrivers into his foot. Megatron aimed his cannon down at Frenzy and fired, putting a crater in the floor. Soundwave propelled himself upright and into Megatron, sending his next shot up into the ceiling. Megatron let out a roar of anger and Soundwave, dripping energon, vaulted over him and sprinted down the corridor.

The cassettes scattered away from Megatron, seeming to vanish into thin air. Megatron slowly stood up and walked down the hall like he knew he had already won. Almost at the end of the corridor, he stopped and turned around. "I almost forgot," he said quietly. Starscream shrank back against the wall as Megatron raised his fusion cannon and shot straight through Starscream's left wing. "Traitor." Another shot blasted a hole in the bottom half of his leg.

Starscream slumped down to the floor and watched Megatron disappear around the corner. A faint whining split the silence, emerging from Lazerbeak as he tried to drag his broken body across the hall. Pushing aside the pain for the moment, Starscream crawled to meet Lazerbeak halfway and scooped up the dying cassette. Lazerbeak whimpered and laid his head against Starscream's cockpit.

"What if Megatron comes back?" Starscream looked around to find out where the hushed whisper came from. Rumble sat against the wall, two cassette alt-modes jammed in cracks in the wall next to him. Both popped out and unfolded to reveal Frenzy and Ravage.

"I'd say if you do that again you'll be okay."

Ravage clambered up into Starscream's lap and snuggled up against Lazerbeak. When Frenzy crawled up to join them, Starscream wanted to yell at them I am not your seat, I am not Soundwave, get off me but he couldn't muster up enough hatred to do it. "C'mon, Beaky," Frenzy pleaded, "don't do this to us. Buzzsaw's already dead, don't you go too."

::Soundwave, please tell me you're alive.::

Rumble curled up against the wall and stared down the corridor, away from his siblings. Ravage whined pathetically and at that Starscream looked down in time to see Lazerbeak's optics go out and his body dull to ashen gray. Ravage nosed the dead cassette, like he expected to be able to annoy Lazerbeak back online, but Frenzy picked him up and carried him away from Ravage and Starscream.

Ravage hopped off of Starscream's lap and padded over to Rumble, who stood up in a daze and followed his twin and the cat. "Where are you going?" Starscream asked, and Frenzy turned around and glared. It occurred to him that they were probably going to mourn their companion and they didn't want him to stop them, so he added, "Never mind, do what you must – but don't get caught, Megatron probably has the entire baseon the lookout for you."

"We're spies," Rumble said. "We know this place better than Megsy himself, we'll be fine." And at that he turned to a panel in the wall and ripped it away, exposing a small, dark passage.

"Be careful," Starscream called as they disappeared into the passage. Rumble shot him a look of disbelief as he replaced the wall. He found the ability to be mildly offended for just a second before he realized what he'd said, what he sounded like, and started laughing hysterically.

::Primus, Soundwave, I think I've gone insane, just so you know. I'll try not to build any Giant Purple Griffins. Anyway, Ravage, Rumble and Frenzy are still intact, Lazerbeak's dead and they say Buzzsaw is too, but I don't know how they know that.::

::Status of cassettes: already known.::

Starscream pondered that one. ::So you all just… know when one of you is hurt or dead?::

::Affirmative.::

::Well, that's convenient. Where are you?::

::Location: en route to Autobot base.::

::The Autobots? Why?::

::Human proverb: enemy of your enemy is your friend.::

::So like blackmail and Stockholm Syndrome. Seems reasonable.:: Starscream collapsed back onto the floor, hissing as his damaged wing made contact with the ground. He felt energon wash over his back, spilled across the floor from his wounds and probably Lazerbeak's. ::Yeah, the Autobots would love to have your help, you know everything about the Decepticons. They'd win the war in a week. Or at least we'd kill Megatron and I could take over. I'm good with that. Hey, Soundwave, when I take over the Decepticons, do you want to be my second-in-command?::

::Starscream: unreasonable.::

::Yeah, maybe I don't need to be leader. I just need a vacation. Get my processor back in order. Hanging around with you in the past few years has been horrible for my sanity. I hope you're happy.::

::Happiness: not possible when under attack.::

::Megatron's still after you?::

::Affirmative.::

::That's bad.::

::Affirmative.::

Starscream chuckled and offlined his optics. ::I'd help you if I could but Megatron kind of shot me through the wing and the leg and now I'm just lying on the floor in that hallway.::

::Assistance: not required.::

::Not required? Understatement of the millennia if there is one.::

::Only requirement: that no others die because of my actions.::

::I suppose Megatron wouldn't count in that category of "others," would he? Because let's face it, we don't care if he dies, that's kind of what we're hoping for, right?::

No response. Starscream sat up and tried again. ::Soundwave?:: Something cold seized at Starscream's spark. ::Soundwave, when you say that you hope no one else dies, does that include you, or do you consider yourself an acceptable casualty of our mess?::

Static crackled in response, and through it Starscream could make out a faint word, one that sounded too much like goodbye, so he pretended that was his processor hearing things that weren't there and set about trying to contact Soundwave again. ::Soundwave? Soundwave! Can you hear me?:: He couldn't quash that feeling of déjà vu and with it the rising panic of knowing he had been in this situation before, here on this planet except before the war and with an ice storm instead of Megatron, but the static was so familiar, too familiar, and he knew how this ended –

Silence.

Starscream pulled himself up into a standing position with help from the wall and staggered off, leaving a trail of energon in his wake.

Desertion 1.

Skywarp took no convincing. Thundercracker, a little more so.

"So if we shouldn't stay here, what makes you think you'll be okay?" he demanded of Starscream, leaning over the Air Commander's desk and into his face when he didn't get an immediate answer.

"I'm not sure I will be," Starscream admitted, pushing Thundercracker back across the desk. "But I'm going to stay here and I'm going to kill Megatron."

"You've been saying that for nine million years, Starscream." Thundercracker frowned and folded his arms across his chest. "What makes you think you'll manage now? You said it yourself – Megatron was perfectly willing to kill Soundwave, which makes the rest of us even more disposable. That's exactly why you said 'Warp and I shouldn't stick around anymore!"

Starscream held up a hand, forestalling further protest. "Soundwave broke the cycle of predictability – he was supposed to be the loyal one – and so Megatron killed him. I'm still predictable, and Megatron can always count on that, even now that he's completely lost it. Out of all of the Decepticons, I'm probably the safest."

"That… almost made sense." Thundercracker looked around the room, empty except for him and Starscream. "Where's Skywarp? Aren't you trying to convince him to leave too?"

Starscream laughed. "I caught him before you got here and he agreed before I even got to the 'why.' He said he'd go 'borrow' some energon for your trip to wherever he'll be dragging you."

"So I never really had a choice in this, because Skywarp would kidnap me anyway." Thundercracker smiled wryly. "I really hate this trine."

"So do I. I thought I almost maybe liked you, and then you argue with me about this even though you never liked being a Decepticon in the first place. I go to Skywarp for inconsistencies like that, not you."

"True." Thundercracker chuckled. "I almost can't imagine what it will be like to have time to do things other than subjugate local populations and fight Autobots."

"And now you can't wait to go." Starscream wasn't sure whether he should laugh or smash his head through his desk. "You'll have to keep Skywarp from getting bored, bad things happen when he's bored."

Thundercracker nodded and started for the door. "Speaking of him, I should go collect him if we want to avoid getting caught before we even leave." About to open the door, he stopped and turned back to Starscream. "When did you get soft?"

"What?" Starscream shot up out of his chair. "I am not soft!"

"Yeah, you are. You're protecting me and 'Warp, in case you haven't noticed."

"I hadn't," Starscream lied.

Thundercracker smirked. "Sure." His amusement gave way to his usual solemn expression. "You're probably the most selfish mech I've ever had the misfortune to meet, and here you are, sending us off so we don't get killed and not caring what happens to yourself."

"So no one else dies because of our actions," Starscream whispered, so quietly that Thundercracker didn't seem to notice that he had spoken. Louder, he said, "Yeah, well, don't count on it lasting."

Thundercracker shook his head and opened the door. "Goodbye, Starscream."

"Bye, TC. Don't forget to take Skywarp with you, I don't want to keep him," Starscream called as the door slid shut. He waited until the sound of footsteps disappeared before he collapsed back into his chair and buried his head in his arms.

(Megatron gave him a matching hole through his right wing for not knowing why his wingmates left or where they went.)

Desertion 2.

"I'm gonna have to start practicing jet judo on the Aerialbots if some Seekers don't show up soon," Sideswipe grumbled, slamming his energon cube down on the table. Ironhide, passing by at that exact moment, cracked him across the back of the head with his fist.

"Be glad about it," he snapped, ignoring the dual glares he received from Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Carly had never quite figured out how he could be so dismissive of looks that expressed a burning desire to murder him – it's probably something to do with being stuck with these guys for a few million years, she thought with a small smile.

"So what's going on with the Decepticons?" she asked as Ironhide sat down at a table with Bumblebee, Spike, Jazz and Optimus.

"Been seeing less of them around lately." Ironhide held his hand up to Carly and she slid down from his shoulder. He set her on the table near Spike and Bumblebee.

"Y'know, I'd just asked that question," Spike said. He looked up at Ironhide and added, "But there's been the same number of attacks as always."

"Yeah, and we've seen that they're losing numbers," Bumblebee said. "We haven't seen either set of Seekers for a week now, and just today, Blitzwing and Astrotrain took off in the middle of the fighting and were headed away from the direction of the Nemesis. Megatron tried to go after them but Bluestreak got a nice shot in and brought him down."

"So… the Decepticons are defecting?" Spike asked.

"As far as we know, yes." Jazz nodded and took a sip of energon. "Less likely is that Megatron's just keeping his entire air force locked up on base for no particular reason."

"The fact that he killed Soundwave shows us that we are not dealing with Megatron at his most rational," Optimus pointed out. "I won't count out any explanation without further investigation."

"Did Megatron ever have a 'most rational'?" Carly asked, and everyone looked at her.

"…No," Optimus conceded after a few seconds of deep thought, and that was when Ratchet commed him to tell Carly and Spike to come fetch Daniel out of medbay, and the conversation ended.

("You're the Air Commander! You're supposed to keep all of them in line, not let them abandon us!" Megatron bellowed, and then he ordered Hook not to repair Starscream next time.)

Desertion 3.

There was plain bad luck, and there was the universe actively deciding that it wanted to screw with you. This was definitely the latter, because Carly could swear that this had already happened to her. Snatched up off of the site of a skirmish by the Decepticons – maybe it was Chip's laboratory that was the problem, she needed to stop visiting him here, but why the Decepticons were attacking it for the second time in three weeks, she didn't know – and dragged off somewhere… yes, this seemed a bit familiar.

This time, it was the Combaticons kidnapping her for some unknown reason. She didn't even know if they had all agreed upon this plan; she felt like an afterthought when one of them – Vortex, as far as she knew– scooped her up as the combiner team fled the battle. Their chatter gave her a wealth of information that the Autobots would certainly want, if she could somehow make it back to them.

In the time between being flung into Vortex's cargo hold and dropping out of it, Carly learned that the Combaticons were defecting, just like Thundercracker, Skywarp, Thrust, Dirge, Ramjet, Blitzwing, and Astrotrain. Unlike Thundercracker and Skywarp, they weren't staying on Earth (why would they stay here? she wondered) and unlike the rest, they weren't fleeing the war forever. Their plan, as far as Carly pieced together during the flight, was to take the space bridge to Cybertron and join up with Shockwave's faction there.

Her stomach flew up into her throat as Vortex made a sharp descent. Metal unfolded and spun around her and she fell through open space for a second or two before Vortex caught her and closed her in his fist. "Er, Vortex, why do you have a human?" someone asked. Carly found a cloud to focus on and tried to make the world stop rotating.

"So if the Autobots followed us, we've got something to bargain with so they'll leave us alone."

"They're more likely to follow us because we have a squishy, idiot!" a different Combaticon snapped. That one Carly believed was Onslaught.

"And I thought Brawl was the dumb one," said the one who had first noticed her – that one was Swindle. Brawl snarled at him. Blast Off inched away from everyone else.

What puzzled Carly was the fact that the Combaticons, standing right at the control panel of the space bridge, made no move to do anything with it. They stood around and waited, arguing with each other over nothing of importance and watching the sky like they expected someone to show up. Eventually, Carly heard the sound of engines and Starscream landed on the ground in between Onslaught and Brawl. "Took you long enough," Onslaught grumbled.

"You want my help or not?" Starscream demanded, casting a quick glance around all of the Combaticons and turning to the control panel. Then he froze and his head whipped back up, optics fixed on Vortex and Carly. "Why do you have a human?"

"In case the Autobots show up. They won't shoot us if we have one of their pets and we'll get away without a fight."

"When was the last time the Autobots followed any of us after a battle or came to the space bridge?" Starscream asked. "Now you gave them reason to." He held out his hand to Vortex. "Just give her to me and stop trying to be smart, you're not good at it." Vortex dumped Carly into Starscream's palm.

"Wait, that's a femme?" Brawl asked, sounding excited. "How can you tell?"

"Shut up and let me fix this," Starscream growled. He gently deposited Carly onto the control panel and set to work on another part of it, where Carly could now see exposed circuitry and frayed wires. Brawl seized his distraction to lean in close to Carly, his orange visor less than a foot away from her. The desire to put her foot through his face warred with the desire to live, and the desire to live won out. She edged closer to Starscream. Without looking up, he reached over and shoved Brawl away.

"I still don't trust you to make this thing work," Blast Off said, glaring at the space bridge. "We should have gotten the Constructicons to –"

"The Constructicons are still loyal to Megatron, idiot," Starscream snapped. "And Megatron was the one who broke this in the first place."

That shut him up. Brawl, meanwhile, picked himself up and again peered down at Carly. Onslaught grabbed him and dragged him away. "Will you stop?"

They waited in uneasy silence. Carly paced along a small stretch of the control panel, finding herself less and less occupied by the fear of being killed. Starscream had rescued her again, was protecting her again – why? And why, if so many other Decepticons had defected, would Starscream, the most disloyal of them all, stay?

Starscream straightened up. "There, done." The space bridge sprang to life and Onslaught herded his team into it. "You're welcome," Starscream muttered darkly. Carly watched as the portal opened up in the sky and an energy beam shot up, launching the Combaticons into the portal. It immediately vanished when they passed through, while the energy beam took longer to settle.

She looked up at Starscream and noticed that he was already eyeing her curiously. They stared at each other for a few seconds before they asked, in unison, in disbelief, "Again?"

Carly raised an eyebrow. Starscream smirked. "Ladies first," he said, waving for her to go on.

"Maybe the first time I'd believe that you're covering your own aft, but now that you've bailed me out a second time –"

"All it means is that you need to stop getting captured," Starscream retorted. "It says nothing about me." He glanced back at the space bridge. "The Autobots should have noticed that, I expect they'll come to collect you shortly." With that, he turned and strode away.

"Why?" Carly shouted after him, catching the Seeker a few inches off the ground, the boosters in his feet already activated. That one word asked any number of questions, but it was the one he had previously dismissed that he answered.

"A few reasons, but really, it was all Soundwave's fault."

He transformed and shot off into the air, and as he disappeared over the horizon, Carly spotted dust rising from the Autobots' approach.

(Rumble and Frenzy stole some energon from storage and Ravage borrowed some of Hook's medical tools, and when Starscream limped back into his room, he found everything he needed for making self-repairs, plus three cassettes hauling their television in through the ceiling.)

Endgame 1.

Carly's first priority upon arriving back at the Ark was finding Skyfire. This took an hour, not because of Skyfire – he could always be located in the labs – but because she had information about the defecting Decepticons to report to Optimus and the rest of the officers, a task that was then followed by convincing Ironhide that no, she did not need his constant services as a bodyguard, compared to the things that happened to Spike when he was a teenager, getting kidnapped twice in one month was nothing, and finally she had to detach Daniel from her hip ("why don't you go see Grandpa in medbay, maybe Ratchet can teach you some new curse words too" – and for the "Worst Mother of the Year" Award…) because there was no way she would let him near any lab where Wheeljack worked.

"Skyfire, can I talk to you?" Carly asked once she saw that there was no one else in the lab at the moment.

"Of course." Skyfire set down whatever he was working on and plopped down on the floor. Carly grinned and climbed up to sit on his foot. "So what's up? I heard you got kidnapped again today." His optics twinkled in the light when Carly made a face at him.

"Actually, this is kinda about that," Carly conceded after another few seconds of glaring. "And it goes back… well, it goes back a long ways."

"I've got as long as you need." Skyfire settled back against the wall.

"So… I imagine that you remember how those roses used to show up for me around Valentine's Day…"

And she told him everything.

Skyfire listened patiently to Carly's story, stiffening slightly when she first mentioned Starscream and never quite relaxing again. He was quiet for a long time after she finally finished explaining what happened earlier. Finally, she prompted him out of his silence by summarizing the reason she came to him in the first place: "The rest of the Autobots know Starscream from fighting against him for however-many-millions-of-years, but you were his friend once, and I want that perspective on why you think he did what he did."

"Did you bring this up to the others?" Skyfire asked. "What did they think?"

"They figured that Starscream was sticking around so that he could take Megatron out and take over." Carly waited a few seconds for a response and got none. "But considering he'd have no one left to lead at this point, I don't think that's likely."

"Starscream's a lot of things, but he's not stupid," Skyfire said at long last. "And yeah, he'd know that overthrowing Megatron means nothing if neither of them have an army. I'd say at this point, he's out for plain revenge by subverting what little authority Megatron has left… but I can't say what Soundwave could have had to do with any of this. He and Starscream were enemies, weren't they?"

Carly nodded. "As far as I know, since Soundwave was loyal to Megatron and Starscream was…"

"Starscream was Starscream?" Skyfire suggested, his mouth twitching slightly into a half-smile. Then he frowned. "Soundwave's dead. What bearing could he still have on Starscream's decision-making?"

"No clue."

"Same." Skyfire laid his head back against the wall and said, "I'm sorry I can't help."

Carly watched something in Perceptor's area of the lab bubble in its test tube – if it were something of Wheeljack's would she flee the room, but then again, if it were something of Wheeljack's left unattended, Skyfire wouldn't be in the lab in the first place. She knew that was why he spent most of his time here – for the consistency, whereas anywhere else in the Ark he still had to deal with the sideways glances, the sneers, the suspicion, even after over ten years. (For Cybertronians, she supposed ten years was nothing.) And she sighed and kept her eyes fixed on Perceptor's experiment as curiosity won out over the guilt of shattering Skyfire's consistency.

"How did you and Starscream become friends?" Carly asked. That felt like a better question, gentler than "why were you friends with him?" – the natural question to ask about Skyfire the pacifist and Starscream the… Starscream. She could have added "I don't mean to pry" but that sounded insincere even in her head.

"We were the two only fliers at Iacon Academy," Skyfire replied quietly. Carly already knew that part. "Which, I suppose we didn't have much in common besides 'wings' and 'the Academy' but…"

"Do Ironhide and I have anything in common?" Carly looked back at Skyfire and grinned reassuringly at him. He smiled back, a little sadly.

"He was always ambitious, even then. Always too proud, always got even – that's why I think that's what he's doing now. Based on past data." Skyfire chuckled, a sound that was distinctly unhappy. "Like Starscream's ever predictable.

"He wasn't ever particularly cruel… well, not pointlessly cruel. If you provoked him – and plenty of mechs did…" Skyfire rubbed at his chestplates, the area where Starscream had shot him the day he defected to the Autobots. It seemed to be an unconscious motion, because when he noticed Carly looking at him, he lowered his hand and glanced away. "He wasn't easy to get along with, I'll give you that, but he was brilliant. And he respected others who were smart… though he never really did agree with my pacifism." Skyfire laughed, and this time it was lighter, happier. "I remember, there were so many mechs that didn't like me, and Starscream got so angry with me because I let them walk all over me. A lot of the fights he picked were on my behalf. I never liked that, but I suppose, in his own way, he was looking out for me."

A fond, amused smile graced Skyfire's face for just a moment, and then it vanished. "Then I got dug up out of the ice and he shot me for sticking to the beliefs he always knew I had."

"And twice now he's protected a little squishy from other Decepticons." Carly tapped her fingers against Skyfire's leg. "I see a pattern. It's screwed up by that time he shot you, but otherwise I see a pattern."

"You're forgetting everything else the Decepticons have ever done," Skyfire said bitterly. "All of their attacks on the Autobots, on humans, that Starscream has taken a positively gleeful part in…"

"He's no Autobot," Carly agreed, "but he's not one of the sparkless monsters that Ironhide tells Daniel all about."

Skyfire glanced down at her sharply. "You let Ironhide tell Daniel bedtime stories?"

"I know, I know, I'm the worst mother ever." Carly threw her hands up into the air. "But they're 'early-in-the-day, lights-on-everywhere' stories, not bedtime stories. Not after he learned about the cassettes and was too afraid to go to sleep, and we found him in Red Alert's office." She grinned at the memory. "The two of them were keeping a close watch on all of the monitors to make sure Ravage hadn't gotten in anywhere. Red threw an absolute fit when Inferno and I staged an intervention. His tantrum was even worse than Daniel's. As it turned out, he hadn't recharged for the past two weeks."

"I remember seeing Inferno dragging him through the halls," Skyfire said thoughtfully. "Though that isn't a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence here, anyway."

"I had a Decepticon give me flowers for six years, nothing's weird here anymore." Carly laughed. "I think you did help, thanks."

"Desertion" 4.

Megatron murdered the Insecticons in a fit of reasonless rage. Once Starscream would have been glad that he was not the scapegoat, but starting at the three bodies leaking energon across the floor, he couldn't find any feelings of relief. There were none of guilt, either, just a sort of resigned emptiness.

Megatron stalked from the command center without so much as glancing at Starscream. He wasn't much more than a silent fixture in the room these days, almost like Soundwave once was. When he returned to his quarters, Ravage confirmed this sentiment, replaying a conversation between the Constructicons that he overheard.

"So what the frag happened to Starscream, anyway? He's like the new Soundwave or something."

Starscream could figure out which Constructicon was speaking if he put his processor to the task, but he didn't particularly care to.

A chuckle. "Yeah, who would have thought that Soundwave'd get killed before Screamer?"

"And that Screamer'd be so… I dunno, docile? Megatron finally beat him down, huh?"

"About time that slaghead got put in his place."

Ravage clicked the recording off. "Oh, you have no idea," Starscream murmured, clenching his hands into fists. How it hurt his pride to know that others thought him so broken that he would give up and be Megatron's faithful dog. The thought was almost enough for him to storm out of his room and become his old self. Almost.

But Ravage gave him a look that, without words, said "you are an idiot if you are going to blow it this close to our victory" and at that moment, Rumble and Frenzy wandered in through the ceiling. Starscream nodded to Ravage and settled back against the wall to watch the twins argue as they attempted to hook up their new Nintendo 64. Ravage hopped up on the berth next to him and the two of them waited for the inevitable necessity of having to intervene with the twins' gaming to prevent another Mario Kart Debacle.

Not for the first time, Starscream wished that he could ask Soundwave how in the Pit he managed to put up with this.

Endgame 2.

"Incoming message on Teletraan-1!" Blaster called. Carly froze partway through her umpteenth time of pacing the floor of the command center. Please let that be Bumblebee, please let it be Bumblebee…

"Where's it coming from?" Jazz asked, bounding across the room to Blaster's side. He frowned at whatever-it-was that was currently displayed on the monitor – Cybertronian writing, maybe, Carly didn't know.

"Well?" Spike prompted when Blaster didn't answer and Jazz didn't say anything else.

"It's written in some sort of code and slag if we know where it originated," Blaster said. "Looks like Soundwave's handiwork."

"Except he's dead," Ironhide growled. "So who is it?"

"I'll run and get Perceptor and see if he'll give a shot at decoding this." Wheeljack sprinted out of the room. Carly started pacing again. Ironhide growled unintelligible words under his breath as Blaster and Jazz puzzled over the message. Optimus stood as still as a statue, looking around at the proceedings and every so often casting a concerned glance at Carly or Spike as they waited for Wheeljack to return.

Finally, the doors burst open again, and Wheeljack rushed in, followed closely by Skyfire and then Perceptor. The two clearly had been briefed on the situation, because they both made a beeline for the monitors. Perceptor looked the screen up and down, frowning as he did so. "These look vaguely familiar," he said. "Though I can't explain why…"

"Iacon Academy, perhaps?" Skyfire asked, one corner of his mouth twitching.

"Perhaps…" Perceptor didn't seem convinced.

"Though I suppose your academy days are nine million years more removed than mine are," Skyfire added.

"Can you tell us what this says or not?" Ironhide snapped.

"No, I'm sorry," Perceptor said at the exact moment Skyfire replied with, "Yes, I can." They glanced at each other and Perceptor stepped to the side to give Skyfire full access to Teletraan-1's monitors and keyboards.

"So what is this, anyway?" Blaster asked, eyeing Skyfire with some disbelief.

"It's a long story."

"We've got time," Blaster retorted.

Carly watched Skyfire's hands dart across the keyboard. Glyphs on the screen rearranged themselves and slid across to different monitors. "Starscream created it. He was always paranoid that others would steal his work, so he wrote everything in code. Of course, it was a little hard to work with a lab partner whose work you couldn't understand, and when I finally got fed up with it, he taught me how to decode it instead of, I don't know, something anyone else would do, like stop writing everything in code." He cast a quick glance at Perceptor. "If you recognize any of this, you probably saw it graffitied on a building somewhere. Starscream, as a hobby, took up publicly insulting all of the professors he didn't like in a language no one could understand. I don't know why."

"So why is Starscream sending us a message in the first place?" Ironhide asked. "Why has he even stayed with the Decepticons?" He looked around at all of the other occupants of the room.

"Skyfire?" Optimus prompted after a short silence. Skyfire grunted acknowledgement, focused on his decoding. "Do you have any ideas?" This jolted Skyfire back into the universe where the rest of the Autobots resided. He turned his head to look at Carly, and she nodded in response to the wordless question he asked.

Skyfire turned back to his work. "We'll see about the message soon enough. As for why he's still with Megatron… I'd guess revenge, plain and simple."

"Nothing's simple with those 'Cons," Ironhide growled. Carly had to agree, and she thought that Skyfire probably did, too.

"Okay, that should do it," Skyfire announced after another minute or so of silence. Everyone's attention turned to the monitors and Carly watched as what was now displayed on the screen – likely standard Cybertronian – copied to a second monitor. In a few seconds, Teletraan-1 automatically translated that to English.

Megatron has your small human and yellow MiniBot held hostage. He intends to trade them for another one of your human compatriots because he blames her for his recent failures in the war. I would devise a course of action before Megatron contacts you: his demands will be for an immediate answer in the hopes of catching you off-guard.

In the silence of everyone absorbing the situation, before the questions started, Carly turned and slipped from the room.

Skyfire found her perched on the outside of the mountain. "Everyone's looking for you," he said quietly, leaning up against the rocks, his head resting on his arms about six feet away from her.

"Including you?" Carly asked, turning a small stone over in her hands before throwing it as far as she could.

"No." Skyfire smiled sadly. "We both just picked the same place to hide from it all." After a minute or so in which Carly didn't say anything, Skyfire added, "I thought that you would have told anyone else about Soundwave before coming to me."

"It was too weird of a thing to talk about," Carly replied, "but after Starscream brought it up, I thought you would be the best to go to for help." She sighed and tucked her knees up under her chin. "I thought that since Soundwave was dead, there wouldn't be any reason for any of this to come up ever again. And now look what's happened."

"It's not your fault."

The plan that had been slowly brewing in Carly's mind reared its head again. "Skyfire?" she asked suddenly, unfolding herself and looking over to him. "What's the stupidest thing you've ever done?"

Skyfire fixed her with a suspicious stare. "Probably not as stupid as whatever you're about to suggest."

"We need to act now, because right now we have the advantage and if we wait too long we hand it back to Megatron. And Starscream – Starscream's helping us, whatever Soundwave had to do with anything, he's dead now and Starscream still protected me, he still gave us this information, he's on our side – "

"Carly, any plan that hinges on Starscream is a stupid idea – "

"Tell me that you think I'm wrong." Carly jumped up and balled her hands into fists. Skyfire glanced away. "You can't, can you?"

"I want to think that Starscream has some semblance of decency left," Skyfire replied quietly. "I really want to. But I won't voluntarily, willingly, put our – your – life into his hands."

"I'm putting my life into his hands, not you. It's my plan, I understand the consequences – "

"Leave it to Optimus! Ironhide! Anyone else!"

"What, so they can straight-up assault the Nemesis and give Megatron the chance to kill Daniel and Bumblebee before they can rescue them? Megatron doesn't even care about them – I'm the one he wants. And I can do something about it, they're my family and… and I know what I'm playing at, but I really believe this will work out."

"I'm not the best 'bot to go to if you want stealthy infiltration…" Skyfire said wearily, and the fact that he chose to protest that part of the plan instead of everything else told her that she had her ally.

"I want you to come with me."

"An appeal to Starscream's better nature?"

"More of one than whatever's already going on. Plus, you know the whole story, and you can fly and could carry 'Bee out."

"Glorified taxi service, then."

"If you want to be cynical."

"I think we're both very optimistic right now. We have to be if we're counting on Starscream."

"He's set quite a precedent for being able to be counted on. The predicted outcome from the data looks good." When dealing with Skyfire or Perceptor, Carly knew that appealing to scientific reasoning was the best course of action.

"True." Skyfire held out his hand and Carly slid down into his palm. "This… this actually isn't the stupidest thing I've ever done," he admitted, grinning sheepishly.

"So what is?"

"…Let's just go before someone with more sense comes to stop us, shall we?"

"Yes, Mr. Sky Taxi."

Stupid Things 1.

"Oi, Screamer, you'll never guess what just happened!" Soundwave's cassettes always were good at appearing from nowhere and disappearing into thin air, but now that staying unseen was life or death even on the Nemesis, they'd only gotten better.

Starscream hated it. He would swear to Primus that Rumble possessed the ability to become invisible and utilized it to torment him. "What, Soundwave came back from the dead and lifted the burden of you slaggers off of my shoulders?" he asked, not even bothering to look around for the blue cassette. He'd appear when it was necessary.

"Frenzy sent in some surveillance footage from near the rec room. He shut down all of the alarms, too, so Megs has no idea that they're here."

"Who's here?" Starscream asked. The image appearing on the back wall monitor – the cassettes reinstalled all of Soundwave's personal computer systems into Starscream's office – answered his question. He watched as the footage showed a part of the wall exploding, welcoming in seawater and the last Autobot he expected to launch a solo rescue operation – Skyfire. The next clip showed that the flooding had been automatically contained by the ship's systems and Breakdown and Wildrider were in the area.

And he watched in openmouthed astonishment as Skyfire, without hesitation, shot each of them.

"Looks like your big pacifistic lug of a BFF could've made a decent 'Con." Rumble sat on the desk now, grinning at the monitors and Starscream's shocked expression. "Frenz spotted the human with him."

"So she and Skyfire are here on a rescue mission," Starscream muttered. "Likely unsanctioned."

"Yeah, those two aren't exactly prime rescuer material," Rumble added. His grin stretched wider. "Heh, 'prime'."

"Please tell me the other two of your number are doing something more useful than making bad puns." Starscream turned away from the monitors and glared at Rumble.

"Yup! Frenzy's on his way to bring those two straight down to the brig, Ravage is already down there, and I'm logged into surveillance to make sure they don't run into trouble."

Starscream found it amazing that the cassettes could be so intelligent while acting so fragging idiotic.

Stupid Things 2.

Carly wasn't sure if she should be more surprised by the fact that Skyfire had just shot to kill – whether he actually killed the Decepticons was irrelevant, they weren't sticking around the bodies long enough to find out – or by the fact that at least one of Soundwave's cassettes was alive and helping them out.

She chose the former and she and Skyfire followed Frenzy without a word between them. We're already doing this stupid thing, might as well be stupider, she thought, casting paranoid glances down every hallway they passed. Frenzy seemed more confident, like he knew that they wouldn't encounter anyone else.

"I suppose with so few Decepticons left on Earth, odds are low that we'll run into any of them," Carly whispered when Frenzy led them onto an elevator.

"And I've got the brothers plugged into all of our surveillance feeds to make sure of that," Frenzy added. "Hey, you didn't think Soundwave was the only one who knew how to do stuff like that, did you?" When neither Skyfire nor Carly said anything, Frenzy's cocky grin melted off of his face. "Fine then."

"So you're the ones who sent the message?" Carly asked. The lift lurched into place and she staggered against Skyfire's leg for support.

"Yup! Well, Screamer wrote it up and put it in code, but we passed it along." Frenzy waved for them to follow him out into the hallway. The air was colder on this level of the ship. Carly experimentally blew out her breath to test if she could see it – she couldn't, but that didn't mean much.

Frenzy led them through a maze of empty cells littered with energon stains and metal flecks. Carly forced herself to concentrate on the corridor ahead of her and on the back of Frenzy's head. A low hum of electricity reached her ears from around the corner, and Frenzy sped up. Skyfire tensed as soon as he disappeared from their sight – Carly couldn't blame him when part of her suspected an ambush.

Thankfully, their suspicions were unfounded. Frenzy stood in front of the one occupied cell, silent, his optics fixed intently on the control panel far above his head. "Do… do you need me to do help with something?" Skyfire asked.

"Nah, Rumble's almost got it shut down."

As though on cue, the electricity buzzing through the bars shut off and the door unlocked with a click. Frenzy yanked it open and Carly rushed in to meet the strange sight. Ravage lay curled up on the floor, wrapped around Daniel, whose face was buried in the cassette's back. Next to them was Bumblebee, disturbingly still, energon leaking from scrapes all across his body.

"Daniel!" Carly cried. He looked up, eyes wide, dried tears streaking his face.

"Mommy!" Daniel clambered over Ravage to her. She snatched him up in a tight hug, so afraid of having him taken away from her again. "Mommy, Bee…" He wriggled to loosen her grip and pointed at the yellow MiniBot.

Skyfire entered the cell and knelt down at Bumblebee's side. "How is he?" Carly asked, pressing Daniel's face down into her shoulder so that he couldn't see his injured Autobot guardian.

"He's in stasis, but he's stable," Skyfire announced after a moment. "He'll probably start losing energon again if we move him, but we don't have much of a choice, unless someone here has something to patch him up."

"Sorry," Frenzy blurted. "Didn't know you were a medic."

"I was an explorer," Skyfire explained, "and every exploration team needed someone with some basic knowledge of field repairs. That 'someone' wasn't going to be Starscream."

Frenzy let out a loud guffaw. "No, I wouldn't think so." Ravage rolled his optics, stretched, and trotted out of the cell. "Well, I guess kitty-cat says it's time to go, so it's time to go." Frenzy shot a look at Skyfire and then Carly, while Ravage glared at the red-and-black cassette. Carly hoisted Daniel up into her arms – Primus, he was getting too big for that – and followed Frenzy. Skyfire came last, gently and carefully scooping up Bumblebee.

Frenzy and Ravage led them back through the labyrinth of the Decepticon cells. Daniel grew heavier with every step, but somehow Carly made it to the elevator before she had to set him down on the ground. He clutched her trembling hand and buried his face in her side.

With every passing second, Frenzy looked less and less confident. When the elevator doors opened again, he slowly edged out, poised to spring away from an attack – or maybe towards an attacker. "The other three Stunts are in this area," he said quietly in response to Skyfire's questioning look. "Rumble says they aren't on course to run into us, but we need to be careful. Ravage, wanna run interference?"

Ravage curtly nodded and took off to the left. Frenzy started to the right at a slower, more cautious pace than before. Carly edged closer to Skyfire's foot, and he looked down at her with a smile probably meant to be reassuring, but he just looked scared. Daniel, thankfully, knew that this was a time he needed to stay quiet.

A few more hallways passed without incident, but Frenzy meandered to a halt in a corridor with an energon-stained floor and blast marks on the walls. "What?" Carly whispered, holding Daniel closer to her. "What's wrong?"

Frenzy shook his head once and looked back at her with a smile. His was false reassurance like Skyfire's, but the emotion he was trying not to show was sadness. "This is where Lazerbeak and Buzzsaw died," he said softly, waving for them to continue on. "When Soundwave was trying to escape, we ran into Megatron." He sped up, like he thought that he could escape the bad memories.

The next hallway led to another elevator. "This'll take you outside," Frenzy said. He stiffened. "And Megs is coming this way, so go!" He shoved Carly and Daniel into the lift and bolted as soon as Skyfire entered. As the doors slid shut, Skyfire deposited Bumblebee on the ground.

"What are we going to do?" he asked, blue optics wide and worried.

"We're going to get out of here," Carly replied with more confidence than she felt. "And we're going to get back to the Ark, and we're going to take down this slagger Megatron once and for all, and – "

At the moment the lift halted, something collided with it, jarring the floor and sending everyone within staggering. Daniel whimpered but instead of being paralyzed with terror, he bolted outside the moment the doors opened to the raised launch pad. "Daniel!" Carly snapped, racing out after him and grabbing him before he got too far.

Skyfire carried Bumblebee out of the elevator, set him down, and transformed. "Get in!" he hissed. Carly gave Daniel a small shove in the direction of the shuttle's open hatch and turned to deal with Bumblebee. His optics lit up, dull, but he was online.

"Think you can stand, Bee?" she asked, trying to force a grin.

"I'll manage," he replied, rolling over onto his chest and pushing himself up to his knees. From there, he crawled up Skyfire's ramp and into his interior. Carly bounded up after him, Skyfire having begun closing his hatch and taking off even before she and Bumblebee were settled. "Someone's after us?" he asked, collapsing on his side, trying to stifle a leakage on his chest. "Or was that just a crappy elevator?"

"I don't particularly want to find out either way," Skyfire said. "So far I can't see anyone coming after us." But Carly could feel him speeding up, past even his usual pace for fleeing a battle. She left Daniel curled up against Bumblebee and made her way up to Skyfire's huge cockpit.

"Really?" she breathed as she stared out at the approaching coastline ahead of them. "Can't you?"

"So far it's just a lot of smoke," Skyfire's voice murmured from somewhere around the control panel. "Literally. Looks like someone was too impatient to wait for the lift and is trying to blow it apart to get out."

"Megatron?" Carly leaned against one of the Autobot-sized seats.

"Probably, given what Frenzy said."

"Mommy?" Daniel called tentatively from somewhere in the back of the shuttle. "Bee shut down again."

"Keep us posted," Carly said before she went back to Daniel. He scrambled over to her and into her arms, and she sank to the floor, his head against her shoulder. They sat like that for a few minutes, until Skyfire spoke.

"Megatron's following us, I commed the Autobots for reinforcements – everybody hang on!"

And the first shot hit.

Carly didn't know what happened between the moment that Skyfire's entire body lurched and the moment he skidded in for a – admittedly rather graceful – crash-landing. Bumblebee came back online, moaning, to slide down Skyfire's hatch when he opened it and plop down into the sand. As soon as Carly and Daniel were out next to him, he transformed and pulled his rifle from subspace. Smoke trailed from his left wing and one of his legs.

Megatron circled overhead. Skyfire was no sharpshooter – Skyfire was no soldier – but he took aim and fired a shot into the air anyway. Megatron veered out of the way and dove down, blasting a hole through his other wing with his fusion cannon. Skyfire staggered and Megatron looped around, plowing into him from behind and knocking him to the ground. The rifle skidded across the beach, stopping a few feet away from Skyfire's fingertips. Megatron stomped down on the back of his head, forcing his face into the ground, training his fusion cannon on Skyfire's neck joints.

"Don't kill him!" Carly screamed. Megatron turned, a wicked grin slowly stretching across his face.

"Carly, don't – " Bumblebee whispered. Daniel whimpered, and Carly detached him from her leg and pushed him over to Bumblebee.

"I'm the one you want, Megatron, and I'm here, so just let these guys go."

Megatron made sure to step on the blast hole in Skyfire's wing as he approached Carly. He snatched her up, holding her up close to his face. "You were a nuisance even before this," he growled. "And now look what you've done."

"I've done? I did nothing. It was all Soundwave, and it was all you."

Unlike the last time she found herself in this position, Carly wasn't scared. She felt herself overtaken by some strange calm. She was going to die. But maybe she'd bought her friends their escape.

Megatron loosened his grip on her and simply flicked his wrist, sending her flying through the air and sprawling through the sand. Skyfire let out a cry of horror, followed by one of pain as, presumably, Megatron stepped on his wounds again. The world slowly came back into focus, with pain and Megatron's face leering over her. Somewhere far above, she could hear jet engines. She hoped it was Silverbolt and the Aerialbots.

She hoped.

"Tell me that you really didn't go after that squishy again."

It was Starscream. Megatron snarled and whisked Carly up off the ground, brandishing her in the direction of his Air Commander. "Don't tell me that you're afraid of the Autobots' wrath. We've lost Starscream, we have nothing!"

"That's your fault, not mine," Carly shot at him.

Megatron didn't even seem to have heard her. "What does it matter if we die, I want revenge."

Starscream grunted something and strode forward, past Megatron, to lightly step on Skyfire's outstretched hand, the one reaching for his rifle. "Don't," Starscream said softly, kicking the rifle farther away from Skyfire and picking it up. He turned the weapon over in his hands.

"He's no threat," Megatron scoffed. Starscream frowned.

"He killed Wildrider and Breakdown. Shot straight through the spark, both of them."

Skyfire gasped, his hands digging into the sand. Carly for her part couldn't wrap her brain around the things she had done – Skyfire the sweethearted pacifist had killed for her, Soundwave the emotionless Decepticon had died for her. Who was she to inspire actions as uncharacteristic as those, just for her sake?

"He did?" Megatron sounded impressed. Skyfire's entire body trembled, the horror and the guilt at his own actions clearly present in his optics. "Perhaps we lost out on a good soldier after all – murder like that is not an Autobot action, though singlehandedly assaulting the enemy is not the type of brazen stupidity I would expect from your ilk, Starscream."

"Yes, this is more my style," Starscream said, and Megatron's entire body lurched. Carly went flying from his hands and Skyfire, hissing in pain, jolted up to catch her. Megatron toppled to the ground, energon spreading out from underneath his back. "Do you realize how far you've fallen, Megatron?" As the gray Decepticon started to raise his fusion cannon, Starscream planted his heel on Megatron's hand and activated his thruster. Megatron gave no indication that he was in pain other than clenching his other fist. Starscream saw that motion and calmly shot through his shoulder with Skyfire's rifle. "How pathetic it is for you to believe that I was the only one you could trust?

"The world did not turn upside-down when Soundwave betrayed you, when your most loyal mech became a traitor your most consistent traitor did not become loyal. You, Megatron, you were the only one who changed, you lost your fragging mind." Megatron snarled and made a move to lunge up. Starscream shot him through his stomach area. "See, Soundwave and I had one thing in common – neither of us were yours. But Soundwave – " At that, a smile crossed Starscream's features and he shook his head. "Soundwave was willing to be the martyr, Soundwave died for love, but I would rather kill for my friends."

Megatron twisted his head to glare at Skyfire. "He wasn't even going to die today."

"You misunderstand," Starscream said tersely, and each of his next four words was clipped and emphasized. "Soundwave was my friend."

Megatron stared at him in confusion before letting out a sharp burst of laughter. "And for a friend, you will kill me, as you have wanted to for nine million years. What a sacrifice – go on, kill me already!"

"See there, that's the thing. I won't kill you, and that's the sacrifice to my friend." Starscream smirked at Megatron's shocked expression. With a puff of air, his cockpit clicked open from his chest and he reached in to pull out three small objects, which he flicked at Megatron. The cassettes transformed into Rumble, Frenzy, and Ravage. "They'll kill you. I want them to. And they'll do it and I'll laugh, because you lost, and just remember who you lost to."

Starscream stepped across Megatron. "He's all yours," he said, waving absently to the cassettes. Skyfire turned away and picked up Daniel. He held both him and Carly close to his chest, mother with her hands over her son's ears, but nothing could dampen Megatron's unholy shrieks. Daniel cried silently, and Skyfire's entire body shook.

It ended with silence.

Carly let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Skyfire set her and Daniel back down on the ground. When she managed to focus on the scene in front of her, her jaw dropped. Ratchet knelt at Bumblebee's side, patching the little Autobot up. Optimus, Jazz, and the Aerialbots stood at the edge of the beach, all looking a bit too stunned at the proceedings to move. Carly didn't doubt that there were a few other Autobots scattered about, lying in ambush. "How… how long have they been there?" she asked Skyfire. He shrugged.

"Since the back half of Starscream's big speech," Ratchet called over without even looking up from his patient. Carly nodded, suddenly feeling sick and exhausted, and she sank down to the ground. Daniel sat at Ratchet's feet, watching him work on Bumblebee.

Nobody moved except for Starscream. The cassettes wrenched Megatron's fusion cannon from his body and handed it to the former Air Commander. He strode over to Optimus and held the cannon out to him. Optimus stared at it dumbly, not quite processing what to do with it. A few seconds passed before realization caught up to him, and he slowly took the weapon from Starscream. "Congratulations," the Seeker said with none of his characteristic sneer. "The Autobots won the war for Earth."

"For… Earth?" Optimus managed to tear his optics off of the cannon in his hands to look at Starscream.

"Other than three of the Stunticons and the Constructicons, yes, Earth is the Autobots', and I don't think anything more than fear held the Constructicons here. I expect they'll be headed for the space bridge shortly. The Stunticons will stay to fight, but considering they can't combine anymore, that won't be a problem."

Carly rested her hand on one of Skyfire's fingers. He was still shaking.

"Shockwave's taken over the war for Cybertron and the Combaticons joined him there. Your Autobots resistance is probably sitting back and watching all of the Decepticons on Cybertron squabble for leadership. They'll all kill each other if you give them enough time, but I doubt you will. And that's the state of the war. You'd have to be fools to lose it now. Have fun."

"War," Skyfire hissed, "is not fun."

"And that's why you weren't a Decepticon," Starscream replied. He walked back towards Megatron's body and the cassettes but stopped at Skyfire's side. He looked like he was about to say something, but he didn't, and Skyfire was silent.

And then he started moving again, over to the cassettes while Optimus gave orders to the other Autobots. Skyfire showed no inclination to move anywhere, so Carly brushed her hand across his again and walked around him to watch Starscream and the cassettes. She tried not to look at Megatron's broken body, but the cassettes' conversation made that even more difficult.

"Hey, Screamer, can we keep his head?" Rumble asked.

"Don't call me that, and no."

"But Prime gets his cannon! Not fair!"

"That's different, Frenzy."

"But – "

"No."

"Even if we mount his head on a plaque and write 'Starscream superior, Megatron inferior' under it?"

"Tempting, but no."

"You're no fun."

"Kids, huh?" It felt easy for Carly to join the conversation, if she pushed aside the thought that they were talking about beheading Megatron and making a trophy of it.

Starscream snorted. "Yeah. Stupid little fraggers."

"Hey! Heard that!" one of them called.

"You were supposed to." Starscream gazed out over the ocean, and Carly looked to see the Aerialbots flying out towards the Nemesis. "Time to go, then." He held out his hand and the three cassettes transformed, landing in his palm. His cockpit clicked open again and he deposited them inside.

"Thank you," Carly said. Starscream, poised to transform and fly off, stopped.

"Like I said: it was Soundwave's fault."

"I thanked him. Right before he died. But he's been dead and you've saved me… twice, now, I guess. That's a lot more than just Soundwave pulling strings." Starscream growled unintelligibly, and Carly surmised that he was like Sunstreaker, and no one could ever get him to admit that he had some semblance of kindness.

What he did next, though, surprised her. He knelt down and bent over further so that his head was on her level, and he murmured, "Look after Skyfire." His voice turned to a hiss as he added, "And never put him in a situation where he has to do something like that ever again."

Carly studied Skyfire's hunched-over form, bent head, and complete stillness, and she felt a surge of guilt and protectiveness. "Though," Starscream added, taking on a tone of curiosity now, "I would like to know where he found the luck to kill them in one shot each."

"You're horrible."

"I'm a Decepticon." Starscream straightened up, but another word from Carly stopped him.

"You're a Decepticon who cares about an Autobot's mental well-being, what kind of a Decepticon is that?"

"The same kind as whatever Soundwave was." Starscream transformed and took off before Carly could drag him back with more questions and implications that he had a spark, however small and dull it might be. There was something there.

"Carly!"

She turned to see Ironhide approaching. His doors flung open and Spike sprinted down to her. She grinned at the two of them and wrapped her arms around Spike's neck when he reached her. "If you ever do something that stupid again," Spike said, "let me know, because I'm not stopping you, I'm coming with you."

"Weren't you two supposed to have matured?" Ironhide growled.

"Daddy!"

Daniel raced over to them, stumbling a little on the sand. Skyfire caught him on one finger and propelled him over to his parents with a smile. Carly met his optics over Spike's shoulder and smiled at him. He managed one in response and said, "Definitely the stupidest thing I've ever done."

"And look, we won the war, too."

Rumble seemed a bit too enthusiastic about his "research" into human concepts of romance, enough that Soundwave felt he had to remind his cassette about the limitations of their situation. Roses or no, Soundwave was a Decepticon, and a Decepticon could never get a human's attention in the way he wanted to.

"Rumble: knows this will not lead to anything. Correct?"

Rumble grinned. "Yeah, but it's fun, and I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"