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The landscape’s flat expanse gave way to rougher terrain as Wheeljack sped along. The location marker on his HUD blinked brightly at him, and the Wrecker changed his course once more to keep it in front of him. He’d been driving for the better part of the day and he wasn’t looking forward to the long drive back in the dark. He really hoped there was something out here and it wasn’t just another wasted trip.
It didn’t take long for him to find the spot and even less time to find the narrow opening into what was supposed to be an energon mine. Wheeljack had his doubts, especially after all the other false leads, but this one seemed the most promising. At least to Prowl and Ultra Magnus. Still, it was looking better than the other three Wheeljack had visited since the entrance was definitely not natural.
Wheeljack managed to squeeze through the opening and the few feet of narrow passageway until it opened up. It grew much wider quickly after that and Wheeljack walked easily over a smooth, well-worn path. There were signs that someone had been drilling and pulling energon from the walls, floors, and ceilings. Offshoots were everywhere too, but Wheeljack ignored them, focusing on following the main pathway.
He stopped a few times to take samples like Prowl had asked him too and even managed to dig out smaller energon crystals that had been ignored. The Wrecker knew Cons had been here. They likely were still here and he’d been lucky not to run into any so far. With that in mind, Wheeljack moved more carefully, keeping an optic out and walking softer to muffle his steps.
The passageway ended almost as abruptly as it had begun. Wheeljack walked around a bend in the tunnel and found himself in the main mine shaft right in front of a bunch of Cons. Worse yet, he’d interrupted a shrill voice shrieking about production times. A voice he hadn’t heard on the way in.
One of the drills shut off with a squeal of components grinding together and Starscream’s helm snapped his way. Dark red optics widened before narrowing and a sneer crossed his lips. Wheeljack stopped, servo reaching for one of the grenades on his hip.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Starscream’s vocals were low, nearly purring as he turned fully toward Wheeljack. Whatever shock he’d had was gone. It set Wheeljack more on edge.
“Looks like a lost Autobot,” one of the Vehicons snickered.
“It certainly does, doesn’t it?” Starscream’s grin was the only warning Wheeljack got before the Seeker was raising his arm at him.
“Frag,” Wheeljack cursed. He didn’t have the time to dodge, at least not fully, but somehow the missile barely missed his shoulder. He pulled his own blaster from subspace, aiming it at the Decepticon SIC.
Starscream was already in motion, yelling orders at the Vehicons and miners to collect what they could from the mine and get out all while firing a blaster at Wheeljack. Even distracted, Starscream’s aim was precise, yet they either missed him or skimmed his plating.
“What’s wrong, Scream? Can’t aim today?” Wheeljack laughed and dove behind a rock. He needed to catch his breath and think of a plan. He was a little too far from the entrance now and even then, he didn’t really want to go back that way. It was too open.
“Ha! You wish. It’s more fun to play with little Autobots who are trapped.” Starscream yelled back at him right before his second missile collided with the wall above Wheeljack’s helm. Rock rained down on him, but it was mostly smaller chunks and dust.
“I think your aim’s off. You sure your optics are working correctly?”
“I’ll show you off,” was muttered in his general direction before a loud crack split the air.
Wheeljack flinched, heard a couple Cons shout in fear, and then a high cry echoed throughout the chamber. The Wrecker peeked over the rock he’d taken shelter behind, optics going wide at the sight of an enraged Insecticon screaming and lunging for a cluster of miners. Wheeljack cursed, aiming his blaster at the bug in the hopes of gaining its attention and drawing it away from the civilian miners. Starscream was quicker than him and placed himself in front of the Insecticon, blasters firing rapidly.
The Wrecker ducked back behind the rock and looked around, trying to find another way out. The Cons were all running the opposite way from where he had entered and Starscream was distracted. Wheeljack decided his best chance of escaping was to just leave the same way he’d arrived.
Starscream’s brilliant laugh stopped him halfway to the exit tunnel and he couldn’t help but to turn around to see what was going on. The Seeker was hovering off the ground with his thrusters lit, firing at the Insecticon. None of his shots missed. Each one landed between armor plates or on weak points and kept the Insecticon down. One well placed shot went through its visor and the bug screeched before collapsing in a smoking heap on the ground.
Wheeljack turned and ran, chased only by Starscream’s laughter. Once he was out and safely hidden a few miles away, Wheeljack leaned back against a rock and checked the few singe marks on his plating. None of them hurt and none were anywhere near his vitals or weak points. The white mech frowned, staring at the ground in front of him and wondering how the slag Starscream had missed him. Wheeljack swallowed, realizing the Seeker had missed him on purpose. He didn’t know why, but at the moment he didn’t care too much. He was just glad he’d gotten out without any serious injuries.
***
Starscream put on a burst of speed, ignoring the comm calls to return to formation. He was the Air Commander, he didn’t need to stay in formation if he didn’t want to. Plus, they were all slow and there hadn’t been any Autobot sightings in this area for a while. He was only slightly hoping to run into one or two just for a bit of fun.
The landscape below him was dotted with natural canyons and craters created from bombs. It created the perfect hideaway spot for Autobots just waiting to be found out.
Starscream cut back his engine and dropped altitude so his scanners could better reach the main canyon below him as he flew over it. A ping on his scanners had him putting on a burst of speed as he primed his weapon systems. Starscream dropped lower, flying right above the canyon opening, his weapons systems humming to life. A familiar spark signature popped up on his close range scanners. Starscream’s engines thrummed and he laughed to himself as his missiles finished priming. He wanted to get closer.
Pain lanced through his right wing and a klik later the loud report of a sniper rifle cracked through the air. Starscream fell. He worked to stabilize his flight and gave up, transforming into root mode to gain control of his fall. The ground met him and only vorns of practice saved him from serious injuries. As it was, Starscream doubted he’d be able to fly himself out of this one. He sent a ping out to the squadron he’d been flying with and relaxed when he got the confirmation that they were on their way and a few had split off to find the sniper.
“Well, look who we have here,” a familiar voice came from somewhere to his left.
The Seeker moaned in pain, pushing himself up into a sitting position. His diagnostics were still working to figure out all the damage, but he knew for a fact his right wing was unusable. It did have a good sized hole in it, after all. He shook his helm and glared over at Wheeljack.
“If it isn’t the most annoying Autobot ever,” Starscream muttered and carefully stood up. His legs wobbled, but he didn’t fall over.
“I try my hardest.” Wheeljack smirked. “Thought you were better than falling for an obvious trap, though.”
Starscream bristled. “Who said I fell for it? I knew that sniper was there. This was a calculated decision to make you all drop your guards.”
Starscream sniffed, sticking his nose in the air and trying to look down on Wheeljack haughtily. Wheeljack raised an optic ridge and his smirk grew even more. His walk was more of a swagger and Starscream twitched when he noticed the Autobot’s weapons systems were all offline and the gun in his servos wasn’t even turned on.
“Really? You must be a real good actor then. I definitely fell for that.” He was clearly lying, but Starscream wasn’t about to let that get to him. Too much at least.
“I’m the best there is.” He sniffed again, wincing at the results of his diagnostics check.
Wheeljack’s smug grin stayed in place. “If you say so. You gonna let me cuff you?”
“I’m not into that sort of thing,” Starscream responded automatically and only his centuries being trined to Skywarp kept the blush off his faceplates.
The white Autobot paused, shock briefly flickered over his frame before he barked out a laugh. “That’s good to know, I’ll be sure to let High Command know so they can add it to your dossier along with ‘best actor ever’.”
Starscream rolled his optics, crossing his arms over his chest. He wanted to look away petulantly, but didn’t dare take his optics off Wheeljack and the gun in his servo. It didn’t matter that the thing was offline.
The sound of jet engines interrupted them and Starscream smirked over at Wheeljack when the mech cursed. The Seeker could hear the sounds of a firefight and the roar of a jet engine nearing their location. The white Autobot was out in the open and Starscream watched him dive toward an outcropping. His blaster was up and already aiming by the time half of Starscream’s squad came roaring into their section of the cannon.
A few slowed enough to transform and take potshots at Wheeljack while the others provided covering fire. Starscream couldn’t exactly run, but he limped his way to his squadron, a little shocked Wheeljack hadn’t taken any more shots at him. Not that he was going to complain any.
“Let’s get out of here already,” Starscream snapped and the Eradicons all nodded.
One transformed and waited for Starscream to grab on before taking off, the others followed and took a few more shots at Wheeljack’s hiding place, not that he even tried to fire at Starscream. It was strange. Starscream didn’t like it at all, but he also didn’t have an issue with it. The rest of their squadron met up with them and they turned back toward base. At least now Starscream could confirm there had been Autobots in the canyons.
***
Starscream was at one of the worst outposts ever. Shockwave’s research outpost in the middle of Primus knew where. It wasn’t like it was important. It wasn’t his hidden research center in Iacon or even his home research center in Kaon. The Seeker really wanted to know how the mech managed to get so many of them when Starscream struggled to get one room.
He was currently on guard duty because there weren’t enough mechs present to let him do anything more valuable with his time. At least that’s what he was supposed to be doing. He was staring at a datapad, trying to figure out how to get out of this punishment and back to Kaon where he could keep a better optic on whatever Megatron was doing.
His comm crackled to life and Shockwave’s annoying monotone came over it. “Starscream, report to the west wing, Autobots are attempting to break in.”
The comm cut out. The Seeker huffed in annoyance. At least he’d get to shoot something, finally. He raced over to the spot marked on his map, trying not to make it look like he was excited. Starscream burst around the corner, glaring daggers and easily shot one of the Autobots in the shoulder. They yelped and fell back under better cover. Starscream took their distraction to shoot another Autobot. It was another non-lethal shot, mostly because of the angle and the rubble they were hiding behind, but it seemed like he was already doing a better job than the Vehicons in the hallway.
“Is that the best you can do?” A very familiar voice goaded him.
Starscream whipped toward the voice and shot off a rocket at the chunk of wall Wheeljack was hiding behind. The mech’s laughter was boisterous and the Seeker snarled, ducking behind a wall when another Autobot fired at him. He fired back at them, trying not to let Wheeljack’s laughter bother him too much. The shot was only supposed to look dramatic, not do anything useful.
“I don’t see any of your shots landing,” Starscream snarked back.
They took shots at each other, all very obviously missing until Shockwave came stomping down the hallway. Starscream was pleased to see how annoyed the mech looked at having to interrupt his experiments to help remove the Autobots from his research center. That was at least another good bonus to this whole situation.
“Starscream, you were supposed to deal with these Autobots already.” Shockwave droned.
The Seeker rolled his optics at the purple mech. “Oh yeah, let me just grab a gun that can shoot through rubble and take care of that for you.”
“Your sarcasm is not helping,” the tank informed him dryly.
“Then why don’t you start shooting at him!”
“Why don’t you two stop having a lovers quarrel, it’s making me sick,” Wheeljack’s voice taunted from somewhere behind the rubble.
Starscream shrieked and sent off another missile while Shockwave shot some of the support beams near the opening in the wall. Half the ceiling came down, obscuring most of the hole. A few Autobots dove through it quickly with Wheeljack being the last to slip through before Shockwave shot out the other support beam.
“That is how you handle the situation. We will be departing this facility soon. Help collect all my materials and make sure to destroy the facility completely after I leave.” Starscream rolled his optics but didn’t complain. He hoped this meant he was done working under the one-opticked mech.
***
Starscream paced the open floor space in the conference room, glaring at the datapad in his servos. It wasn’t super important. He hadn’t had anything really important cross his desk in months and was starting to wonder how long Megatron would be mad at him for this time around. It was only thanks to Starscream that they’d managed to get as much energon from the mine as they had.
His comm buzzed and Starscream didn’t even look at the code before opening and snapping at whoever was on the other line. ::What is it? I’m busy.::
::Starscream- is needed for interrogation assistance.:: Soundwave’s clipped and pieced together form of speech informed him.
The Seeker let out a huff but started to leave his office. It was better than what he had been doing after all. ::What kind of interrogation and with who?::
::Need to see if captive has information. Captive- is Autobot Wheeljack.::
Starscream definitely did not trip over his own pedes at the name. His pace did pick up though and he made it down to the interrogation rooms quicker than he normally would have. Soundwave was there looming in the hallway. He looked worn out and Starscream had a feeling he’d already been in the room for a while.
The silent mech opened the door for Starscream and started to follow him inside, but the Seeker spun around and pushed him back out. “I don’t need your help or your looming. You already tried and failed so now it’s my turn.”
Soundwave didn’t follow him in, letting the door slide closed in his face when Starscream spun back around to face the captive mech. Wheeljack grinned up at him from where he was shackled to a table.
“Hey there, Scream. Fancy meeting you here.” He drawled.
Starscream couldn’t stop himself from rolling his optics. “I’m the commander of this base, of course I would come to greet our newest guest.” He stalked forward and pulled up a chair, dropping into it. He kicked his pedes up onto the table and examined his claws. “So, what brings you here?”
“Soundwave’s little pests grabbed me. Seem to think I know a bunch of stuff about things. He’s wrong, but he doesn’t seem to care about that too much.”
Starscream snorted. “Soundwave and his spawn are usually wrong about things. What would a dumb Wrecker know about anything other than blowing things up. Unless Soundwave wants to know what you’re planning on blowing up?” Starscream cocked his head at the Wrecker and raised an optic ridge.
Wheeljack shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “No idea about blowing anything up in this area. Not even sure where this area even is. Felt like the little pit spawns dragged me onto a transport to get here.”
“Hmm, well, since you’re absolutely useless, I’ll tell Soundwave to melt you down later. Maybe sitting around for a bit will remind you of something.” Starscream muttered and stood up slowly. He flicked his wings and walked toward the door. “It was nice knowing you.”
“Wish I could say the same.”
The door closed behind Starscream and he glared at Soundwave. “Will you stop looming and go do something productive? I’m going to leave him there for a bit before sending some Eradicons to take him to get smelted. Do you have an issue with that?”
“No,” Megatron’s voice came out of Soundwave’s speakers and Starscream made a face. He brushed past Soundwave and didn’t look back. An hour later there was a base wide warning about their prisoner escaping and Starscream couldn’t help the smirk crossing his faceplates.
***
It wasn’t everyday that the backwater base Wheeljack had found himself in these days got this excitable. It took him longer than it should have to figure out what all the fuss was about. They’d captured a Decepticon, which normally wouldn’t have garnered this much excitement, but it was who they had captured that made everyone giddy.
Starscream was currently tied up and knocked out in their tiny brig. Wheeljack found himself in front of their security directors office before he really registered where he was going. He walked in without a second thought or even a knock and didn’t bother with pleasantries.
“You’ll never hold him for long,” he said, stopping in front of the desk with his arms crossed.
The mech at the desk glared up at him. “We are taking every precaution we can think of and we don’t need to hold onto him for long. The Prime is already sending a convoy to pick him up. Don’t worry about it.”
Wheeljack rolled his optics. “I’ve dealt with Starscream before, he’ll be out of here by nightfall.”
“He will be right where he is by the time the convoy gets here tomorrow morning.” The mech insisted. At Wheeljack’s disbelieving huff the mech glared even harder. “Go take a look for yourself if you’re so sure we’ll fail to hold him.”
“Sure, I can do that, but I don’t have anything that would keep him in place for much longer. He’s good at getting out of sticky situations.”
“Whatever, just get out of my office,” the mech snapped so Wheeljack did just that and headed for the brig.
There were only three mechs waiting outside the locked room when he got there, which was a big mistake. Starscream could get past them without a second thought. Not to mention the cell itself had seen better days. The only reason Starscream was still here was because he was passed out on the floor of the cell.
Wheeljack sauntered up to the three mechs who all shifted to look at him. None of them seemed to be taking their job seriously either. He raised an optical ridge at them and put on his cockiest smirk, his optics traveled past them and landed on the Seeker. Something seemed a bit off to Wheeljack and it wasn’t just the old pair of stasis cuffs around the mech’s wrists.
“So who do we have here?” Wheeljack drawled. He could’ve sworn he saw Starscream’s once even venting hitch a tiny bit. The others didn’t notice since none of them were paying any attention to their prisoner.
One of the mechs scuffed. “It’s Starscream, obviously.”
Wheeljack peered around them at the Seeker. “Oh yeah, I guess it really is him. I figured if we had the Decepticon Air Commander in our grasp that we’d at least have more security here.”
“He’s knocked out and in stasis cuffs. We’re all that’s needed,” one of the other mechs said with a glare.
“Alright then, if you insist. Personally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving him in those old cuffs.” Wheeljack started. He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. His spark spun a little faster in his chest. “I mean, it’s pretty cocky to leave him in cuffs that have a crack in them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the third mech said. “He’s knocked out and will stay that way until the convoy gets here in the morning.”
“Fine, but it’s your funerals.” Wheeljack muttered.
He pushed off the wall and stalked out, peaking at Starscream’s still frame. That was definitely a familiar smirk curling up his lip plates. Wheeljack wasn’t even sure why he’d done that. He’d given Starscream everything he needed to get out. A part of him argued that it wouldn’t have taken the Seeker long to figure out there were only three mechs watching him, to find the weakness in the cuffs. He shook his helm. It wasn’t worth thinking about anymore.
Wheeljack wasn’t at all shocked when the base’s alarms went off that night. He knew it would’ve happened with or without his help. Even so, a part of him felt pleased he’d helped the Seeker escape. He was starting to look forward to running into the mech again out in the field. He didn’t know why, but somehow he was starting to trust Starscream.
***
Starscream sat hunched over, staring down at the base he’d just broken out of and waited. A team was on its way to pick him up and all he had to do was not move. That was easy enough. He’d just pretended to be out cold for almost five hours.
He’d almost broken his cover when Wheeljack had shown up, and hadn’t that been an interesting turn. Even more interesting was the fact Wheeljack had practically helped him escape. Sure, he could’ve gotten out on his own eventually, but the small bit of intel from the grounder had helped Starscream get out quicker.
He smirked, flicking his wings out and shifted against the canyon wall. Somehow, he doubted this would be the last time they saw each other. He hoped it wasn’t at any rate.