[ti]Ep 2[/ti]Whispers in the Dark [open/Sparkplug]

[Sparkplug]

The hum of the little drone springing into life was satisfying, the kind of craftsman-like satisfaction of having done a job - even a small job - and done it well. Leaning back against a shelf, Sparkplug watched it swoop around with a better degree of agility than she'd have expected; it seemed Blackframe was experienced with this sort of tiny remote.

And then he demonstrated he was familiar with something else, too: knives. The flip and catch, flip, spin and catch either showed that he was really confident he'd get it right, or showed an alarmingly cavalier attitude to the integrity of his own hands. Of course, as weapons went, a simple cutting edge was probably the dullest one she could think of - no movement, no colour, no destructive potential! - but you had to design for a mecha's talents, so she made a note that the security officer seemed to favour simple, close-in weapons. You never knew when you might be called upon to make something for someone in a hurry.

Nodding at the quick series of glyphs scored into the shelf, she replied mildly, "Thanks, I'll be sure to drop by for those later." Bearing in mind the fact that she was at least nominally not supposed to be doing any weapons development by the terms of the treaty, she added, "Just fixing broken weapons isn't like designing new types of them. Pretty sure I'm fine on that point."

Making her way out into the corridor and glancing around, she added, "I guess you came across a mention of that thing in some old manifest file? Given that you didn't know exactly where it was, and it was in bits. You got a specific use for it in mind, or just loading up on useful tools? Which is a sensible thing to do. You can never have too many tools."

She wasn't sure which direction to take, so she paused and looked to him. After what seemed like longer inside the oppressively dim confines of the ship than it really had been, she was more than ready to get some fresh air into her intakes.

[Deleted]

After Sparkplug exited the room, Blackframe stored the dagger back to where it belonged and grabbed the data pad which rested still on the shelf. Turning and meeting the weapon designer once again into the dark corridor, he repeated the code he´d typed in before as the door would close shortly after with a hiss behind them, spiraling shut as the lock clamped into its position.

“We learn from the past, we live in the present and we prepare for the future.”

Sparkplugs curiosity about the usefulness of the drone wouldn´t be left unnoticed as he greeted her with a smile and excitement in his voice. Finally, she had paid some attention of what he´d addressed earlier and seemed to understand the necessity of its job.

“This class one drone will find its use soon enough, after I upgraded it that is. It will support me on my daily activities onboard this ship, helping with the so called ISTAR method… providing Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance… and it’s going to be added in my soon-to-be collection. There are many different types of drones and tools you can work with, each having specific and unique functions of course.”

He wouldn´t go into much detail, trying to not overwhelm her as she for herself seemingly had been more worried about her own job as a weapon designer. He could understand that the agreements of the truce fell into this category of hers, creating weapons and working with them had to be done with caution now, but on the other hand? What would the Autobots do against it? Knocking at their door and demanding some sort of tour as to check they would keep this part of the truce? Oh welp, too bad that this couldn´t be arranged as this act would be seen as some sort of violation against their little agreement of not to breach the opposite base without an invitation.

Would Megatron invite Optimus Prime onboard the Nemesis to have a little chit-chat? To demonstrate of how good the Decepticons would follow the rules of the truce? Behaving like a little Sparkling and seeking praise from its master?

Okay, that thought was hilarious...

“The construction or further developments of weaponry or chemical warfare are to be ceased immediately once the truce is put into play... The only exception to this is tools and armaments needed in order to properly counter MECH the most effectively…”

Adding a small pause and straightening up again he would continue.

“I know, sounds bad at first, but when you pay attention to the little details, like how the words are used in those statements, how the sentence is constructed and written and how it is added to its own text and phrases, then you´ll find loopholes that can be exploited. Or in other words; Read between the lines and take your time to analyze it.”

Blackframe would try to lighten her mood a little, knowing that the truce would affect her more than him and wanted to shove that issue off of her processor so she could focus on more important things and wouldn’t need to worry of what could occur later in the future.

“I have access to the Nemesis library and some portions of the archive, maps, lay-outs, certain timestamps and other important events that occurred, a list of individuals stationed onboard as well as a list of possible and confirmed Autobots that could be found on this planet, footage of several surveillance cameras and other important junctions. Well, if you wish to read on the agreements of the truce for yourself you´re welcome to visit me in my office anytime.”

The data-pad would illuminate once again, screen lighting up and displaying a map of the ship with white outlining as the officer swept a few commands over its screen, pointing with his free servo towards the empty corridor before starting to walk along its path.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug frowned thoughtfully as she turned and followed Blackframe down the hall, thoughts of the impending escape into the open air momentarily pushed aside by the exact details of the treaty, which no one had yet given her. "...sounds like they're particularly scared of chemical weapons," she said slowly, a thoughtful frown drawing her optic ridges together. "That'd come under the general banner of halting all weapons research, but they went and talked about it specifically. The exceptions for MECH don't explicitly say they don't apply to that kind of chemical attack, but it's sort of implied there, too. Guess they have pretty long memories from the big chemical assaults. Not that surprising, when I think about it. Was a pretty horrific time to be an Autobot. Huge numbers of casualties, just huge."

Shaking her helm to dismiss the thought, she went on more mildly, "Never been interested in chemical weapons myself. They're no fun, you know? No fire, no impact, no explosion, no drama. Just a long, dreary corroding of everything they touch. You can't even stick around and have a proper fight, because chemicals don't pick sides, and if you deploy a whole canister, you'd best get the slag out of there before the wind changes. At least that stuff disperses, mind. You ever seen the aftermath of an FTL core being detonated planet-side? Got brought in to analyse the after-effects of one. Really creepy stuff. You can't see anything's wrong, but if you walk into a knot of vortices, every part of your body ends up being distorted in a thousand different directions. The results aren't pretty. Nobody wants more of that lying around."

Her voice trailed off, her green optics focusing into the distance before she came back to the present with a bump. "Anyway," she remarked, "it's real reassuring to hear that there's provision built into the treaty for continuing development, as long as it's not pointed at the Autobots. You know, for now. If it turns out that weapons tech built for fighting MECH just happens to be pretty darn effective against Cybertronians too, well, that's just too bad for them."

The amount of data Blackframe apparently had access to sounded... huge. Proper, hard data about Autobot numbers, fighting styles, chassis types - any of it would be useful for her to help tune her weapons development. Not that she should say that aloud, with the charade of the treaty to think about, but even so, a request to see this information wouldn't hurt. A copy of the full text of the treaty might well be pretty darn useful too, just to see if there were any other provisions she could use to subvert the supposed moratorium on research and development, or contrarily, if there was anything she might blunder obliviously into.

"Say..." she added lightly, "Just how much of this data could you share with me? It sounds pretty useful to know, and surely the text of the treaty's an open document at least."

[Deleted]

There was this interesting way of how Sparkplug seemed to put logic into the words spoken, or at least trying to, from the sound of it. Blackframe however would just listen and nodding faintly as she continued to fiddle the little details together, finding some sort of `back-door´ to escape should something be amiss. Clever.

“Well, no, never encountered such things, and as I told you before, I´m glad that I haven´t. But I totally agree; not a fan of chemical weapons either, though this would include all weapons that use explosives or whatever sort of energy blasts n´ stuff. Only a coward would hide behind a trigger.”

Yes of course those weapons were useful and could cause a lot of destruction as they had helped to win countless battles in the war, yet they were noisy and needed to be reloaded, could malfunction and be easily broken…

Anyway.

Upon hearing her question, Blackframe couldn´t decide if this was meant to be a joke or if the femme was just simply blunt. Did she really think that she could obtain such information just by asking? Did she even know what he had to go through to obtain such data? Of course not.

“I thought you´ve been instructed and acquainted with our current situation by ‘little Winglet´...”

It had to be a joke. He couldn´t think of anything else. The thought of her messing with his data, terminals, or even the idea of her taking over his job he was so eager to earn was alarming. Oh no, that was his job, his data, his knowledge and his office, sure she could visit there if she so wished, to read about the truce, like he had offered, but that was about all of how far he would allow it.

Maybe he went a little too over protective there as his voice raised in tone. Snarling angry towards the femme´s direction, red optics fiercely glaring down at her while his helm rose gradually as to add even more pressure behind those words.

“And for your memo… I. WILL. NOT. SHARE. ANYTHING! Do you even have the slightest idea of what I would need to go through? Asking for permission, to gain approval, catalogue and organize the data before- and afterwards you´ve messed around with it and report to Sounders in detail… No thank you, I have enough of being shoved around by sir Slenderwave, but you’re welcome to try asking him yourself, I wish you the best of luck with that!”

It was that anger boiling underneath his frame that led the officer to increase his pace, before tip toeing sideways further apart in order to gain some space between them and to make sure Sparkplug wouldn´t get hit as he then planted his left servo upon the metal floor, launching his pedes up into the air and swirling them slightly spread apart in a somewhat anti-clockwise motion around his frame, moving with the fluid movement to prevent any twisted limbs.

What could be seen as some sort of `dance´ was for him one way to perform a transformation, using some of the gained speed and momentum to shift into his alt-mode while demonstrating some sort of artistic performance, rearranging gears and metal plates as armored bits moved into their position, quickly forming the American interceptor.

“Flight deck, Now!”

The Mustang´s engine would growl in anticipation, revving up before turning to the soft purr it was used to. Headlights turning on and lightening the area in front of them as he started to drive along the corridor, not too fast, but also no too slow as Sparkplug was expected to follow, or to catch up.

The sooner they would reach the flight deck, the better.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug strolled along behind Blackframe as he answered her, a wry grin quirking her lips as he expounded on his personal philosophy. Only a coward would hide behind a trigger, huh? Heck, would it be interesting to hear him lay that one out in front of Megatron. Or, well, almost every Cybertronian in the entire war. She'd come across a few close-combat specialised fighters, but a mecha without any kind of ranged capability at all was a seriously rare beast.

Put Blackframe with his knife on one side, an inch thick slab of armour plate on the other, and come back to check on his progress in, oh, a million years?

Distracted by her inner monologue, she almost missed Blackframe's oblique reference to 'Little Winglet'. Little Winglet? Who could Blackframe possibly be talking about? Well, she'd met Knock Out, and Breakdown, and Flatline... none of them could be what he was talking about, they were all grounders. Which did leave one option. But surely... surely... he couldn't be referring to Commander Starscream as Little Winglet?

And then Blackframe went completely off the rails.

There was no warning, no precursor to warn her. Suddenly he was snarling, all but screaming in her faceplate, yelling at the maximum output of his vocoder about how he wasn't going to share anything, ever, his crimson optics round and staring. Sparkplug froze, her lengthy arm jerking up in front of her faceplate in instinctive self-defence, processor jammed with conflicting impulses generated by the sheer unexpectedness of the outburst.

By the time she recovered from her shock, he'd transformed, and was rolling down the corridor with a brusque demand that she follow. Her lips parted wordlessly, and she lowered her arm, before her vibrant green optics narrowed and her mouth snapped into a thin, flat line.

"What the cross-wired, glitch-ridden slag was that supposed to be?" she demanded, notching up the volume on her voice and making no effort to follow him. "What is your malfunction? Where do you get off talking to me like that, you rusty, barnacle-encrusted, misconfigured monochrome knife-fetishist?! That was a civil question! What in the molten pit is the use of having enemy intel if you don't tell anyone?"

Throwing up her hands, she turned to stomp back down the corridor the way she'd come, though she paused after a few steps to jab a finger after him, and added, "You stay the heck away from me, you psychotic, screeching bit-hoarder!"

The upper half of her chassis pivoted around a circular ring in her waist, slamming her front tyres down onto the floor. Her legs folded up, second and third sets of tyres dropping into place, and her headlights snapped on, illuminating the gloomy corridor with an irritable flare of light. Her engine growled into life, and she rolled back towards the corridor she'd come from, intent on retracing her path that way. The flight deck could wait; it was definitely not worth the company.

[Soundwave]

As Blackframe rolled down the way, a figure stepped out from a side passageway.

Dark armored, as with many of their kind, flecks of black and charcoal, overlaid with bands of navy that clapped over magenta bio-lights. Its newfound presence appeared with no announcement, a lack of footfalls giving a clear warning, while there was also no gasp at almost stepping out into the path of a vehicular form even if it was not moving particularly fast at this point. Instead, it only slowed to a stop at the side of the primary hallway, almost bleeding into the backdrop still despite stationed away from the wall's edge.

It would only take a cursory glance to decipher who the individual was. Despite his tones being similar to some Vehicons, the third in command held a strikingly recognizable frame shape, and an even more iconic faceplate. Or... rather... a lack of one that hooked down to watch Blackframe rolling past. An abrupt order, a sharp demand, the black and white mech was calling out to someone else, whom was easy to see down the way due to holding brighter armor colors that clashed among the purples and blues.

A confrontation had formed just then, the blooming creation of a dispute able to be witnessed within the fleeting few seconds that passed. The fiery femme had flung insults at Blackframe in retort, ones that held a level of creativity that others could envy in a game of wits and imagination. Soundwave was particularly adept at picking up emotions that others felt, his observation skills, among other things, gifting him much with reading what lies upon another's mind, but he didn't need to be near to know Sparkplug was livid.

This had bloomed out of seemingly nowhere, but... was that uncommon?

Decepticons would do, as Decepticons do.

Soundwave did not really linger after the near impact, simply staring out at Blackframe for a long, hollow moment that seemed to stretch on far longer than it actually did. His presence alone should convey much; either here for the specific purpose of some of the things that were said a few moments prior against the commanders, or he was here out of pure luck and chance. Or would it be a lack of luck? Whatever the case was, however, a moment later he would gradually start to walk again, turning his back to the mech so that he could continue down the path towards where Sparkplug had fled a few seconds previously.

Soft strides, a calm gait... there was no haste in his path, just the light tapping clicks of the dampeners in his joints.

[Deleted]

Oh well, there went his effort at getting on her `good´ side.

Anger bled from his field like energon from an open wound as the words- or rather the insults that had been thrown at him reached his audial. They surely were creative he had to admit, though as much as her imagination had allowed them to form, and to spit such words after him? The more he drowned into his own; wanting to shove those words back to where they belonged.

It was more than a pleasant thought. Satisfying. But, it only swarmed his processor for so long as a familiar frame catched his interest, a frame which was certainly well-known onboard this ship, someone Blackframe thought he didn’t need to encounter until his task would be completed.

Oh this one meant trouble!

Upon seeing Soundwave, the third-in-command of the Decepticons, the officer´s anger quickly turned into… fear. As in response the Interceptor slammed down its breaks, abruptly haltering to a stop as the left mirror adjusted itself to gain a clear image of the scene behind him, just to catch Sparkplug rolling down the corridor, into the opposite direction… did she already fled? Did she just barked those insults into the corridor and then ran, like a puppy with its tail between their legs?

That certainly was unexpected as Blackframe would sit this one out; ignoring the accusation´s she had made against him just a few seconds ago and merely observing his surroundings, patiently waiting. Keeping his field of vision upon Soundwave and making no effort to throw a tantrum like he had in the past. There was no way he would give the navy mech any reason to lash out, not wanting to gain his attention, oh no, he wasn’t ready to face this one just yet, not in the state he found himself currently in; railed up into so many different emotion´s he couldn’t decide which one was the strongest.

What happened next however led him vent in relief as Soundwave didn’t seem interested in him and started to head after Sparkplug. Oh yes, that surely was a nice view, seeing one of the higher ranked commanders going after someone else. He wasn´t the target, he wasn´t the one Soundwave was after, and Oh Primus was he glad.

Starting to move again, he would continue driving down the hallway and towards his destination, the flight deck. Fresh air was something that the officer was in urgent need of right now, clearing his mind and sorting his thoughts. This was not his business anymore.

Blackframe could only hope that Sparkplug would be smart enough to not confront Soundwave with their… whatever they had going on just right now. Not only for his own good but for hers as well, but if she would choose to start a battle to take revenge, then he would gladly give her a war.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug's engine growled and burbled as she drove down the corridor at low revs, flushed with indignation. The nerve of some mecha! Still, under the agitation was more than a trace of nervousness.

Blackframe had gone from perfectly conversational to screaming in her faceplate in an astro-klik, and still expected her to accompany him on a 'pleasant visit to the outside'. Now there was a thought process she just couldn't untangle at all, and it left her with the itchy feeling that he might turn back and try making up for his lack of interpersonal skills with some applied violence. She was sure she'd heard him hit the brakes hard, and her dorsal plating itched as she maintained the same steady speed, refusing to be intimidated into speeding away.

What was the position on this ship with Decepticon on Decepticon violence, she wondered. She certainly wasn't used to it; sure, sometimes arguments got heated over resource allocation or the finer points of theory, but it never escalated to physical attacks. All the same, she was aware that in the more combat-focused units, the troops did have a certain tendency to take out their accumulated stress by beating each other up, and she'd been on the receiving end of an unwelcome committee a few times, when she'd been nearer to the front lines.

In which case, all you could do was give as good as you got. Instinctively, she checked the status of her cannon, running system checks.

The distant sound of his engine starting up again and growling into the distance was a distinct relief, and she listened carefully for a moment before she convinced herself the confrontation was over. She relaxed a bit. Now all she had to do was get back to the corridor she'd been using to ferry junk back and forth between her room and the main recycler. Which was...

She braked, slowing to a stop. She didn't recognise the corridor markings; everything looked so different in the glow of her headlights, compared to the normal muted dimness. She'd probably rolled right past the turn off, while she was fretting about Blackframe.

With a vented sigh, she cut her headlights, and initiated her transformation sequence. It'd be easier to recognise the turn off she needed if her helm was the same height, rather than down near the deck. Turning back the way she'd just come, she began walking slowly, scanning the walls for any signs that she recognised.

[Soundwave]

There was no doubt in his mind, that if he had not happened upon this situation, that some kind of further confrontation may have bloomed between the two. It was odd all things considered, for the incident didn't seem that volatile at surface value at first. It had all been so... civil... so mundane, and then out of nowhere it ignited with so much zeal and aggression it could be compared to a flash bang in an Energon Mine.

Soundwave did not know the two individuals well. Sure, he knew surface values for how much they were worth at the moment, but that was so very little while he still conducted his checks. He could say that Sparkplug was chatty and liked to jabber a great deal, and he knew that she worked with weaponry and was appointed her own laboratory. On the other hand, there was Blackframe, who was antagonistic, stubborn, and had about as much respect for high command as Starscream, though lacked the insight to hold his tongue and play his cards s carefully as the Second in Command. Perhaps it was this aggression that bloomed this argument, or perhaps there was something more, some kind of damage that had been prodded.

War was brutal, it was cruel, and it left its wounds. Any Decepticon worth its weight on the warfront, learned to hide and cope with their pains and troubles, so that they are not seen as a liability or a weakness. Broken individuals did not survive, strength is what earned favor, and actions spoke volumes to earn ones place. As careful as people were to try to hide these fractures, they aren't invisible however, and all it would take is a careful blade between the cracks... a sharp twist... and you could ruin someone.

Perhaps it was a conflict of weaknesses that made this, both individuals lashing out, or perhaps he was reading too much into it. It may have just been a power play by the black and white mech gone wrong. Whatever the case, Blackframe seemed cowed by his presence, and retreated down the way to get away from the situation, leaving the Third in Command to follow Sparkplug without noisy company.

As Sparkplug turned and began to re-trace her steps, she would find that she wasn't actually alone, though the other individual was quite a distance behind due to the clip that she had been moving a moment prior in her alt mode. The navy figure ghosted forward slowly, falling partly into the environment only to be re-illuminated by a chunk of lighting that he passed under a moment later

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug's digits trailed along the wall as she walked, almost as though she was reading them, like a mecha without optics. The complete quiet of the warship at night had descended once more in the wake of Blackframe's departure, and it drew her thoughts back to the room she was busily restructuring. There was still a lot of work to be done; plenty more scrap and rusted detritus to clean out before she could even begin to do something useful with the space. The shriek of the angle grinder and the smell of scorched metal were getting wearyingly familiar. Meeting Blackframe had distracted her from it for a while, but after the argument, she'd rather have avoided the whole thing.

Who just screeched like that, really.

Movement in the dimness snapped her out of her thoughts, though for a moment she couldn't place what she'd seen. A cluster of magenta lights, tracing strange lines, not stationary, but moving towards her. That seemed horribly familiar. Hadn't she seen something like that recently?

One overhead light shone with greater vigour than its fellows, likely as a result of a breakdown in the circuit meant to be controlling its output. The approaching figure passed underneath it, spotlighted for just an instant, but it was long enough for his outline to be discerned. Pattern recognition algorithms operated faster than her primary consciousness thread, triggering unease even before she registered what she'd just seen.

Dark navy plating, picked out with faint biolights. Arms like blades. The complete, total quiet of his approach, silent enough to make her question whether her audials were even working. And above all, that terrible bleak facelessness, that blank black mask of judgement. Impossible to pin down when she'd first head his designation; his identity seemed to have seeped into her processor long before she had come to this planet, a threatening silhouette in the shadows. He was never far from Megatron, infamously, but even so, it had never occurred to her that the presence of the Warlord aboard the vessel would inevitably imply this ghost-silent corollary.

Soundwave.

"Oh scrap," she murmured involuntarily, her upraised ped hesitating in mid-stride. Was he coming for her? Had she done something to offend? Surely that little verbal tussle with Blackframe wasn't enough of anything to draw his attention. He might not even be coming at her, he might be going somewhere else. Somewhere else down this same, deserted corridor, in the middle of the night. Completely plausible, right? A small, specialised processor within her cranial case that was devoted to juggling probabilities decided that if those were the available alternatives, she was probably in trouble.

She still had one ped in mid-air. Remembering herself, she straightened up hurriedly, and her small frame shuffled into something approaching parade attention. How should she address him? Was he a commander too? She didn't even know! "Er - good evening. Soundwave. Sir."

She cast around for something else to say. "Is there anything I can do for you? Uh, sir?" That was the right manner of address, wasn't it? Surely she couldn't get in trouble for that. "Access to the, uh, schematics I'm working on, perhaps? My frame design specifications? A cube of energon?" She always talked too much when she was nervous, even moreso than usual, but she managed to clamp down before she rattled out anything else, and stayed very still as he approached.

Of course, now that she'd addressed him, he might just walk past her like she wasn't there. That would be mortifying.

[Soundwave]

Sparkplug was chatty at times, that is true.

She was also amicable to sharing it seemed.

Soundwave's gradual walk slowed once he got near, the ghosting movements gliding to a halt a typical conversational distance between them. His black visor simply angled in her direction while she spoke to him, the reflective surface shadowing her own actions like a mirror while she tried to figure out what the proper greeting was, and what she could do for him. These flew fleeting moments told ample amounts about who she was, and what she was capable of as far as he was concerned.

If Starscream hoped he would get a loyal lapdog out of this one, he seems to be mistaken.

Oh so readily, Sparkplug offered him schematics and information on her projects, with no prompting and no prying to try to get them out of her. She was willing to share anything she had it seemed, and was even willing to do menial tasks such as fetch Energon if a superior demanded it. This could mean two vastly different things. Either she truly was a loyal individual that was willing to be exceptionally transparent to high command to progress their cause, or she was playing such a role to dissuade suspicion if things went wrong.

Soundwave was more akin to believe the prior rather than latter, Sparkplug seeming to radiate truthfulness and nervous energy that flicked through her frame with sharp impulses. This was good, and something to be looked upon well. While Soundwave did not expect subservience, he expected respect. It was the little things in this war that earned favor, and simply showing ranks their earned position in the hierarchy by not challenging on needless things... well... that is what separated her from the black and white mech that departed a moment earlier.

Glancing back, the small motion was near indistinguishable, the visor angling in the direction he had come from and Blackframe had vanished. He would need to keep an eye on him, but such a decision had already been made their very first meeting. Once this thought passed, he peered back at Sparkplug.

Moving, Soundwave's frame started to turn and point back where he had come from, but his helm remained locked on her. It was only when he had fully oriented himself to the new direction that the dark visor broke away and aimed ahead with a moderately sharp action, his strides starting once more. The motion he had made was simple, a beckoning call, as he began to walk.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug stood very, very still, as her field of vision was slowly occluded by Soundwave's blank, fathomless visor. A reflection of her green optics shone in the dark glass, and for one endless moment, it seemed like a set identical to her own were burning beneath the surface, silently hollowing her out.

She didn't know what to expect, and that vast uncertainty made her fuel pump whir louder in her chest. Of all of the highest ranked mecha in the Decepticon hierarchy, he was the one she knew the least about. In fact, no one seemed to know anything about him. He knew every secret, was lurking in every shadow. There was nothing that the vast Decepticon war machine knew that he did not have stored in his fathomless memory banks. His loyalty to Megatron was absolute.

And he was still staring at her. Perhaps he wondered about her loyalty. She'd been an Autobot once; could he be wondering if she truly served the Decepticon cause?

She'd barely had time to register the question before her thought process hit a wall of tightly structured denial, conditioning shutting down the moment of uncertainty. Whatever her history, she was a Decepticon now, and that was beyond question. It had to be something else.

Soundwave glanced away. Her increasingly frantic processor threads were interrupted by the motion, drawn back to a quiet, anxious focus on his movements. A moment or two later, he began to turn away. Her flash of initial relief was curtailed by the movement of his faceless helm, wordlessly beckoning her after him.

"Oh. Y'want me to come with you. Sure. Right. On it," she muttered, taking swifter strides to keep up with the taller mech. It was an effort to keep her mouth shut, not to ask where they were going or what he wanted with her, but if there was one virtue Soundwave seemed to prize, it was silence.

Her peds pattering lightly on the decking, Sparkplug followed the silent, dimly glowing mech down the corridor towards whatever destination the sphinx-like machine had in mind.

[Soundwave]

As with before, Soundwave did not respond audibly to her commentary. Instead, he simply started to walk, and did not shake his helm or motion with a hand that her comment was incorrect. It was once she was following him he moved into a steady rhythm, turning a corner to start down one of the numerous hallways among the ship.

Step by step, moment by moment, the walk was quiet and peaceful once they turned the corner, allowing the ambiance of the ship to truly stand out and start to make itself known. The distant rumble of the grand engines, the hollow echo of machinery or processes functioning beneath the walls, pipelines feeding from one station to the next carrying objects with them... a soft whirring whoosh passed on rare occasion from these channels, the noise more a soft rumble that could be felt rather than heard half the time. Their own footfalls even stood out a great deal, clicking against the metal hallways into a soft reverberation that tended to be ignored when focused on other things.

This was Soundwave's realm now; this was the world he heard among the ship. People tended to fall quiet around him, their words muddled down to hushed whispers, or halted until he would move on to another quadrant. Fear, intimidation, worry, perhaps even a bit of paranoia if they had secrets of their own to hide away. Truly, very little could be kept from him, there was minimal he didn't know. Those that were around longer could work the system, they could manipulate it to leave him partly blind, but they were few and far between. Because of this it didn’t matter how people acted around him, because he knew what they were like when he was absent.

While silence can drag on the moment, making it appear longer than it may have been, in truth it did not take them much time nor many turns to get to the intended area, it heard before they were even upon it in full. Laughter the mumbled sound of louder talking heard through a door. The entrance to the room looked well used through the years, having been opened and closed many times to a point light grooves etched along the surface from the gears and mechanisms that spiraled it out of the way. It was this door the navy mech approached, and instantly it would shift aside and open with an angry hiss.

The room beyond was large compared to others on the warship, branching a good deal to the left and right to create a rectangular shape. Inside held mostly tables and benches, worn and scraped from being well used, while the far wall was a couple Energon dispensers. While it appeared that feeding the soldiers their due share was a great portion of the area, there was more to it than just that. A work sink for the cubes, some modest storage for smaller community objects for moral, and a few smaller computer terminals where they could look up information or questions that they may come across.

The soldiers in the area were varied when it came to the cookie cutter troops of the warship. Vehicons, Eradicons, and the more rare mining personnel that were up here to receive repairs and medical aid or waiting to be relocated. Whether they had one or two red slats in their visors, they all seemed to hook over for the moment when the doors opened, silence slowly curling over them all in a wave when they saw who it was.

Mumbles, quiet words of concern, 'Why is he here?' 'Who do you think messed up?' 'Are we all in trouble?' many followed with hushing or 'shuttup' etched out, one going so far as to place a hand over another's faceplate to try to smack the talk out of him. A few of the troopers saluted readily, their actions robotic and sharp, it being the ones that were not yet cognitive and were going through the routine to get fuel, while the mentally 'awakened' followed a bit later, a few awkwardly offering a salute as if it would make them immune to whatever was about to come.

Soundwave did not regard any one of them. He neither addressed them, nor even passed them a second glance. Salutes were lost into the space between them, as he started to walk once more, heading towards one of the computer terminals to the side. What did catch his attention however was the softest of helm inclines, peering up at the ceiling where there were distant smears of pink and venomous green paint. The colors had been wiped and smeared, an attempt to clean was made, but it remained in spots.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug's processor whirred with remarkable, futile speed as she trailed after Soundwave, devoting the full magnitude of her massively multi-threaded architecture to worrying about what the silent mech might have in mind. Coolant surged, dumping the excess heat through passive radiator fins. Still, little by little, the initial surge of flailing alarm settled down, gradually supplanted by a growing curiosity that was a defining characteristic of the small femme.

Okay... so, break down the general classes of what he could want. She frowned thoughtfully.

Class 1: he was displeased by something she'd done, or failed to do. She could have transgressed on some arcane rule or protocol about how she was meant to comport herself aboard the ship, there could be something wrong with the way she was dumping the ruined equipment into the furnace for recycling. The disagreement with Blackframe, maybe. She hadn't carried out any research yet, so there couldn't be any rule violations from testing or constructing particular designs aboard.

If he was going to reprimand her, though, he could have just done it there, where they'd met. The only reason to take her somewhere else was if someone else wanted to reprimand her personally, or in front of an audience, or - not a happy thought - if they needed specialised equipment for the kind of reprimand they had in mind. Probably not. If she'd screwed up that badly, she'd know about it.

Class 2: he wanted to use her knowledge for something. That could be specialised developmental science, that could be details of her previous posting, that could be schematic detail of her work to date. That wasn't so bad. They were all on the same side; whatever Soundwave might want to know, she'd be more than happy to tell him. In that case, they'd be most likely going to some kind of chamber with a heavy data display/interface function, so she could download information and walk through it.

Class 3: he wanted her to do something right now. That could be something related to her subject area; there could be some damaged piece of equipment or novel invention which he wanted looked over, but wasn't so important that Shockwave or his staff would be called in. Counterpoint; if it was that unimportant, Soundwave wouldn't be involved. It could be that he wanted just anyone to do a specific task, and she had the misfortune to be standing in his path at the time. It could even be some kind of ship-joining hazing, where she'd be thrown at some awful task and expected to make the best of it. But that didn't fit his blank mask of a face. He seemed like he'd be above that. That could mean she'd be walked to the space bridge arrival/departure terminal.

Class 4: he was taking her to see the Warlord. Surely that couldn't be it. Unless he was the type that liked to see the faceplates of everyone under his direct command, not necessarily out of any particular fondness or interest, but from the desire to have a firm grip on the troops he had at his disposal. Surely that couldn't be it. But if it was, could be they were going to the control room, or some private interview room.

Her inward focus on the most plausible options had thoroughly distracted her from the reality of following the faceless mech through the quiet corridors, booming with the distant beat of the engines and reactors. If was only when the well-worn door spiralled open before them and she reflexively stepped through it that she snapped back to reality.

...class 5. He was taking her to a bar.

What.

The chamber was large, and while she'd been shown to smaller energon dispensers, she hadn't ventured into this massive meeting place for the ships's crew. Dozens of faceplates turned towards Soundwave, and a murmur of unease ran around the room. Plainly she wasn't the only one that he made nervous. Crimson optic bands picked her out, and the general field of unsettled worry was tinged with curiosity directed at what her connection to Soundwave might be.

If he'd been some other mech, she might have thought this was just a friendly gesture. If he'd been some mechs she'd known, it could even have been the prelude to hitting on her. It had happened before. But this was Soundwave, and the odds of that were about the same as him suddenly choosing to romance a major celestial body.

His helm tilted back, towards the ceiling. Her green optics flicked upwards automatically.

"Now what's all this?" she murmured aloud, drifting forward a step to look closer. Pink and green paint, as if from contact transfers. Mostly cleaned off, but not completely. "Weird. On the ceiling? If there was a zero-g environment in here, you could almost ignore it, but... someone thrown against the ceiling? Small-yield detonation slammed them right against the roof? Could be a physical throw, I guess... doesn't have to be contact transfer, but it looks like it. Not like there's gonna be a paint fight in here. Pink and green. Hm. Not seen anyone aboard that's either of those colours, or both."

For the time being, what Soundwave was up to was pushed aside. He'd reveal his intentions when he chose to, and not one thing she did was going to speed it up. But this was a neat little puzzle, an oddity. Oddities were always interesting.

[Soundwave]

While Sparkplug paused and moved to get a better view of the streaks of paint, Soundwave simply continued on forward in the direction he had previously been aimed. He knew what it was from, and its appearance did not concern him. Should it have been cleaned up? Well... yes... but this was the Troop's area, and if they chose to leave a reminder of that day ((or were too lazy to resolve the situation)) than they could just live with it like that. As long as Megatron didn't find out and care enough to say something, it was of little concern to the slender mech. However, while he had moved on, one of the Vehicon's piped up in reply to Sparkplug.

"There WAS a paint fight!"

The single voice barked out in response to pierce through the hushed quiet, almost excited to be heard for the moment and to know that he had the correct reply to the situation. It was not unlike a child that was screaming out they had the right answer in a classroom. The only difference however, was instead of praise being given to the individual for chirping such things out, other's instantly hissed hushed whispers to try to shut them up.

A single clawed hand of a Vehicon sitting directly next to him, swung over to clap over QLC-972's face, engulfing the red visor and most of the actual silver faceplate in the process. The other trooper remained looking straight ahead, his free hand pulled to his visor in a proper salute, but his other hand was frantically struggling to slap and claw over the other individual's face to try to get him to stop, even though there was no mouth to cover really.

There was a rough shuffle, and a clatter clunk of a tray falling to the floor, but no further called out words or responses to the inquiry. A few however, did peer up at the streaks of paint, one Eradicon idly rubbing at an upper arm, perhaps in ghost memories of the event. Whatever the case, Soundwave was already a few paces away, his back to the grouping.

Whether or not Sparkplug followed, it did not matter for the moment, the navy mech halting before one of the computer terminals. Slender arms that had remained draped on either side, carefully raised then to ghost over top the controls, carefully plucking a few keys to access the information he was intending to find. With the pages retrieved, his visor crooked ever so slightly back in her direction, seeing what she was doing.