Skill

There was a brief silence; Cyclonus was on the verge of crossing to the other deck and making his presence known to them, but then Soundwave said abruptly, “Observation: Cyclonus has been exceptionally effective,” and Cyclonus halted, almost involuntarily.

Megatron snorted. “Prying into my cranial chamber again? Yes, he has been, hasn’t he. Forty thousand astroliters in two weeks. I thought it was going to take another two years—and that’s before Prime came up with that monstrosity of a mech to put in our way.” He sighed heavily; the sound of a swallow came.

Soundwave said, “You are not enthused.”

Megatron did not answer for a long while, and then finally said, softly, “I’ve had six million years with Starscream in which to contemplate in extensive detail my vision of the ideal second-in-command. The main reason I’ve never obliterated him is because it’s been painfully clear to me that there wasn’t the slightest chance I’d find a better match. A warrior with the combat skills to command the respect of every other Decepticon soldier, a tactician good enough to be given a free hand with aerial operations, a strategist capable of contributing worthwhile suggestions to long-range planning, a staff officer competent to manage at least some of the minutiae of operations—hoping for more than that was delusional.

“And now, as if to prove me wrong…here comes Cyclonus. Every single good quality Starscream possesses, he has in greater measure, and all his bad qualities, Cyclonus has in mirror-reverse. He’s ruthlessly disciplined, courageous almost but not quite to a fault, clear-sighted, an inspiration to his fellow warriors, and, as far as I’ve been able to tell, completely and unswervingly devoted to the Decepticon cause. And if all that weren’t enough—he’s likable. Hell, you like him, don’t you? And you don’t like anyone.”

“Affirmative. His mind is…unusually focused.”

“That’s one word for it. Have you looked at the ops queue lately?”

“The ops queue is empty,” Soundwave said after a moment: he’d obviously checked it.

“He cleared it five days after I first promoted him, and nothing’s stayed on it for longer than two days since. I’m not actually sure how he’s done it. I haven’t investigated very much, except to make sure the first few tasks were in fact done properly; it’s felt too much like meddling with magic.” Megatron snorted audibly. “Do you know how often I’ve thought what I could do if I didn’t have to spend three-quarters of my conscious processor time on operations? In these last two weeks alone, I’ve finally managed to resolve that idiotic standoff between Shockwave and Mordant, and the Polyhex-Vox pipeline will open in twelve weeks—just in time for the Darkmount fuel sinks to reach capacity and start feeding it. I’ve gotten the Council of Eight back in line—admittedly, I had to execute two of them, but the rest of them shaped up quickly enough—and I’ve got them started re-establishing contact with all our lost outposts they can track down. We’ll have a real trade network running through Cybertron again by the end of the year. Last week I started three new long-term strategic plans evolving in frontal processing, and I haven’t had to preempt a single one.”

“You do intend to replace Starscream.”

“Replace Starscream?” Megatron laughed harshly aloud. “I’m barely resisting the temptation to hand Cyclonus the army and get out of the field myself. The second I do—the war’s over, for all intents and purposes. He’s handed me a steady flow of energon that I don’t even have to think about, morale and discipline is through the roof—I can just start building the Empire. I don’t need to crush the Autobots anymore. He’ll probably do it for me incidentally at some point and write it up in one paragraph of a weekly report I won’t bother to read because he does everything perfectly. And that’s how much space it will be worth. In a thousand years, the Decepticon banner will stand on ten thousand worlds, and Optimus Prime will be a footnote in our historical archives, whether he’s lingering alive or dead.”

“Then where is the source of your difficulty?”

Megatron didn’t answer for a long moment, and wearily when he did. “Perhaps nowhere. I’d like to believe there isn’t one. Cybertron, how I’d like to believe there isn’t. I’ve been fighting this war for eight million years now, and I’ve become a suspicious and cynical old mech who can’t accept victory when it’s in my grasp; maybe that’s all it is. But…he’s literally out of my dreams, Soundwave.” Megatron sounded almost baffled. “If someone had invited me to design the perfect second in command, the ideal Decepticon officer to serve me, I’d have made him. And now he’s been dropped into my lap like a gift from someone I don’t know. I can’t help thinking there’s going to be a catch somewhere.”

He paused, and then he said in a different voice, almost whimsically, “I suppose I shouldn’t worry about it. If he ever decides to stab me in the back, I’m sure he’ll do that perfectly, too.”

“Cyclonus is not a traitor,” Soundwave said. “Ninety-nine-point-nine nine nine nine eight probability.”

“You say that as though it doesn’t make it worse. If Starscream ever overthrew me, he’d do it to serve his swollen ego, and he’d probably get himself assassinated five minutes later from incompetence. Cyclonus—he’d do it because he decided I wasn’t the best leader for the Decepticon cause anymore.” Megatron barked a laugh. “Do you know, I don’t think I could bear it. My perfect Decepticon knight telling me I wasn’t good enough for him. I suppose that’s what I’m afraid of, after all.”