Your Memory Lives On

It Begins

Life on the Nemesis had been just fine up until that day, if you asked Starscream. In fact, anyone could say it was a little too fine. Their energon stores were at peak capacity, Megatron was too busy stalking Optimus to beat Starscream into scrap, and Starscream had been out earlier that morning for a recon mission.

Primus forbid anyone find out the only "recon" he had gotten done was to sit back and enjoy the aggravatingly beautiful weather on earth. The breeze against his wingtips as he flew through the clouds was like nothing Starscream had ever experienced before.

Around midday on a lazy afternoon full of scanning for Autobot activity, Starscream began to feel a little lightheaded. He stocked it up to their new energon preservation rules (just because he had secured a new batch of energon didn't mean Megatron would give him an ample supply, apparently), brushing off the mild discomfort that came with it.

In order to distract himself from the growing helmache that now pounded in his brain, Starscream took a spot beside Soundwave and focused on the monitor screens. As expected, nothing out of the ordinary occurred.

How boring.

Starscream grazed his digits over the buttons, searching for something to occupy his time. He could go for another flight, but that would only burn up more fuel. It was already turning out to be such a wonderful day, and Starscream hated to ruin that by giving Megatron a reason to beat him into scrap.

Deciding to go check on the vehicons and try to find some soldiers to boss around, Starscream spun around and started walking down the floor of the control room. Within seconds, however, the overwhelming dizziness he had felt before was magnified.

Starscream clutched his helm and groaned, coming to a complete stop in the middle of the room. Out of the corner of his optics he could see that Soundwave had turned and was now staring at him intently. He tried to assure the mech that all was well, but the minute Starscream took his servos from his helm and stood straight, his vision grew black and his legs gave out from underneath him.

With a loud thud, Starscream crashed to the floor. He no longer held the strength to move his arms much less prop himself up. As his vision faded and his thoughts drifted away, the last thing Starscream saw before falling unconscious was Soundwave rushing to his side.

*****

Starscream's eyes opened with a ragged intake. He looked left and right, uncertain of where he had ended up. After tossing aside the berth covering he found himself tangled in (when did that happen?) Starscream stood up to his pedes and walked out of the berthroom.

The sensation could be best described as what earth creatures called an "out of body experience." Starscream may not understand what the phrase meant, but this was sure to be it. He could feel the thrum of the ground beneath him and the gentle touch of wind against his wings as he walked, but couldn't do anything to control it.

He was simply along for the ride, it seemed.

Just outside of his berthroom was a laboratory covered from floor to ceiling in the most expensive and advanced science known to Cybertron. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. This dream version of himself, however, seemed to feel right at home.

He was helpless as the mech in control walked up to the nearest table and reached for a sample of glowing liquid, then swirled the capsule around in front of his optics. Apparently satisfied with this, the mech plopped the container back into its holder and moved on to a stack of papers.

Based on the messy scrawl of hieroglyphics and other strange symbols covering the paper, Starscream made the assumption that this was old Cybertronian language. Ancient scientific documents, to be exact. His body leafed through the papers, boxy blue digits drifting over the edges of each one.