Thirty Days in a Second

Thirty Days in a Second

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Part Four: Bursting Bubble

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"Something's wrong." Starscream said.

Arcee wasn't expecting that to be how he woke her up after what took place hours ago. They were still lying where they fell. She felt the cold slide of his retracting jack and the click of his codpiece moving back into place. Taking his cue, she closed her port and sat up. So did he. His optics flicked back and forth.

"Something's definitely wrong," Starscream went on. "Do you feel it?"

"What is--"

She sensed it then. A strange, ringing vibration filled her head. The floor rippled slightly. There was a brief pause followed by an eerie silence.

Then their stored supplies started to rattle. Arcee heard the power coils clinking together in the safety of their makeshift box.

Starscream squinted, "What the..."

Suddenly the ground itself swung sideways. Everything jerked back and forth like a boat in a storm rolling over railroad tracks. Starscream and Arcee hugged the floor so they wouldn't be tossed side to side. Icicles broke loose and shattered, showering the cave in ice chips. A pile of motherboards tipped over and spilled onto the floor.

"Earthquake! Get outside!" Arcee yelled. She grabbed Starscream's arm and they scrambled out of the cave. Snow crashed down on them as the entire glacier swayed like a mortally wounded behemoth. For one pump-stopping moment Arcee feared the whole thing was collapsing. Off to the side, the salvaged engine wobbled and its loose wires swung to and fro.

"Come on." Starscream hauled her further away from the glacier. They staggered dizzily over the quaking ground and crouched near the debris field. Arcee squeezed her optics shut and told herself to stay strong.

Just when she thought it would never end, the shaking slowly lessened. Lurching became gentle swaying and then faded to stillness. Everything fell quiet.

Assured it was over, Arcee opened her eyes.

Ten feet to their left, a long crack split the ground in two. Arcee approached and peered into it. She stared into a void. Unnerved, she jumped back and looked up.

Against all logic, the sky appeared to have a crack in it, too. White fog swirled around and into the rift like smoke escaping narrow window. Her gaze followed the line to the blackening horizon.

"Starscream!" She pointed.

"That's..." Starscream breathed out. His mouth fell open. "Check the cave for cracks. Hurry!"

Arcee transformed to get there faster. She examined everything thoroughly. There weren't any cracks--just the mess of fallen icicles and toppled supplies. She reported this to him via their com link.

"I don't like this," she added.

Starscream appeared at the cave entrance and grabbed his handheld scanning device. He faced Arcee, soldier to soldier. "Stay here and wire those coils. I need to investigate this. I'll be right back."

"How long will it take?"

"I'm not sure."

"The wind is going to kick up again."

"I'll hurry."

Starscream took a running leap and transformed in mid-air. He sped off towards the dark horizon before Arcee could blink. Arcee clenched her shaking servos and hurried back into the cave. Her hands kept trembling. She forced them to stop, and managed to get all the coils wired before the wind began with a fury unseen since she arrived.

Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Thirty.

Where was Starscream?

"Arcee to Starscream," she tried her com, and only heard static. That was never a problem before. She boosted her signal. "Arcee to Starscream! Scrap, answer me!"

Her com picked up the clicks of a working receiver, but she couldn't tell if he tried to answer or not. The clicks faded into a steady background hum.

Now more worried than ever, Arcee stuck her head out of the cave. The breeze sent snow flying over the glacier in foggy sheets, but she barely made out a shape approaching on foot.

"Starscream!" She called.

Starscream was covered completely in frost. His joints crackled. He collapsed just inside the cave. Arcee grabbed him under the armpits and pulled him all the way to the back wall.

"I'm--I'm fine." He could barely talk. "The wind kept throwing me off course. I had to land and walk. Had to..." His optics fluttered.

"Stay awake!" Arcee slapped him across the face, startling him to alertness. She used her welder to warm her hands and pressed them to his belly area. A little trick she learned shortly after her first trip into the Arctic cold. It would warm two major energon lines and pull the heat to his core. "You dumbaft, you're almost frozen! Why didn't you answer my com?"

"I tried. There was too much interference." Starscream answered. He grimaced and held his ice-coated shoulder. "I shut my com off after your first ping failed. No sense in both of us freezing."

"Don't sacrifice yourself on my account. I can take care of myself." Arcee rolled her optics. "Ugh. Never mind. What were you looking for?"

Starscream's expression became grim. He picked up the scanner and examined it for a long moment before he spoke. "Do you know the physics of bubbles?"

"It's something about surface tension. Raf mentioned it once."

"Yes. They exist because of surface tension. Once the water in them evaporates, they pop. Soap adds to the surface tension and prevents evaporation. It holds a bubble together and that is why soap bubbles last longer than a bubble of pure water."

"What does this have to do with time travel?"

He fixed her in his burning red optics. "We blew a bubble out of space-time when our ground bridge portals exploded. This is no problem if you go backwards in time, as you're just blowing a bubble in the very substance space-time bubbles are made of. However, we have reached beyond the universe, so there's no 'soap' to hold this bubble together. It's starting to pop, and it's going to take us with it if we don't finish the generator soon."

Something cold settled in Arcee's Spark. "How long?"

"I don't know for sure."

The chill in Arcee's Spark threatened to swallow her whole. She forced it down. Don't give up yet. You're still alive. Where there's life, there's hope.

"I got the coils wired. What do we do next?"

Starscream's troubled expression melted into his characteristic smirk. "Hand me those Eradicon CPUs."

They worked for hours, huddling under the engine nozzle or in the cave whenever the wind became too strong. Starscream spent days taking parts inside the engine and rearranging them in ways Arcee never imagined possible. She helped by soldering wires to circuit boards, handing him tools and reminding him to drink some fuel.

Quakes became an occurrence as common as the wind. None were nearly the magnitude of the initial tremor, but Arcee noticed the void in the sky growing slowly wider. The wind seemed to be rushing towards it like air escaping into space.

"I suspect--" Starscream's voice was muffled by the solder coils he held in his dental plates. He took them out to continue, "--that the crack has been there since we arrived, and the wind was caused by it opening and closing. I shouldn't have ignored the gray patch as much as I did."

"So that thing has been opening and closing until our little bubble finally breeched?"

"Exactly."

"Scrap. I hope it doesn't suck us up before we get out of here. I know a few people who might be upset if I never came back to base."

"I don't think it will. The rift is expanding outward, so things will disappear from the sky down until--"

"Don't say it." Arcee cut him off. She didn't want to focus on that possibility until all other options were exhausted.

Starscream installed another motherboard. "I wish Megatron was with us. I wouldn't mind leaving him here when everything ceases to exist."

Arcee snickered. "Now the Pit is really frozen."

Neither said another word for awhile. Starscream climbed around the engine-turned-generator. Arcee strung wires between motherboards. They worked until the wind nearly knocked them into the nearby snow banks.

The lower cave no longer held their body heat, so they retreated to the smaller upper cave. Starscream used extra panels to block the entrance. Then they huddled chest to chest in a tangle of limbs, taking turns drinking from the Eradicon fuel tank.

"Not much left." Starscream said. He set the outlet hose aside.

"Wow. Freeze, starve or cease to exist." Arcee snorted. "I hope we get out of this before we're stuck with one of those three."

Starscream sighed. "And when we get back to normal time...what then?"

It was just a question, but it weighed more than the mass of the universe.

Arcee picked her head up and stared down into Starscream's optics. Normal time meant their normal lives again. Back to war. Back to their respective factions. Back to hate and pain and energon-shed.

"We're soldiers," she said softly. "We do what we have to do, so let's not make any promises. But here...we have now. Don't waste it."

She felt his fingertips brush her cheek. He pulled her down and pressed his mouth to hers.

"The present is so fleeting," Starscream whispered in her audio.

Arcee thumbed the Decepticon sigil on his chest. "I know."

"We can't have this when we go back. I'll be shot and you'll get court marshaled. This can't come between us on the battlefield. We both know that."

This. The unspoken emotion forming between them like a bud waiting to burst open.

"If it's really meant to be," Arcee looked up at him again, "Let's find each other after the war is over."

Starscream gripped Arcee's arms when the cave shook around them. "That may be a long time, Arcee."

Arcee tried to ignore the tremor. "We can remember this until then, and hope we don't end up shooting each other."

They laughed uneasily as the ground stopped shaking. The wind quieted down. Starscream pulled the panel away from the cave entrance and they stared up into the blackening sky. All around, the world was shaded in an eerie twilight.

"Let's get back to work." He said.

And for hours, they focused single-mindedly on their project.

"That intake manifold has to be tight." Starscream instructed.

Arcee fumbled with her tiny welding torch. "I know. Let's hope you didn't draw it upside down."

"I didn't. I'm very thorough."

The ground trembled. Starscream helped Arcee brace herself and finish welding the manifold in place. She picked up the solder coil.

"Scrap! Starscream, I don't think we have enough solder."

Starscream rubbed a hand down the middle of his face. "I'll see if any can be taken off the Eradicon parts. String this across the top of the manifold." He passed her a handful of copper wires.

Snow swirled over the top of the glacier and spilled down onto them. Arcee worried about pieces of the ice itself breaking off to destroy their work in progress. She didn't realize Starscream went back into the cave until he returned holding pellets of solder in his left hand.

"I scavenged it off the Eradicon parts." He said. A strong wind gust nearly knocked him over. His wings were like sails in this weather. "Finish up and close the panels. I'll install the power coils once the wind stops."

Arcee forced herself to stay calm and finish the task at hand. Blasts of cold air spiraled up under the makeshift hood. Coupled with the cold-reflecting metal, each gust was agony. Static flickered at the edges of her vision. Arcee managed to weld the last wire before her senses faded.

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"Arcee? Arcee!" Hands shook her shoulders and patted her cheek plates.

Every movement hurt. Arcee grimaced as she opened her eyes. Starscream bent over her. Rime coated his armor and his eyelids drooped, all signs of the torpor caused by the cold. It wouldn't be long before their wiring lost its ability to conduct electrical impulses.

"Starscream?" She whispered. "What happened?"

He wiped the frost off her body. "Your sensory circuits shorted out. I barely got you up here. I thought you..."

She touched his mouth, "No. I won't go out like this."

"And to think, just a short time ago, I wouldn't have cared at all."

Arcee snickered and punched his shoulder. "Me either."

Outside, the wind roared like a beast ready to devour everything. Arcee twisted her head to try and look, but Starscream blocked the opening with a pair of computer panels.

"How close are we to finishing the generator?"

"It needs the coils, and that will be very delicate work. I'll do that myself." Starscream turned to grab the Eradicon fuel tank. The patch on his wounded side was gone, replaced by a piece of steel wool he'd stuffed into the hole.

"Starscream!" Arcee gasped.

He glanced at his side. Then at her. "It doesn't hurt anymore, and we needed the solder. Here..." He handed her the outlet hose. "Fuel up."

Arcee choked down the bitter, stale energon. Could something that awful be considered fuel? She pushed the hose away after a few gulps. Starscream picked it up and drank as well, grimacing.

"Ugh, I'm not taking fresh energon for granted ever again," Starscream grumbled. Then he tipped the tank over and shook the hose near his mouth. He set it down again. It gave a hollow clang. "That's it. No more fuel."

Sighing, Arcee closed her eyes. "Just as well."

"There are worse ways to--"

A crash sounded outside. The ground didn't just shake--it lurched. Starscream was thrown into one wall and Arcee smashed into the other. Arcee's foot hit the panel. The wind whipped it away to reveal a night sky. No, not night--a growing void. Arcee rushed to the entrance in time to see a giant chunk of land break apart and disappear, and for the first time in awhile she felt terror course through her circuits.

"Oh, no!" Starscream climbed out onto the ledge. "Windy or not, we can't wait any longer! Come on!"

Arcee jumped onto his back and he hopped to the ground. The violent wind almost hurled them against the glacier. She could barely see through the sheets of snow swirling towards the sky.

"Hold onto the fin! Don't let it roll!" Starscream yelled over the roar. He came outside with the box he'd fashioned out of cast off motherboard pieces and spare wires. Inside, the power coils glimmered--their last hope.

The air itself bit down. Arcee gritted her dental plates, focusing only on keeping her fists closed. Sideways icicles formed off the edge of Starscream's helm. She barely made out his hands pushing the first coil into place and twisting the cables together. The next followed. Four were soon settled and wired. He laid them end to end down the whole length of the engine. It kept rocking despite her efforts to hang on, but she refused to let it roll over.

Something else caught Arcee's attention. The box of coils started to move. She jammed it in place with her foot. "Starscream, the box!"

He grabbed it. She saw him swaying.

"Starscream! Stay awake!"

Starscream dropped to his knees. He shook his hands and went back to work. His fingers still had their dexterity. He had six coils in place. So far, so good. Arcee counted down the number left to install.

Five coils...

Blackness reached the opposite horizon from which it started. The wind no longer had a direction, it blew everywhere and punished everything in its wake.

Four coils...

Another chunk of land shot into the sky. Starscream didn't look up. Arcee watched it get pulverized.

Three coils...

Cliffs thirty feet away crumbled. Their remains were gone in a Spark-beat.

Two coils...

Arcee lost all feeling in her fingers. She felt the ground shift beneath her feet. Terrible crackling sounds signaled another piece of the world disappearing.

One coil...

Suddenly, the cliff above them broke apart and spiraled into the sky in a spray of snow.

"Got it!" Starscream slammed the paneling shut and pressed a button. Purple lights flickered in a chasing pattern from one end of the engine to the other. Then they started to blink and light one at a time as the power coils came to life.

Beside them, the remains of the cliff shattered. Ice showered them like missiles. They ducked behind the fin.

The lights kept climbing.

"It's working! It's working!" Starscream crowed over the roar.

Arcee turned her head and saw his optics alight with utter joy. Even he, a Decepticon, still had hope in the face of annihilation. She decided not to tell him how Autobot-like he was acting.

Another light lit. Another landmass vanished. The generator hummed and released waves of heat so potent it burned in contrast to the frozen landscape. Arcee had feeling in her fingers again.

And not a moment too soon. She became aware of her feet rising off the ground.

A blast of wind whipped Starscream violently backwards. He tried to fly against the air current, but it buffeted him like a tornado. Arcee lunged and grabbed his hand.

"Starscream!"

"Arcee!"

"Hold on!"

Everything wobbled. Arcee grimaced. The generator slid over the empty space that used to be the lower cave. A piece of land ten feet away broke off with a crash.

Somehow, Starscream pulled himself back to the generator, but his grip failed and Arcee's hold on his hand was the only hope standing between him and oblivion.

"I've got you!" She yelled.

Starscream gazed at her through the unforgiving snow. The wind yanked the steel wool clean out of his side. His eyes reflected the generator.

The last light lit and the entire array flashed.

Arcee felt Starscream's hand escaping her grasp. He couldn't bring his other arm around. She saw him trying. His optics were huge, desperate.

"Starscream! Hold on!"

The ground beneath Arcee's feet cracked. Tiny ice shards bombarded her face and chest.

"Arcee!" Starscream shouted. "It's--it's pulling me...!"

She had him by his middle knuckles. Her hold on the generator began to weaken. The tensors in her wrists screamed in protest. Tears welled in her optics--and the void even pulled those off her face. Sheer desperation kept her steady.

"I won't lose you! Starscream! I won't let go!"

More ice whistled through the air. A landmass directly behind Starscream was lifted away into the dark. Nothing else existed except them, the generator and a ten foot circle of glacier.

Starscream's hand slipped until Arcee only held his fingertips, and they were sliding across her palm. The sharp ends cut into the metal. But Arcee bore the pain. Anything to keep Starscream with her.

"Arcee..."

His fingertips lurched another centimeter. She felt a wire in her wrist break.

"Arcee!" Starscream bellowed. "Look at me!"

Arcee looked up and saw him mouth the three words they couldn't say in the safety of the cave.

"No! Starscream...no!" She struggled desperately to hold on, but the tighter she gripped the harder the void pulled.

The generator beeped and glowed brilliant white. Arcee heard it hum.

"Starscream, it's working! Hold on!"

Starscream smiled at her. A sad smile. A smile that said goodbye.

Suddenly, his fingers were ripped from her grasp. He cartwheeled in the blackness like a marionette without strings.

"Starscream!" Arcee shrieked.

She was still screaming Starscream's name when the EMP hit. Her vision dissolved to static. Then she knew no more.