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        "When will our turn come, Starscream?"

        The Constructicons stood in a circle around Starscream, their optics angry. Starscream paid them no heed as he flexed his new blue fist, stretching the muscle cables inside, feeling the new power flowing through his energon pipelines. He felt more like himself than he had since Galvatron had destroyed his real body two years before.

        "Soon, soon," Starscream said, his voice once more the high-pitched, cosmic whine it was in his first life. "Now that I have a real body back, the fun can truly begin!"

        "We are happy for you, of course," Bonecrusher said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "but we Constructicons are only half the fighting force we were before."

        "Curse the Autobots!" Scavenger snarled.

        Hook stepped forward. "You know well that without the transformation cogs the Autobots stole from us, we cannot form Devastator." He clenched one fist in front of him. "We want revenge for that! And most of all, we want the full range of our abilities back!"

        "And you will get them," Starscream said, putting his hands on Hook’s shoulders and affecting his most soothing voice. "But first, I must be absolutely certain my own body is powerful enough to lead us to victory against our enemies. After all, if I am weak, I cannot possibly lead us to victory!"

        Scrapper whispered into Long Haul’s audioreceptor, "He couldn’t possibly lead us to victory anyway!", prompting Long Haul to burst into laughter.

        Starscream glanced at them sharply, then stood from the repair bed he had been sitting on and began to walk out of the room, dismissing the Constructicons with a casual wave of his hand. "Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go test out my new body!"

        Once Starscream was gone, Mixmaster turned to the rest of the Constructions. "It’s a mistake to put our faith in Starscream. He has never lived up to his promises in the past—even now, he keeps us here only out of our own misguided sense of loyalty to him for breaking us out of that Autobot prison!"

        "Incomplete, I might add," Long Haul said.

        "Exactly my point."

        "Not to mention he’s had us stuck here, in the middle of nowhere, tweaking his own stolen body for the past six months!" Scavenger howled. "An Autobot body!"

        "No longer, thanks to our modifications," Hook laughed.

        "Are we considering leaving Starscream?" Scrapper asked.

        The other five Constructicons glared at him as if he were playing the fool.

        "I wanted to be sure, and here’s why: we know the rest of the Decepticon army survived the Battle of Iacon, and we know also that they did not return for us. If we return to them, we will be forced once more to be their slaves, constructing this throne room and that cave for whoever asks it. We will have to repair them almost constantly, and will never be free to pursue our own plans."

        "Then we will not return to them—we will find our own way in the universe." Bonecrusher replied.

        "An excellent idea," Scrapper murmured. "We can travel the universe striking fear into our enemies by constructing menacing-looking walls in their vicinity."

        "Bah! We will simply form Devastator—" Bonecrusher snarled.

        The other five Constructicons glared at him as if he were playing the fool.

        Bonecrusher realized his mistake and shook his head. "Then what are we to do? If we remain here, we will be submitting to the leadership of a known incompetent! If we return to the Decepticons, we will be slaves! If we leave both, we will be worthless!"

        Scrapper looked at each Constructicon in turn, then spoke. "We will remain here—here, we have relative freedom except whenever Starscream wants us to ‘improve’ him. We have the protection of the Combaticons and Starscream’s seekers. Granted, we will not have much success—but here, at least, we can bide are time and rebuild our lost transformation cogs in relative peace and safety. And, once Devastator is once more ours to command, there will be no force in the galaxy that will be able to stop us!"

        Six voices cried out in celebration of victory inevitable.

        Starscream made his way through the halls of the long-abandoned Decepticon outpost. He remembered a time when this place was alive, filled with activity—millions of years ago, before he had followed Megatron out into the universe to destroy Optimus Prime and his crew. Before the Decepticons, under Megatron’s leadership, had lost the war and been forced to cower on the miserable world of Charr, or wherever else they could find a convenient hiding place from Autobot patrols. Before he himself was destroyed by Galvatron, Megatron reborn.

        Starscream had never thought about heaven or hell. But if given the choice, he would define this place as his own personal hell. No power, no glory for him here. A few Seekers, his Combaticons and the Constructions, both groups of whom had lost the power to transform into their powerful super-robot modes. He was a leader of nobody, and his base was a hollowed-out asteroid with rusted halls and no power save from what their meager solar collectors could gather from the distant sun. If anybody had ever told him that this was how his operating cycle would turn out, he would have called them liars.

        But then, he no longer was in his operating cycle, was he? He was living on borrowed time, the ghost of a spark living in a stolen body. All because of Megatron. Megatron! He had watched Optimus Prime pound the life out of Megatron’s body. He himself had thrown Megatron’s dying corpse out of Astrotrain. And yet he returned! He returned, and his first act was to kill Starscream. Coronation, Starscream? This is bad comedy!

        Starscream howled in rage and frustration and turned his newly-rebuilt Null Rays on the wall before him. The scream of his blasts mixed with the scream in his vocoder, in his mind, until his entire being became sound and light, and the hallway around him began to crumble.

        And then, darkness.

        Defcon laughed. "I remember Starscream being bigger than this. Still just as whiny, though."

        Cliffjumper threw the steel girder he had struck Starscream with aside. As always, the Decepticon had brought about his own downfall—the girder had shaken loose while Starscream was blowing holes in the walls. "No time for sarcasm, Defcon. Help me tie him up."

        Defcon glanced over his shoulder, down the hall to the central quarters of the ancient outpost, before kneeling and activating negative-energy bonds. He and Cliffjumper had learned of Starscream’s hideout from a drunken snitch named Sleazardo who always seemed to have his hands on the information Defcon wanted. Starscream had plans to build a new Decepticon Empire in his image—and had bragged about it far and wide in the local underground. It had been easy to track him down. Almost too easy—Defcon was convinced that Starscream had laid a trap here, while Cliffjumper insisted Starscream was simply incompetent.

        With Starscream securely wrapped in nearly-unbreakable energy bands, Defcon and Cliffjumper stood up, brushing the dust off their hands. Defcon walked a few feet down the hall, his weapons at the ready, waiting for Starscream’s troops to appear and attack.

        "We should hurry. No telling how soon it’ll be before his Decepticon buddies come looking for him."

        Cliffjumper laughed. "It has been a while, hasn’t it, Defcon? Starscream doesn’t have and Decepticon buddies—they all hate him."
 
        "They all hate each other, too, so that’s no surprise. Let’s move." Defcon watched for intruders over one shoulder while Cliffjumper knelt again and backhanded the unconscious Starscream.

        "No!" Starscream murmured. "No, Megatron, please, don’t shoot! Don’t—" A second backhand woke Starscream from his nightmare, and the red-and-white Seeker tried to sit up, panicked, only to have his shackles restrain him and force him to remain still. His optics were glazed over for a moment, then they cleared as he looked around and realized what had happened to him. "Well, if it isn’t Cliff-dumper and—whoever you are. What are you doing in my base?"

        Cliffjumper looked around. "You call this a ‘base,’ Starscream? It’s more like a rust-spot on Unicron’s skidplate."

        "I’ll have you know that the greatest warriors come from the humblest beginnings!"

        "Yeah—Optimus Prime was just a cargo hauler." Cliffjumper pulled out his gun and placed it to Starscream’s forehead. "Now, you’re gonna tell me exactly what I want to know, or I’m gonna fill you so full of holes a human would think you’re Swiss cheese. Got it?"

        "Got it, got it!" Starscream whined, trying to pull away from Cliffjumper’s gun and break his bonds at the same time. "Just, please, don’t shoot me!"
 
        Defcon barked a harsh peal of laughter. "Some Decepticon."

        "Where are Cyclonus and the other Decepticreeps, Starscream? I know they’ve taken over half the quadrant—but I wanna know where their base is."

        Starscream wondered at first why Cliffjumper would be asking him that question—after all, he’d been dead when the Decepticons fled Cybertron. But then, Cliffjumper wouldn’t know that, would he? And the Constructions had told him where the Decepticons fled to. . .perhaps this was the perfect opportunity to give the Autobots exactly what they wanted, and let both the Autobots and the Decepticons destroy each other, leaving only him to rule!

        Cliffjumper pushed the barrel of the gun further down onto Starscream’s helmet, forcing his head back into the floor. "I want to know now, Starscream!"

        "It’s on Charr! It’s on Charr!"

        Cliffjumper pulled the gun away from Starscream’s head and stood up, looking over at Defcon. "I think that’s all we need to know. Anything else?"

        Defcon shook his head. "No questions. But I want to take him and his buddies in—bring them some much-needed justice."

        Cliffjumper smiled. "The two of us against fourteen Decepticons, eleven of which can merge into super-robots?"

        Defcon shrugged. "Evens the odds a bit. Only five Decepticons against us."

        "Big Decepticons, though."

        Defcon shrugged again.

        "Tell ya what. We’ll radio the Autobots and tell them about this—" Cliffjumper snickered, "—about this base. And then they can do what they want—although I betcha Rodimus Prime’ll just ignore it."

        Defcon nodded. "Or they’ll just get stuck in prison again, where they’ll easily escape—again."

        The discussion about what to do with Starscream and his Decepticons continued, with neither Autobot looking in Starscream’s direction. Starscream felt the slow burn of humiliation in his coprocessors—was he to simply be ignored as a fool, him, the Great Starscream? He retracted one hand back into his forearm, replacing it with a laser scalpel. Then, slowly and carefully, he sliced the bonds from around him while the Autobots continued to talk. It was amazing how far the Autobots had come against the Decepticon army when all they did was stand around and discuss what needed to be done.

        It was time to show them who was the true master of war! He was free from his bonds—let the terror begin!
 
        "DIE, Autobots!" Starscream fired his null rays at the two Autobots, striking Cliffjumper square in the back and Defcon on one arm, rendering it useless. Cliffjumper collapsed, his internal circuits shutting down thanks to Starscream’s null ray, and Defcon swore, raising his other arm and firing at Starscream with the lasers mounted there.

        Starscream rolled out of the way, still firing at the bounty hunter, then came up on both feet and lunged, tackling Defcon to the ground. They wrestled there for a few moments, until Defcon fired the laser mounted on his helmet directly into Starscream’s face, knocking the Decepticon off him.

        Defcon stood up and glanced at Cliffjumper. This was why he hated working in groups, especially with Autobots—too much discussion, too little action. Would Starscream have been able to get the drop on him if he hadn’t been standing here discussing what needed to be done with Cliffjumper? He doubted it.

        But now he had a choice—try to finish off Starscream, who was even now standing up to continue the fight, or grab Cliffjumper and get him to a repair center before his internal circuits shut down completely. He wanted to take Starscream and his cohorts down, and badly—that was his life, for millions of years. But Cliffjumper was in immediate danger—could he let one Autobot die in order to ensure fourteen Decepticons would never kill again?

        It was senseless, what he was contemplating—the numbers made perfect sense, it was better to take out the Decepticons—but his old Autobot programming was still in there, and it still hated to see even one life form perish. He would come back for the Decepticons later—he had to get Cliffjumper out of here immediately.

        Defcon leapt forward even as Starscream fired again. He could feel the electric tingle along his skin plating as the null rays came to within a centimeter of knocking him out of commission, too. With a swift kick to Starscream’s chest, he knocked the Decepticon to the ground, forcing Starscream’s next shots to go wild, while he scooped up Cliffjumper in his one good arm, transformed into his space cruiser mode, and rocketed out of the base the way he came in. The entire way, he could hear Starscream’s furious yelling behind him, and the only thought he could muster was that Starscream should not be able to remain standing.

        The claustrophobic tunnels of the outpost fell away, leaving Defcon back in the cool vastness of space. He set course for the nearest repair bay and flew there at top speed, knowing that Starscream and his cronies would not be waiting for him when he returned for them.

        Autobots. Now he remembered why he stopped dealing with them.
 
 

        To Chapter Thirty-Three