The Good, the Bad and Starscream

Chapter 27: Rebellion

Starscream stood restlessly and stared at the monitor. The monitor which hadn't detected any signals of any kind for the entire day. He had been standing and staring at the screen for over eight hours now, and he was incredibly bored. Had he still had his puzzles from the Autobot base, such a demeaning job would have been easier to deal with. Heck, had he still been a First Lieutenant, perhaps he would have been allowed to do as he pleased and leave Soundwave for monitor duty.

But no, he was but a mere captain with orders from Dreadwing to stand there and do nothing. All day. It was beginning to drive him crazy.

Having nothing to do, Starscream often ended up zoning out and fall into deep thoughts, barely even paying attention to the screen anymore. His thoughts fell to back when he was still a prisoner of the Autobots. In the first month of his stay with them, he had also had nothing to do all day but pace around his cell with stasis cuffs on his wrists, the first week even with a wing clamp on, which had been completely unnecessary and painful for him.

Starscream wasn't a patient bot, even when he tried to be. If he absolutely had to wait a long time for something, he wanted to at least pace around, allow his body to do something instead of just standing still all day. In this case, however, he wasn't sure if he would be allowed to pace around, what with Soundwave keeping an optic on him, as well as the occasional visit in the command center from Megatron, Shockwave and Dreadwing. He didn't want to give himself unnecessary attention.

"Starscream!" Megatron's voice suddenly sounded.

Starscream jolted and looked from side to side and behind him. Megatron was currently absent in the command center. He looked back to his right and saw Soundwave staring intently at the Seeker. The intelligence officer had apparently replayed a recording of one of Megatron's shoutings at Starscream, seeing the Seeker had been about to doze off.

"My apologies," Starscream said embarrassed and returned his gaze to the screen and cursed inwardly. Soundwave didn't necessarily hate Starscream like everyone else did, but he took his jobs seriously, including keeping Starscream awake and alert and on task, as well as making sure he didn't go against Megatron's orders.

What a teacher's pet, Starscream thought annoyed to himself.

A beeping sounded from the monitor, perking Starscream alert. It was from Onslaught.

"Lord Megatron, do you read?" Onslaught's voice sounded from the monitor, a voice Starscream hadn't heard in eons.

"Lord Megatron is currently occupied," Starscream replied with a bored tone.

"Starscream? Is that you?" sounded Swindle's voice on the same comm. "You're back on the winning team! Nice!"

"What do you want?" Starscream grumpily asked.

"We have located Vortex and rescued him," Onslaught replied. "We would like to request a GroundBridge at our current location so we can return with him."

Starscream held back a gulp. The Combaticons were coming back. Great. More bots to hate him. He sighed and turned to Soundwave.

"Open a GroundBridge to the flight deck," Starscream said to the silent mech.

Soundwave nodded and took note of the Combaticons' position, then proceeded to open a GroundBridge on the flight deck, currently unseeable by those in the command center. A few seconds later, the Combaticons' signals disappeared from their location on the monitor in the north, instead appearing on the warship.

The Combaticons were back.

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Swindle, Onslaught and Brawl put in all their strength to carry the white helicopter through the portal and onto the flight deck. It had taken all afternoon for Onslaught and Brawl to join Swindle way up in Canada, both having scattered across the United States. Swindle, in the meantime, had had to be quick and stealthy to follow after the military helicopter until it landed, and then wait all day for his comrades to arrive.