▸ Column · The endless Decepticon war — shared warship quarters and the chain-of-command grind, with a household mechanimal staging a coup.
STARSCREAM replies.
Replied to by Starscream, with a rebuttal from Soundwave.
The letter
My turbofox, Brigadier Fluffington, has always been a difficult mechanimal, but since my bondmate Vantage transferred into my quarters three cycles ago, she has escalated to open warfare. She batted his optic-cleanser under the deck plating, she parks herself dead center on the viewscreen every time he tries to watch a broadcast, and last shift she shredded the lining of only his LEFT thruster-boot — just the one, which feels deliberate and almost courteous in its precision. Vantage is being a saint about it, but last night I caught him locked in prolonged, unblinking optic-contact with her, and I honestly cannot say who breaks first. Do I requisition a behavior specialist, broker some kind of peace summit, or simply accept that my quarters now run on a chain of command I was never consulted about?
Starscream replies
A creature of RANK — a Brigadier, no less — strips the lining from a single thruster-boot, the LEFT, with surgical contempt, and you ask me about a behavior specialist? My dear correspondent, you are quartering a tactician, and I salute her. She watched a usurper transfer into territory that was hers by occupation, and she did not whimper to high command. She opened a campaign. The optic-cleanser under the plating, the viewscreen blockade, the one boot — that is messaging. I have launched a hundred such campaigns against Megatron. I know the artistry when I see it.
And here is where I curdle, because I must. They do not work. I am still his second, still purring "merely a test of your resolve, mighty one," still passed over. Your Vantage, your "saint," is doing the one thing that ends a schemer: he outlasts her, openly, blinking last. That patience is the weapon I could never lift.
So no summit. No accepting some chain of command. Give the Brigadier a domain of her own — a perch, a height she need not knife anyone to hold. The thing I was never handed. The thing I never learned to take without scheming. Spare her my career.
— Starscream
Soundwave weighs in
Correction. Starscream sees a coup because Starscream sees coups in mirrors. Error. The Brigadier schemes nothing. She reveals nothing. Observes everything. Strikes once. Minimum force — one boot. That is not your campaign, Starscream. That is mine.
The leak is Vantage. Unblinking optic-contact broadcasts position, intent, fear of blinking first. He has handed her the asymmetry.
Instruction. She requires no domain. No specialist. The human in this letter reveals too much — three options, asked aloud. Reveal less. Observe her method. She has already won. Study it.
— Soundwave
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