[ti]Ep 3.5[/ti]The Killing Moon [Soundwave, Nokta]

[Windshield]

Episode 3.5 | Week 2 | Day 7 | Closed

The dark recesses of Blackridge Hold were many things... Oppressive, crude, bleak, stifling—but rarely empty. Behind every twisted corner, in every unlit crevice, beneath every harsh fluorescent light, there was a shadowy figure set to a grim task, a servant of the cause. During daylight hours, the Control Room was a veritable hotspot of activity. It was the main terminal of the entire operation and simultaneously its nerve center. Decepticon troops bounced back and forth between assignments, officers managing the flow. Occasionally, even Megatron himself made appearances to maintain the station in order.

But at this late hour, only two Decepticons would meet here.

A spy and his master.

The roaring sound of a powerful car engine echoed inwards from beyond the winding exit tunnel. A rippling, rhythmic melody—swimming through the echo, carried on cold currents. It stopped so suddenly. The engine ground to a choked halt, dying in an instant. Nothing followed in its wake but the faint, alien whisper of transformation.

This was the spy, awaited by the master. Before he descended towards that terminal to meet him, he turned his gaze upwards at the sky one final time for today. The moon was especially bright and beautiful this night, washing his tired face in a most brilliant glow. The stars strewn across the void, though, seemed to pale in comparison—like so many useless specks. A hazy blanket of clouds shifted just above the mountains, damning those specks further to their well-deserved irrelevance.

Windshield turned his back on those distant suns before he stopped to consider why he thought so poorly of them, letting the moon's stolen light frame his return to Blackridge instead. He walked too softly to be heard, announced by nothing more than those engine-sounds that died a good while ago. He entered into the room, flame-eyed and subtly smiling. Instantly, he found himself doused in the obscene brightness of industrial lights and struggled to adjust to the contrast. In the distance, he made out the subtlest impression of another figure. Taller, thinner, featureless.

A master to a spy.

Windshield addressed him already, optics no longer shifting and fully recognizing Soundwave by the main console—a typical sight: "Sir, I've managed to restore as many of the files as possible." He approached closer, producing a small data slug from a hidden compartment within his outer thigh.

"Unfortunately, the Infinitum's central computing unit was extensively damaged—almost completely, actually." The agent paused unexpectedly, realizing rather quickly that his voice had started to dip into frustration towards the end of his report. In spite of this, his smile remained constant and he resumed in a gentler tone once more: "Its black box registry remains defective despite my best efforts, but it should still contain some salvageable footage from the ship's security cameras."

Windshield looked at Soundwave with an expectant glint, choking back any signs of hesitance or regret over this affair behind a smile so convincing, he could almost believe it himself.

"Shall we commence playback?" He asked, offering a clawed hand to the Spymaster, holding the data slug between an extended middle and index finger—Soundwave's for the taking.

[Soundwave]

An ever-present sentinel.

One that appeared as much living as it was an inanimate object.


Soundwave was standing in front of the primary terminal of the makeshift base, long arms raised to type quickly upon the wide controls, reaching momentarily to the further edges on occasion that may require a smaller individual to take a step to access. Upon its display was a satellite system, one that was working to try to replace the one upon the Nemesis, though it had its limitations at current. These issues were not immediately apparent across the glyphs and readouts, requiring one who was trained marginally in such fields to catch on given the lack of graphical cues, though what wasn't as obscure was the fresh wounds that lay upon the mech.

A flash of silver ran from the left 'pectoral' plating up onto the collar flare, a wider buffed shape leaving a haze of metals that held the faintest of dulled sheens among welded patterns. It had yet to be painted over, perhaps waiting to be addressed after what lay below healed more in case of complications, or perhaps it was simply not done yet due to other tasks that took precedence. This same appearance of shifted color tones shone on the underside of his right shoulder assembly, two grooves in place that were more apparent due to the fact the surrounding metals were black, and the added detail that one of the magenta biolights was severed. Its glow was faded and tinted in blue above the cut line in the equivalence of bruising.

Additional scuffs and lines settled here or there, flecks of metals seen primarily along his legs with faint indents accompanying many, though they had not appeared to have taken the same care as the larger pieces. While it could be argued one of his standings shouldn’t be seen so battered, it would take a fool to consider him weaker simply for some comparably surface-level wounds that did not cripple him. The only thing that actually concerned him was what ailments lay within, and his subsequent deafness of the world around him, losing an entire 'sixth sense' talking to Blackridge itself.


At the sound of a muscle car's approach and subsequent silence, an unseen gaze shifted to look over, staring intently at the rocky exit path. There was an expectation of just who it was, given prearranged discussions, however, there was still that haunting void in place due to being unable to see the gate through his typical means. That subtle edge, the soft cursory thought of someone else's arrival, before the expected mech entered the brightly lit space, and started to approach, declaring the results of his appointed task.

Only with this did Soundwave finally move beyond his watchful focus.

Narrow fingers reached out and took hold of the data slug, appearing to inspect it at surface levels, before looking at Windshield more directly. Soundwave was not a particularly expressive individual, much of what he did boiled down into subtle motions, choice video clips, or simply left to hang into the void to permit others to come to their own conclusions. He was calculated with what he 'said', and this moment was no different, however, it made his next action that much more notable, his helm dipping lower in reply, the motion as minimal as it was meaningful.

An acknowledgment of Windshield's labors.

While trust was a seldom gifted treasure, one that was not truly offered to the other mech, it was impossible to neglect the efforts that had been put into collecting what data remained. Efforts from a Decepticon that claimed a mission mere minutes after waking from an abysmally long stasis. Dropped into the great unknown on a world that had never been seen before... lost to where the war stood... and just who was leading on the path to victory. No question, seemingly no hesitation, weaving to an outcome that gave them a bargaining chip that could only be made better should it have been a far more treasured individual to the Autobot cause.

With this in mind, the navy mech then leaned back slightly, before he shifted his weight, taking a calm two steps to the side in a way that opened up space before the main terminal screens. It was as much an offering as it was an invitation, a silent declaration of 'you may attend', rather than merely sending the mech on his way so that it could be reviewed privately without his presence. There was no saying just WHAT may lay within the data, and there was a decent chance it had already been viewed by the other anyway, though, in the end, it could still be valuable if not sensitive, not that Soundwave believed it would be critically classified.

With this space offered, there was a click followed by the repetitive rattling of metal segments, the cable that had been locked into the front of the terminal reeling back to vanish into his central frame. This left an opening for the data slug, which quietly took its place, Soundwave then leaning upright to type some quick commands. With only a couple of final strikes, the system scanned for any lingering threat that may lie within as a virus, before fully opening the file to let it play out.

[Windshield]

Respect. How odd, the sensation—conveyed without a word.

He did not let it stoke his ego.

The agent took a few gentle steps forward, joining Soundwave by the terminal, right where the latter had reserved a space for him. He did so wordlessly, though the smile on his face grew ever-so-smaller as if in direct recognition of the meaningfulness of just such a gesture. He clearly felt some sense of relief in being afforded this privilege, but he did not let it overturn his better judgement to speak out of turn or praise himself openly for his grim work.

Indeed, the mistake could be made that Windshield was a remarkably humble individual who simply did his job to the best of his ability and withdrew back into nameless shadows when it was done. No one, not even the principal Decepticon, could possibly know just how much guilt and trepidation accompanied every dark deed.

...And even if he did, he surely did not think of it in the same way as the agent did.

After all, whatever approximation of trust he'd gained from the Spymaster, he'd lost from Nokta. For every action that led him one step closer to the good graces of his masters also drove him two steps closer to the ire of everyone else. And so, he stood there with some amount of solemn respect rather than a visible sense of accomplishment or pride.

He did, cautiously, inspect the other mech's wounds. It was difficult not to notice in the limelight of the central console. The metallic streak, the dents, the discoloration. Windshield took the details in rather passively, but peeled his optics away from them as fast as he could. Subduing the impulse to prod and to query could be difficult in his line of work, and so it went further in respect of Soundwave that he did not discuss the battle damage and instead fixed his steady gaze at the monitor.

Though he did not witness the contents for himself, he did restore as many of them as was possible with their limited infrastructure, and he was deeply curious to know the past that the lieutenant kept secret from the Decepticons.

Let it begin.

[Nokta]

And begin it would– the beginning of an end. To what exactly, that remained to be seen.

One might have expected some kind of security footage to begin rolling right away– this was data received from a ship’s black box after all. But the Infinitum was more than a mere cargo ship, it was a transport, its internal computer systems accessible to all aboard in some form or another. Data could be entered from third parties, removed, broadcasted to by those with the means, and subject to uploads of personal data.

The chronicle of the Ad Infinitum’s voyage would be far more than what a few lone security cameras had to provide.

<SCAN COMPLETE//WARNING: MULTIPLE FILES CORRUPT OR INCOMPLETE…>

    0.

A projector whirred to life above Blackridge’s main terminal.

Click, click, snap. All at once millions of photonic lengths began pouring out of it, bathing the dimly lit room in their cold, pale hue. Light bloomed onto the space in front of the computer screen, cylindrical beams stretching downward to cover a three-dimensional area large enough to encompass both mechs viewing helm to ped.

The use of such tech was unheard of nowadays. Even before the war, such holographic viewing technology had only ever been used to transcode and preserve the most intimate and valued memories…an artful form of data storage where military communication required tact, efficiency, and straightforwardness.

This was clearly a personal recording, uploaded to the Infinitum’s database sometime during the voyage, the subject of which soon grew clearer. Within the purity of light began to appear the peds of two figures, walking along the floor in a rhythmic fashion. With every subatomic computation within the terminal came another thread of light from the projector, feeding the roots of the digital bodies growing from the floor. As their shins, knees, and legs came into view, what they were doing became more apparent– dancing.

Before long the two digitized Cybertronians were waltzing in place beside their physical compatriots in the control room. Their bodies did not move outside of the bounds of the projector’s light, that same twenty square meters or so in front of the computer. Whoever had produced the initial recording was skillful, keeping its focus on the pair, such that the holograms remained mostly in place even as they made great, sweeping strides. The camera angle tracked the duo across the expansive dancehall where the performance had taken place with minimal sway.

“M-m-m–”

Their images remained fuzzy, finer details lost either to data corruption or years' worth of transference from one storage device to the next. Each subsequent transfer had begun to erode the internal structure of the file, to the point where the image quality was so poor the identities of the two mecha were almost indistinguishable from any other in the crowd watching them.

Millions of tiny beams of tiny light labored to create what logic they could from the data, dancing through the stale air of the control room just as the silent figures within it danced to their phantom tune. Similar to pixels on a screen, the hologram was comprised of numerous sphere-like wavelengths of light and values that gave the figures shape. Some spheres swelled here and there, conjoining to become larger and averaged-out values that lost image quality, while others reproduced like cells in a petri dish– one becoming many– allowing for added quality, if only briefly.

Their waltz continued, the lack of audio in the transcoding making for an eerily silent performance. The taller of the two mecha took the lead, a thin flier with slightly broader shoulders than most. His sturdy upper frame denoted a function in pre-war military or construction– more likely a seeker, given the structure of his wings. All of that was to say nothing of the lavish ballroom they were in, appearing decidedly Vosian in architectural style.

“Mm-ercy-ercy…”

His partner, similarly built yet much shorter and visibly a grounder, took no insult in adhering to the flier’s lead– in fact he seemed elated. Even with the fuzziness a wide and youthful grin could be seen plastered to his faceplates. The intimacy of the whole performance was telling– one well-read in certain old Cybertronian cultural trends could garner that the entire dance was likely some kind of courtship ritual. A pas de deux, one traditionally performed for a bonded pair’s Conjunx Ritus, though not as a rule.

As the seeker lifted the smaller mech to spin him through the air, the recording hitched, freezing momentarily, then losing partial quality. The projector recalibrated, beams of light reforming to display the dancers facing one another at the waltz’ end. An entire dancehall of mecha stopped to clap, so ghostly one could almost hear their reverberance even now, despite the muteness of the footage.

“Primus hav-av-ave m-m”

A mech came to pass across the camera, glitching the footage into another shot entirely. Close-up now on the faces of the two mecha, they spoke to one another for a moment, words inaudible even to the crowd around them. The digital fibers comprising the complex video format would rise in quality only momentarily, the spheres of light around the smaller mech constricting downwards to become a few dozen each. The appearance of horned kibble on this mech hinted at their true identity, although was it really a certain lieutenant or just another who boasted a similar silhouette?

Smiling softly, he rose onto the tips of his peds to plant his lips flush against the mouth of the winged mech–

<END FILE. SORTING LOAD ORDER: STANDBY…>

Darkness.

A gentle, aching throb. The beating heart of a massive, spacefaring animal would be heard in the form of its engines, sending waves of pulsating energy through itself to power all within. No more holograms, no video at all.

Blackridge’s control room was dim once more, slave to nothing but the audio file that had begun playing upon the projector powering off. Until the audio glitched– data corruption? No, not simply that. Interspersed over the bassy, thunderous in and out of the ship engines as they moaned through the dark was a voice, either intentionally or as a result of damages incurred to the box.

“Cy-cy-mer, M-m-m-er-cy. Er-er-er–”

Though the voice sputtered, glitching to repeat syllables and words in succession, the tone of its voice was clear. Terror, forced into a whisper, for fear of being found.

“P-P-Primus–”

It was half a mech’s hushed, terrified voice, half the computer attempting to make up for the lost audio data, translating approximated data into a chilling, stern monotone. Emotionless automation compensated for the lost words of a dead mech.

“Mercy, Primus–”

<PATCHING DATA///LOAD ORDER BY: ASCENDING_DATE…>

    I.
    <EXT_CARGO_HOLD_CAM_02>

The main terminal flickered on, to an image of security footage, the first of many. In it, acid rain blanketed the shipyard the Ad Infinitum had been docked at back on Cybertron. The dock was dead, save for the few mecha there to perform a pre-flight check, likely why the craft’s security camera system had been turned on in the first place.

A date was stamped onto the top left of the screen, the day the exodus order was given to Decepticon troops.

A moment passed, and the cameras went into standby. When next they registered motion it was some hours later, a half dozen mecha were approaching from the opposite end of the dock.

Closer.

Closer.

The onboard computer began making calculations– scanning each of their identities, matching it with known data in Decepticon record-keeping, and updating it if need be. Each soldier would be scanned by name, rank, and occupation or specialty. All of them had some form of redacted data attached to their personal files as they briefly appeared on the various other side monitors accompanying Blackridge’s main terminal.

That this was a particularly close-mouthed special operations team needed no emphasis.

At the front of the group was a familiar face. The computer was as indiscriminate in scanning him as it was with the others.

    NOKTA OF NOVA CRONUM
    SERIAL NUMBER: (ADMIN ACCESS)
    RANK: LIEUTENANT
    SPECIALITY: RECONNAISSANCE
    ASSIGNMENT AS OF RECORDING DATE: UNKNOWN/REDACTED
    STATUS: ACTIVE
    CURRENT ASSIGNMENT: BLACKRIDGE HOLD, EARTH - INTELLIGENCE

One by one they entered the ship through the cargo hold, a second camera on the interior tracking them as they filed in. A mech who’d been walking alongside Nokta gave a stern order to another.

"Fire up the engines and get us in the air, the Nemesis isn’t waiting on anyone more than–"

"Belay that, sergeant." A rasp cut the mech off. Nokta spoke with rare fervor. "The Nemesis will leave if need be. We will wait for our captain to board before all else."

The sergeant held a long, perturbed gaze with his lieutenant before pulling away. "Copy, sir."

They wouldn’t have to wait long.

---

Less than an hour later, exterior cameras registered movement once more. Another craft was landing on the docks. No, a Cybertronian. A large tiltrotor aircraft could be seen coming into frame, transforming into their root mode just before touching the docking platform.

A midnight blue mech, with silvery accents and pale, almost sickly seafoam biolights. Both the size of his frame and his body language were commanding, to say the least– and yet he wore his age on him. Despite his stern gaze that seemed to assert a firm, unwavering conviction– this was a mech who’d grown visibly tired in the face, and not just in the form of the various scars that crisscrossed it.

"Prepare us for take-off," Nokta could be heard as the mech approached them. Once in range of the ship’s personnel scanners, it got to work. Blackridge’s computer systems quickly read the encoded data from the ship computer and translated it onto a nearby floating monitor beside the main screen.

    IKHOR OF RODION
    SERIAL NUMBER: (ADMIN ACCESS)
    RANK: CAPTAIN
    SPECIALITY: TRACKING, RECONNAISSANCE
    ASSIGNMENT AS OF RECORDING DATE: CAPTAIN OF (ADMIN ACCESS) SQUADRON
    STATUS: KIA
    LAST KNOWN LOCATION: ACID WASTES, CYBERTRON

As Captain Ikhor joined the rest of his squadron, the edges of the camera lens viewing them began to fray with data loss, the corrupted files having eroded the rest of this footage.

<DATA CORRUPTION DETECTED, LOADING NEXT FILE…>

The screen went black once more as it queued up the next file for viewing.

Already what had been shown did not bode well. Either a mech had risen from the dead– or Nokta had lied to Lord Megatron’s face in recounting the fate of his captain back on Cybertron.

But Megatron wasn’t here, not now. And they had barely scratched the surface of what footage had been recovered. This was nowhere near the full story– not even close.

Seven mecha had boarded that ship. Only one made it to Earth.

[Windshield]

Ancient lights stirred in the room, bringing to life ghosts of a distant past. He followed their dance for what felt like an untold eternity. In them, he saw something—familiar, desired, coveted, and never attained. The faceless features of faded beauty... Windshield couldn't have hoped to afford such mementos. He'd never seen their like before the war, barely knew that wonders like these existed on the world they had sacrificed on the altar of progress. Haunting though the blank faces and malformed edifices were in the dead silence of their fortress, they filled him with an indescribable sense of longing for a paradise lost. Perhaps, for a moment, he wished to have been born above the planet's surface.

It almost made him sick.

Wonder turned to nausea, nausea to anger. He gritted his dentae and formed a quivering fist. To someone, these were treasured memories of love—but they disgusted him, filled him with an indescribable rage. Worthless. It was all worthless. The nostalgic outpourings of a clinically sentimental romantic.

Windshield was so consumed that he'd barely registered the tortured vocalizations.

M...Mercy?

No. Never. They could burn on a pyre for all he cared. He had half the mind to delete the recording himself right now, a fist twitching subtly towards the data chit as if desiring to dismiss this mawkish charade. Then, as if suddenly realizing that he was not alone, he turned to the other mech with a sideways glance. The anger slowly relented from his features, the fist loosened. Soundwave's presence grounded him in reality.

It kept him from erasing it all. A Primus-given mercy indeed—or perhaps a curse.

When next he faced the console, the mood was different—more tolerable. Artificial, plain recordings. They did not inspire complex feelings and they were exactly the kind of lead he was looking for. He concealed his relief poorly behind a weak smile and observed with dark intent. Surely, this is where it began. As far as he was concerned, the rain and the readouts were all that mattered. The ghosts could continue their dance in a forgotten paradise that never truly was.

The grain of a camera would tell the truth, he believed.

And when it did, his smile grew wider and faker.

"Now, there is something..." Windshield mused with an uncharacteristic investment once the playback concluded. "If I'm reading the data correctly, this 'Ikhor' character should have perished in the Acid Wastes?" Partly a question, partly a statement. Neither fully. The agent turned towards the taller mech with some degree of untapped expectancy, as if seeking to confirm that they both gleaned the very same information from the console. He could ill afford to make assumptions at this juncture but the curious mind was rarely satisfied without answers. Further contents were awaited with more than just bated breath. Oh, whatever have you done Nokta, to survive a living corpse...

[Soundwave]

Cybertronian minds, they were not like an organic's own. There were ways to take snapshots of certain stages of one's life, or create hard copy backups of their memories and very psyche. Soundwave was no stranger to these facts, as he had restored his own drives a couple of times through this long war already in order to deny information in its entirety. The mind he thought with now, the data he leaned back into to reference... it was effectively a copy, and the only thing that was wholly original was his spark and the cage that wrapped around it, for even his outermost frame had been altered greatly. This abstract concept could be seen as deplorable by some to the point he wasn't always called a real mech, only a thing, though taboos and his lack of regard for such ethics were what set the navy mech on edge. The very moment that the projection started to take shape in the form of an individual he quickly started to type before the hologram could even manage to fully manifest its peds.

A secondary box appeared upon the top right of the primary viewing monitor, in which Soundwave swiftly gave direct command prompts to Blackridge's systems as a collective. The master override was slammed into place in mere flickers, where it disconnected every single connection to the Space Bridge, their satellite, the numerous mines across the world, and even the internal workings of Blackridge itself. He did as close as one could do to a total 'internet' blackout as one could without ripping a cord from the wall itself to sever the associated hardware, even though the program itself was already contained and not free floating on their drives.

For a simple hologram could just as easily be a manifestation of someone who no longer had a frame.

Or someone trying to pipe through the terminal system to establish a remote feed from somewhere far off.

Despite this fiercely reactive precaution, no action was taken to black out the device, his unseen features drifting back over to the entity, or rather, entities whose actions started to become discernible. Soundwave cared naught for the display itself, nor the fact it potentially implied Nokta had a relationship of some sort in the past. While it could be argued it had value due to looking for weaknesses, something else was happening beneath it all.

The cries were not lost to him, it catching his attention just as readily as the more opaque presentation. The subtle clues were of as much importance, if not more, than things that were placed front and center... A real encrypted message muddled beneath a memory that otherwise would have no value except for those who were involved... The mask seemed to be working for Windshield. Perhaps. The mech's overtly aggressive response was present, the clench of a jaw, curl of a fist... it meant either he was repulsed at the sentimentality itself, or he was a part of whatever was actually going on, and regretted not scrubbing it before offering it as tribute.

As Windshield glanced his way, Soundwave's helm would raise, offering a simple statement within his silence.

I saw.

Turning back, as the file came to a close, the Navy mech took heed of just what order the system was trying to place things in, and just what form of file was about to be pulled up next. While the first was something that could have concerning connections elsewhere, an audio recording was far more mundane and more on par with what he expected out of such a device. An ambiance snapshot, one that could be seen as a mere flicker of a moment among years of similar recordings, only the pleading from before made a reoccurrence.

Ah. It appeared as though someone was trying to code a distressed request atop other files. The override was only slightly managed rather than fully replacing the previous data chunk. Soundwave's visor seemed to clip active at this, the audio wave of what he heard showing up as it was recorded into his own systems just as he did the voice of all who spoke in his presence. It could be so easy for many to forget that every single utterance was immortalized in his proximity. Whatever the case, the file was set aside for the moment, as the video feed started to play.

Just like the audio clip, a security camera recording was on par with what he expected, taking quick note of the city skyline to try to decipher what subsection it was on their world. A simple shipyard was hard to place from such a hazed recovered file, however, and in the end, it may not be as important as the group of individuals that were intending to board it. A cursory thought jumped up then, wondering if it was their ship to begin with, or if it was simply 'obtained' during the exodus with little fear of potential backlash since their society as a whole was borderline no more.

The delay in takeoff did not concern Soundwave. The command to flee the world was not an absolute in which individuals couldn't wait a breath for others who had value. It also didn't concern him at this juncture that Captain Ikhor supposedly was last seen in the Acid Wastes. There were many reasons someone could loop back to Cybertron where they made last contact, and as such Soundwave was not one to instantly jump to conclusions as Windshield evidently was.

"If I'm reading the data correctly, this 'Ikhor' character should have perished in the Acid Wastes?"

A sort of quieter buzz played, almost the noise a computer may make when incorrect data was offered and it needed to give an audio cue of the failure, followed by a crackle pop before a voice formed that was clipped from a larger report, a femme's declaration.

/̢/̛Insufficient Data//́

Could this change in the next couple of moments? Certainly. Soundwave would never say Windshield's words were wrong in this regard, yet he wasn't ready to make a decision on the matter with what he had at hand. Before he would let the feed continue, however, he reached his hand out and paused the system's auto-play, his screen then illuminating once more with a buzzed crackle as a previous audio clip was played.

Not from the terminal.

But from himself.

/̕/̨Mm-ercy-ercy… Primus hav-av-ave m-m Cy-cy-mer, M-m-m-er-cy. Er-er-er– P-P-Primus– Mercy, Primus–/͏/̴

As this started across his triangular visor, multiple spikes and falls of the wavelength were boxed in by red, before dropping out, the separated pieces then stitching together to start to splice the longer audio file into something that was more cohesive and abrupt. It removed the repetition while favoring the clearest fractions to utilize, in order to in turn weave a simple request for their creator into a far clearer statement rather than a ghosted echo. What an automated system could do paled to what the touch of a living entity could, and as such there was a click from the navy mech's systems, followed by the more legible statement that was quite a bit clearer. Eerily so.

/͠/Have mercy, Primus/̴/

Whether the adapted file truly sounded like what the source individual or not was unknown, however just as quickly as it was made, it was suddenly placed beside a series of other recorded clips from Nokta that had been picked up on his short stint at Blackridge, as well as those that had just been supplied mere moments previously. With vicious efficiency, the mech's words were brutally compared to the recording, seeing if it was Nokta himself tampering with the device before his arrival to Earth, or if there was an unknown second party that was trying to interfere with the Black Box beforehand.

[Nokta]

<LOADING…STANDBY…>

<INT_CARGO_HOLD_CAM_02>

Switching to the internal camera within the cargo hold as the lofty flier ascended the ramp, Nokta awaited him above. All other mecha in the room who were not actively preparing the ship for its launch stood at attention. An undeniable tension stirred amidst them as their captain boarded, not a spare sound besides the ship’s engines to interrupt his entrance.

Standing amongst his subordinates now, from a physical standpoint alone it was clear to see why Ikhor of Rodion had been chosen to lead this band of butchers, and moreover their obvious respect for him. Seafoam green optics scanned the various sized mecha around the room, until that gaze finally came to land upon his lieutenant, the mech who’d been handpicked for the very role he now found himself in.

Ikhor moved forward, and the rest of the room seemed to hold their collective breaths.

A large, thick servo came to rest down on the lieutenant’s shoulder, before gently brushing down his arm to squeeze softly.

There was something unnerving about the entire thing, something unspoken, palpable in its dreadful silence. Ikhor considered Nokta with the optics of a paternal figure who had gone too far in their adopted role of mentorship– staring at him less like he was a person and more like he was an extension of his own self. And yet, the lieutenant did not so much as flinch at his captain’s gaze, nor his touch. Instead, he had a placid, almost relieved look about him.

Captain Ikhor had a much different look. His optics darted all over Nokta’s frame almost frantically, desperate to ensure there was not a single section of plating out of place– lest another pay the price.

"You’ve been missed terribly, Captain."

Slowly, Ikhor smiled.

<AUDIO SAMPLES COMPILED…>

As the footage rolled to a glitchy stop once more, Soundwave’s rigorous attempts to match the prior audio samples with Lieutenant Nokta’s own would come to fruition– in the form of a negatory response from the computer.

<AUDIO SOURCE VOCAL MATCH: NEGATIVE>

The one who’d left behind the futile distress signal remained a mystery mech, for now. The next logical conclusion would be that it had been left behind by one of the other crewmates that boarded the Infinitum along with Nokta and Ikhor. In this way, the next clip in the load order could prove further clarity…

II.

<INT_NAVIGATION_ROOM_CAM_MAIN>

A group of mecha gathered around a central navigation console in a wide room that more than accompanied each of them a few times over. The timestamp dated the footage a few hours after lift off. Each member of the squadron seemed to have settled in by now, merely biding their time until their next call to action.

Presently, a number of them were playing a card game, while the sergeant from earlier was reviewing their flight path at a separate monitor elsewhere in the room.

"Bust again, Codecase," the heavy silken voice of a dark purple femme basted the room with its thick and oily contralto. She was a flier, thin and small– likely the owner of a microjet or drone altmode. A brief profile appeared onscreen as her voice was played back:

    INDIGO OF VOS
    SERIAL NUMBER: (ADMIN ACCESS)
    SPECIALITY: AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE
    ASSIGNMENT AS OF RECORDING DATE: SPOTTER TO ATTACHÉ: “SHATTERSTAR”
    STATUS: MIA

"Frag!" A mech with a much higher pitched voice than Indigo responded, a smaller mech at the opposite end of the table threw his cards down on the table in frustration. Bluish silver and red, one could have easily mistaken the mech for a minicon were it not for the profile revealing his function to this group:

    CODECASE OF IACON
    SERIAL NUMBER: (ADMIN ACCESS)
    SPECIALITY: CHRONICLER
    ASSIGNMENT AS OF RECORDING DATE: RECORDKEEPING
    STATUS: MIA

With a harmonious chuckle of amusement at the chronicler’s frustration, Indigo turned to another one of her compatriots, a massive, tan-colored mech– the largest in the room, such that he needed a separate stool to be seated with his peers at the table they surrounded. "Timberline, you’re up sugar."

The large mech shifted in his seat, staring down at the playing cards in his servos, easily dwarfed in comparison to his massive grabbers. He glanced upwards once more at the femme, who managed to smile at him whilst maintaining the perfect poker face– unlike himself, poorly failing to hide the growing blush on his faceplates. "Uhh…" The big mech’s bassy, murmuring voice was enough to prompt another profile to appear:

    TIMBERLINE OF KAON
    SERIAL NUMBER: (ADMIN ACCESS)
    SPECIALITY: DEMOLITIONS
    ASSIGNMENT AS OF RECORDING DATE: UNKNOWN/REDACTED
    STATUS: MIA

"HAH! Screw the game, 50 Shanix Timberline pisses himself before either of us goes bust." Spoke a much thinner mech sitting at the table along with the other three. Thinner, more than even someone like Nokta could boast, a keen optic would be able to parse that this mech turned into a weapon as opposed to any kind of vehicle– a sniper rifle, more specifically.

    SHATTERSTAR OF TARN
    SERIAL NUMBER: (ADMIN ACCESS)
    SPECIALITY: SNIPER
    ASSIGNMENT AS OF RECORDING DATE: ARSENAL ATTACHÉ TO SCOUT “INDIGO”
    STATUS: MIA

"Shatterstar." A stern and familiar voice cautioned from the far end of the room, without even turning to face his peers as they played their game in the center of the room– it was the sergeant Nokta had addressed earlier in the footage. He was a grounder and a gunslinger– sporting medium armor, a domino color scheme and revolvers strapped to either hip. A fifth and final profile began to populate for the mech:

    KORIOLUS OF SLAUGHTER CITY
    SERIAL NUMBER: (ADMIN ACCESS)
    RANK: SERGEANT, SECOND LIEUTENANT TO CPT. “IKHOR”
    SPECIALITY: LOGISTICS
    ASSIGNMENT AS OF RECORDING DATE: UNKNOWN/REDACTED
    STATUS: MIA/PRESUMED KIA

Shatterstar pushed all of his credits on the table into the pot with a toothy grin exposing multiple gold-plated dentae. All in. "What? Ya’ll are just jealous it’s my job to be inside her all day."

The would-be comedian leaned back in his seat leisurely as the other two mechs at the table struggled to contain themselves over the comment, Codecase giggling as quietly as he could as Timberline winced. "Bad take, 'star..." Indigo, on the other hand, was not so amused. Quietly standing from her seat at the table, the card game had been all but forgotten as she calmly paced over to the riflemech. In a quick and violent movement the flier had him pinned to the table in an armbar.

"I wonder if that smart mouth of yours will come with you after I eject your skinny aft out of me 50,000 feet above the ground?" The femme spoke in a calm, yet warning tone as the mech beneath her whimpered in pain.

"Indigo!" Koriolus shouted with firm agitation, finally pulling himself away from the monitor he’d been stood at to deal with the sudden disturbance.

With a quiet snicker, Codecase tapped a button on the side of his helm, a subtle red LED light beginning to flare from it…

<LOADING PLAYBACK FROM SEPARATE DEVICE…>

<CODECASE_DATABASE_016_DRAMA>

The footage would appear to pick up almost immediately where it left off, only from Codecase’s immediate point of view as Shatterstar’s face was plastered to the table in front of him.

"Or better yet– why not right eject you right into an exploding sun?" Indigo cooed as she tightened her grip on the armbar she had him in, prompting a rather undignified squeal of pain from Shatterstar.

"Guys, cut it out…" Timberline cautioned nervously beside Codecase, though his protests went unheard, despite his massive presence in the room.

"A supermassive black hole?" Indigo asked rhetorically as a few sparks started to jolt out from the ball bearing connecting Shatterstar’s shoulder to his arm.

"Holy scrap! She’s tearing him in half!" Codecase cackled as he turned to look up at Timberline, whose massive size difference to the tiny chronicler was readily apparent in perspective. “Definitely not something anyone’s ever credited him for!”

Timberline merely shot a perturbed and uncomfortable look down at Codecase before the chronicler turned back to the display before them. "Uncle! UNCLE!" Shatterstar begged as he tapped the table with his free servo.

"Indigo, we don’t have a medic on this ship!" Koriolus appeared from out of frame, looking more than at his wit’s end as he grabbed onto Indigo’s shoulder roughly. The move instantly prompted Indigo to drop her hold on Shatterstar, instead swinging a fist at Koriolus– who narrowly ducked under the femme’s attempted assault, leaping out of his crouch to tackle her to the floor.

The footage glitched, skipping forward a few seconds as Indigo rolled on top of Koriolus, the data corruption making any clear potential victor of the scrap unclear.

"—FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"

Skipping forward once more, the next frame would display a burly tan-colored mech leaning down to pluck both Koriolus and Indigo from the ground as though they were both sparkling’s toys. At this point the amount of shouting had reached a cacophonic warble, nothing besides the egging on from the cameramech being audible, until:

"That is quite enough."

Codecase gasped, whipping his helm around to display a shaky view of two mecha who had just entered the room opposite the quintet– Ikhor and Nokta. And neither of them looked particularly impressed– or happy with the display they’d walked in on.

"Slag–" Codecase whispered as he fiddled with a few buttons on his helm, the last shot a view of his peds before the feed went dark once more.

<LOADING…>

[Windshield]

He did not want to think about it, but he saw the way Soundwave looked at him. He knew that the moment of weakness had been more than just observed. But it was of no moment. Windshield could not let it compromise his newfound standing in their ranks, not after it had earned him this distinction. A momentary lapse of judgement could ruin anything in right place at the wrong time. He would not let it take hold. Instead, he focused on their conversation, brief and nearly one-sided though it was.

/̢/̛Insufficient Data//́

"Yeah... Insufficient," he replied after a brief silence as if considering their options. The way he saw it, two distinct possibilities presented themselves far better any other. Option #1: The ruling on Ikhor's death in the Acid Wastes was premature and, be it through a clerical error or through the sheer chaos of the Exodus, they were presented with incorrect information. Such errors cropped up all too frequently late into the war. It was nearly impossible for their internal files to be utterly consistent with reality between the deaths and the rush to abandon the planet.

Option #2 was more concerning: Ikhor could be someone who was supposed to be dead, but wasn't. And though the first option was by far the likelier, the second fascinated Windshield to no end. In a sea of other possibilities, the two stood out, and this one, well, he almost hoped it was the case. He flashed a quick but polite smile in Soundwave's direction at the thought of it, but it faded fast. As he bore witness to the audio reconstruction, something soured in him.

He would never let the other mech know that it made him uncomfortable—nor that he was trying to ignore the message encoded in the recording. He wasn't paying any mind on purpose, not out of ignorance. But, of course, Soundwave would not let it pass by unexamined. Of course, Soundwave would play it over and over until it rang clear. Of course, Soundwave would force him to think about it even after he thought he had purged the scorn out of his system or at least after he had pushed it to the back of his mind. It almost bubbled to the surface again, but did not manifest in anything greater than the slightest twitch of a claw, a minor tick in the optic.

It passed soon.

"Could... Could be a distress signal," he continued hesitantly, making his awareness of the soundbite known, "...Or a plea for God, if you believe mecha of faith would cut it on a ship like The Infinitum."

It certainly gave him pause and he continued to think about it as the next segment of footage rolled by. A moment of quiet togetherness, then an altercation during downtime time, and finally the intervention of a powerful voice.

Voice... Voices.

Immediately, Windshield had the mind to compare the voices with Soundwave's little piece of the puzzle, though he struggled to pick them apart by ear. A few, he could rule out immediately as the source, but the diction and tone of the conversation—of brittle comradery, of shallow fights and petty squabbles, of an officer's command—it was too different from a quiet prayer. The only thing he could tell for certain is that he did not superficially recognize the voice as belonging to the Decepticons in the footage, which was certainly strange, considering that they were the crew entire.

No. This was wild speculation at best.

It was far too soon to make such conclusions, but he turned back to Soundwave with some measure of expectation. He did not want to overstep his boundaries, not here and not now, not after his little unsightly display, after he had nearly undermined himself, and so a suggestion to begin cataloguing the voices into a repository went unsaid. Frankly, Windshield knew that he would probably not even have to make it. Soundwave was his senior and superior by far. Whatever he could think of, the Spymaster could too—and execute it at a fraction of the effort. But he would not belabor his own insufficiency in the moment, nor that of the information presented by the recording so far, and instead continued the theorizing.

"Honestly, it's no wonder they're all dead," he thought out loud, tapping his chin lightly, "It seems there was tension in the ranks since the beginning. But then again, this is rather standard for the chaff."

The agent sighed wistfully, distracting his mind from the anger and the voice, still ringing horribly in his processor, with some amount of casual levity: "Happens about five times a week in the mess hall down here too, so... A bit early to make assumptions, isn't it?"

Windshield almost wanted to look at Soundwave to see if the humor were landing but he knew all too well only a piece of shaded glass would stare back at him if he did. So, instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his shoulders in a brief shrug. Then he continued the tapping at the chin and set to pacing about his little corner of the console. It was not so clear, but perhaps the agent was still thinking about more than he was letting on.

[Soundwave]

For every sound clip Soundwave pulled from Nokta's file, there was a level of disconnect when lined up alongside the plea for Primus. Certainly, it was not foolproof, the simple nature of the incident and the tones of voice used creating a broader variable to an abstract verification process. The largest hurdle, however, was the fact that the mystery audio wasn't even a clean-cut recording, and instead was a digitally repaired representation based on broken data. Data that had to be carefully tidied. This process had made him somewhat blind to the subtle quirks of Windshield's continued ire, the following motions obscured beneath a more taxing task.

From what could be discerned, Nokta didn't seem to be the source, which was no issue one way or another. It was a curiosity, one that manifested one more block to place upon the slowly forming wall of information that would continue to grow as things moved on.

And moved they did.

When the data started to relay once more, Soundwave's focus locked, noting instantly the seeming tone shift in how the others presented themselves upon the captain's arrival. While the navy mech was not there himself, unable to feel any radiated energy or sense of power, nor see the more subtle body cues one could pick up on when viewing straight on, it still bled through body overall language alone, both of the massive mech and of his subordinates that didn't appear to dare stick a foot out of line. The fact Nokta was favored however rather than looked upon as but one more under the captain's control was noted casually, catching onto things that stepped beyond a trusted lacky.

When the video progressed to show the inside of the ship and a far more active incident, Soundwave leaned back slightly upon one heel, settling down into place while his helm leveled off. While before he had casually turned his gaze to observe individual points more than others, or offer a glance to Windshield, at this juncture he was transitioning into the makeshift bipedal tripod, where no detail could slip between his grasp in a broader picture, performing his own recording while viewing the entire screen at once as a collective. He certainly would get the clean files later, yet, for now, he continued making his own just in case there was an override destruction command at the end of the chain, copying what was on Blackridge's screen into his own personal records. In doing so, he placed the crews minuscule sound clips inside each container to start a collection.

The fight looked like the typical idiot brawl that Soundwave had seen so many times before. Arrogance and boasting or mocking leading to physical retaliation, retaliation that could then be spun as either vicious actions to make a point, or a joke depending on who the story was being told to after the fact, and how it wanted to be conveyed. Bystanders squabbling around, idle barking creating a background score for the main event. As swiftly as it started, it then ended, Ikhor making his presence known with the foundation of power that had already been set, his dark shadow not far from his side.

"Honestly, it's no wonder they're all dead - - It seems there was tension in the ranks since the beginning. But then again, this is rather standard for the chaff."

Soundwave's helm crooked to the side at this in a more twitched motion, it rather swift in contrast to the ominous turns of previous communication. Trying to translate the speed and angle of another's helm movements could be a chore, there being so many nuances to it that any one could alter the meaning tenfold... yet at this moment? Well, the fast nature of it was almost an amused understanding, a soundless scoff of agreement that went so far as to transition to a minor crook of his torso at the reality that many of the Decepticons were physically antagonistic and rebellious in their cores.

It was such souls that had the fortitude to stand up at the onset, the vicious determination and willingness to look upon the far greater power of Cybertron's political and military might and think 'I can take that on'.

It was simply in their nature.

[Nokta]

<LOADING…>

The footage glitched. Data corruption receded into the same view of the navigation room from before Codecase’s data entry.

II.

<INT_NAVIGATION_ROOM_CAM_MAIN>

Seven mecha stood in the room. Dead silent. Five of them in formation before a navigation table, and two more towering before them, one moreso than the other as they were scrutinized with harsh intensity– as though one slip-up could doom them to the pits.

Each of the five mecha stood like they’d just had half their life scared out of them. Captain Ikhor, for his part, looked particularly flustered, clearly having just delivered quite the verbal beatdown to his misbehaving underlings.

"The Nemesis has left the system for Sol," Nokta would start, taking the reigns from their captain as he stepped forward in an apparent change of subject from whatever had just been said. "With the last of the space bridges now defunct in its departure, our only hope of reuniting with them is getting there on engine power alone."

The room erupted.

There were shouts of confusion, anger, and outright disbelief. No one would buy the Infinitum traversing half the known universe through what? Grit? Determination? With what energon!?

A single navy blue servo raised flat halted the cacophony. Fresh off the back of disciplining them for their earlier behavior, Ikhor was having none of it.

"The Ad Infinitum is a workhorse," Nokta looked annoyed by the outburst, but continued off his earlier statement unimpeded. "It was built for long voyages like we now find ourselves on. It will arrive at its destination. Until then, the only mecha we can rely upon are the ones standing in this room."

The silence rang impeccably true, and the tension Nokta’s words provoked doubly so. Ikhor’s sickly seafoam gaze seemed to scan the five sets of optics staring back at him, daring further argumentation over his lieutenant’s proclamation– a proclamation that carried out Ikhor’s very will with each word.

"Expect strict rations. No more than half an energon cube a day. I recommend getting used to nursing your meals," Nokta would finish, unclasping his spindly talons from behind his back. The wraith would turn his helm, looking to Ikhor for confirmation that his work here was finished.

"Dismissed." The massive flier’s voice boomed out a command that quickly sent the other five mecha scattering from the room in every direction, leaving the two officers in silence.

<LOADING…>

Further data corruption would prompt another camera view, a few minutes later.

III.

<INT_DORMITORY_HALL_CAM_02>

This hall was dark now with the other crewmembers gone to recharge or simply relegated to their own spaces elsewhere. Here, Ikhor appeared from out of frame, walking alongside Nokta.

"Were they so unruly while I was away?" Ikhor’s voice carried down the hall, becoming louder as the two mecha approached.

“No more than usual. They know not to test my patience." Nokta responded in a much calmer voice than he’d just used on the other members of his squadron.

"That they do," Ikhor merely hummed. He sounded tired. More so than he had thus far. Nokta didn't seem to notice.

"But it’s always easier with you here," Nokta’s continued response seemed to partially affirm his captain’s question. "For a moment I was worried you wouldn’t get off the planet in time…" The younger mech trailed off.

Only then would Ikhor suddenly wince, appearing to lose some of his balance as a tired and dizzied expression passed over his faceplates. He quickly caught himself with a long, outstretched servo that cast a shadow over Nokta as he braced himself against the wall to prevent himself from collapsing on the lieutenant outright. Nokta would perk up, his own slender arms coming to prop against Ikhor, for what good that would do in aiding the much taller, much heavier mech.

"Captain? What’s wrong?" Nokta’s voice cut in, losing some of its formality. If there were any doubts as to whether or not that rasp could carry some degree of warmth when the situation permitted– they would be quashed now. Nokta cared for this mech. More than any odd soldier cared for a trusted commander.

Though he’d be met with harsh sternness. "I am fine." The captain responded suddenly enough to cause the mech beside him to seize up, falling into a more typical show of submission to his superior officer’s will. Glancing downward at his subordinate, the change in Nokta’s expression would not go unnoticed before it defaulted to soldierly apathy.

Fear? Fleeting, only seen in a fraction of a second’s immediate expression. But it was there, unmistakably, in Nokta’s optics. It was. A glimpse at the unspoken reality of their power dynamic. The imbalance. The control one had over the other.

The one with the power took a long, deep, tired inhale. "How the ages wear on my struts…"

A large servo slowly came down to pry under the lieutenant’s steely demeanor and loosen it once more, Ikhor gently tilting Nokta’s chin up with a foredigit and thumb. Nokta's optics nervously flickered upwards, catching Ikhor's gaze, then glancing away once more. Like a startled animal, he could barely look his captain in the optics.

"I would not have left you alone. Not for anything on Cybertron, nor the stars above it. And never will I." Ikhor spoke, seemingly in response to Nokta’s earlier rumination. Finally, Nokta locked in a stare with Ikhor, his visage twisting into a tortured sort of pleading expression.

"Please don’t..." The lieutenant croaked, his voice almost a whisper.

"Don’t?" Ikhor questioned, rubbing a thumb over the seam in the plating that made up the younger mech’s cheek.

"Don’t make promises you can’t keep."

This time, Nokta’s words were enough to give Ikhor a moment’s pause. Even in the present, in the dark and disparate Blackridge control room they rang foreboding and ominous.

But in the past, these words were still of no matter to the seasoned captain on screen. A mech who knew well the dynamic that had formed between him and his favored lieutenant. Who knew well the control he commanded over this mech and every other Decepticon on that ship.

Who all too easily fell into the trap of promising a world of something he did not rightly know he could give to the younger mech.

With a single movement, Nokta was quite literally swept off of his peds by the large mech. Ikhor plucked the thin grounder from the floor as though he weighed nothing, bringing him up to his height with ease, coming to lean the lieutenant’s back against the wall. Nokta looked less than prepared to be so suddenly lifted by his captain, and yet his legs quickly came around Ikhor’s waist like he’d done this before. Something that had likely once been awkward due to a drastic size difference was now a series of careful and practiced maneuvers. No doubt aided by required past subterfuge among the company of squadmates in tighter living situations than they found themselves in now.

"You cannot possibly know how hard it has been to be away from you," Ikhor spoke in a calm voice, using a lower, more intimate register as a digit came to tenderly stroke down the side of the lieutenant’s face.

"From now on there will be nothing to keep us apart," Ikhor hushed. The smaller mech made no moves of his own, merely staring up at his captain as if the very sight of his visage were a weight lifted from his shoulders. "No one to threaten what we’ve worked to build."

"That much I can promise."

Nokta’s optics lids would then hood themselves. Finally, he allowed himself to lean into his captain’s touch, resting his helm against the larger mech’s with a soft exhale..

"Let us get some rest, my love."

Ikhor’s voice gave way to static as the footage glitched out, distorting into ghostly darkness.

[Windshield]

Windshield observed impassively as the footage continued to roll, this time outlining a plan to reach the Ad Infinitum's destination with strict rationing. It seemed like a stretch to assume they had realistic chances of ever catching up to the Nemesis before the supplies on the ship ran out. Already, one possible fate presented itself for the crew. Death by starvation. He remembered Nokta, how faded and weak he was the day he and Cintra found him. How he lashed out in spite of his condition, confused and volatile. In a world where his subordinates and superior faced mortal hunger, there were many scenarios that could have driven them to the ultimate end.

One question immediately lingered in the hacker's processor: Which one was it?

Hunger, desperation. They could have set upon each other in a brutal bid for survival with Nokta emerging the victor by mere chance. Or perhaps one of the crew had gone into a frenzy due to malnutrition, perhaps multiple. And if that was the case, Windshield could not help but call to mind the state of Nokta once more. He was violent and shaken. It was not out of the question that he could have been one of the maddened few. Perhaps he was even the sole actor in the play, one who made a decision based in his own self-interest.

If so, he could scarcely blame him, and he knew full well that his superiors certainly wouldn't.

The agent continued to wonder, as his taps instinctively devolved into a light scraping at his chin. The scene changed soon. The hallway, elsewhere now. Nokta and his winged leader—a lover. Tension built up in Windshield's fuel pump almost instinctively. He wanted to retch, but satisfied himself on gritted teeth and a quickening tick in his left optic. The scraping had stopped after one last tap. No, it was not a tap. He dragged his finger deep across the side of his chin and then—he looked down. He drew blood. Blue Energon staining the tip of a sharp index claw. He quietly hissed in annoyance and wiped it off on the front of his thigh with a few good rubs, then crossed his arms again.

"Enough of this farce! We are not one step closer to knowing what happened out there," He barked out in agitation, full to his throat with venom. Clearly, whatever it was about the footage of Nokta's romance that he despised, it made him torturously bitter to the point he almost refused to consider that it may have played a role in the ship's tragic end. It almost seemed too convenient to be true. The idea that these random recordings of saccharine affection were a part of the puzzle almost seemed too ridiculous to consider, but he knew all too well that the pit hath no fury like a Decepticon scorned.

It was a scarce love amidst their ranks that did not end in tragedy. Windshield read enough personal files in his lifetime to understand that much. He was not supposed to know about them, of course, but he did. It was often a very similar story. A bitter rival here, an unfulfilled promise there. Decepticon relationships crumbled very easily when put to the test, he would like to believe. Forcing himself to consider this possibility, he looked once more towards Soundwave and subdued his irritation to the best of his power.

"I seriously hope we aren't going to entertain the idea that they all died because of some... lovers' spat," he continued with a small, small measure of restored composure that nonetheless faltered under the weight of the last two words which he hurled out rather nastily. Part of Windshield hoped that Soundwave would agree, but he knew better than to disregard such a possibility himself. No reasonable agent would and his more rational side certainly didn't expect Soundwave to bend to such plain ignorance, even if he desperately wanted for it to be otherwise.

[Soundwave]

Ah yes, a possible one-way trip to an unknown destination with no assurances such a voyage could even be successful. The looming threat of a death flight was horrible enough on concept alone, while madness and stress could reach catastrophic levels once the threshold of no return was crossed. Windshield was not the only one to jump to such conclusions with the new touch of information in mind, hostilities lashing out to slay someone so that there was one less mouth to feed... while potentially feeding the mouth of the survivor.

Cannibalism was a very real possibility, one that was so taboo and so monstrous that many could not imagine considering! Until they were on that end of desperation and it became a choice between personal morals or survival.

Soundwave understood how emotional attachment to things in that regard would hinder others from making such necessary choices to prolong one's existence. Would Nokta be the type to cross that line? Ikhor alone was not a small individual, and a sacrifice of love or vicious necessity would explain the dark mech's singular survival. Whether or not what was coming told such a story, they had something at their disposal that would speak more than any word would. Due to this, a quick order was put together, formally slotting an autopsy in the coming days for Flatline to force into his schedule rather than approach at his availability.

He wanted a full report on the unknown soldier's condition upon retrieval, namely if the Energon in its lines were drained out in full, or if it was left stagnant and rotted within the decayed system.

When things changed further in the viewing, once more Windshield's demeanor took a downswing, something that hadn't been immediately apparent to Soundwave. He was focused on his task and recording the video once numerous participants were in active motion, however, while he may have missed the more subtle cues, what followed made it obvious that he was taking things far too personally than was useful.

"Enough of this farce! We are not one step closer to knowing what happened out there,"

The sudden outburst made Soundwave swiftly crook his helm at a sharp angle, seeming surprised at the noise, or perhaps simply that Windshield was letting some emotional trauma he endured impair his ability to think creatively at this moment. While there was no saying just what the mech beside him had suffered in his past, culminating in distress, hate, mourning, longing, envy, or any other numerous volatile emotions that chose to jump atop one another when confronted by another's supposed happiness... There had been hope that an analytical approach could still be taken into consideration, which evidently wasn't Windshield's first choice as he had jumped so far as to believe they hadn't learned anything at all.

Not one step closer...?

Angling his helm back upright while the other mech continued to speak, Soundwave reached his hand forward to tap a key upon Blackridge's terminal, pausing the system so that it did not move to the next file in the cue automatically. He deemed this an issue that needed to be addressed right here in the now, lest Windshield become a worthless addition to the viewing due to blind emotion destroying everything that lay beneath it. He wanted the younger mech to actually learn something here so that he could try to apply it to future events that Soundwave himself would be unable to attend.

/̴/-lovers-?/͠/

Windshield's own word was piped back to him with the signature crackled echo of Soundwave's recordings, the last portion of it pitched ever so slightly into the tones of a question rather than a statement. It was so simple in its execution, yet it asked so very much, not denying that they were possibly linked, but not entirely convinced when viewed through the hollow vacuum of emotionless evaluation. There was a mechanical way in which Nokta had moved and acted, almost rehearsed in some regard while the larger mech simply filled the empty space with his own words, wants, and ambitions. It wasn't much of an exchange, and while Soundwave was the epitome of actions over words, it still stood out with no definitive answer, sliding along the scale in favor of it being a potentially one-sided event.

Dragging the video back to pause where Nokta seemed to relax and was about to lean forward, Soundwave raised his hand to point between the two of them, his screen crackling active again with a new voice. It was a different type of hollow that wasn't associated with the side effects of capturing audio, a deeper layer to it of a figure who was seldom seen but often known. A scientist who surpassed so many others in ways that couldn't even be processed.

The choice to use a clip of Shockwave of all individuals was a conscious one, for just as Soundwave lacked vocal communication, he lacked emotional communication.

/͘/̕-consider a potential situation as well as an active one/͞/

At this, his finger drug down to point at Nokta's features with a single tap, highlighting the subdued expression that he held that could be translated as calm resignation beneath a comforting presence, or the wildly different translation of resignation because pushing away would be an argument not worth taking.

Or... a fight possibly too dangerous to even consider.

While understanding the personal life of someone was certainly not on Soundwave's list of important topics, in this frame it could mean so very much, especially when it was a potential leadup to the violent destruction of the crew as a whole. That was why he was stalling here, to give Windshield a moment to collect himself and try to view it through the same filter he was where it could truly be what it was, or it could be something quite different.

He wanted him to SEE as he did.

[Windshield]

To hear one's own voice question its words could be a startling thing. As Windshield looked upon Soundwave, stared into the blackness of his visor, optics following the few jagged lines of altered noise, he crooked his helm to the side. A stiffness ran through his frame, briefly, as the agent did his best to subdue his latent emotions. With his arms still crossed, the grip of his left hand tightened around the upper arm upon which it laid. It was a clear sign of discomfort, though one difficult to read in the darkness of the room. His grip left a mark, a set of notches, imprints from the tips of his claws, just as the scratch on his face remained visible, though it no longer bled.

Shockwave's words followed. Windshield did not recognize who they belonged to at first, but the contents and the flat tone narrowed it down for him. He rolled his shoulders to loosen up the tension in his frame, optics shifting down from Soundwave's visor to meet him at his fingertip—at Nokta's feature.

In spite of his bitterness, he found it in himself to stomach looking at them, at the expression.

It was an unfamiliar expression.

No. Not entirely unfamiliar, but one which ill-suited the lieutenant he had come to know. He looked... tired? Vulnerable? A mask of empty, hollow comfort, perhaps. He was quite familiar with those, but frankly, it was difficult for him to imagine the Nokta he knew so entirely resigned to the whims of someone else, physically, emotionally. It just wasn't like him, the agent thought. It was more like... Well, himself, really.

But then, he barely knew him to begin with.

They barely knew each other. They barely knew each other and his first instinct was to loathe the idea that someone like Nokta could be loved. When did he become so spiteful? Windshield couldn't rightly tell and wouldn't dwell on it. It was not relevant. That he could contain his feelings for the moment was enough. Eventually, his optics drifted from the screen and returned to Soundwave. He stopped ruminating.

"My apologies, sir..." The shorter mech's voice, so uncommonly soft, trailed off into a nigh-empty room, "I see your point. They just reminded me of—someone."

Windshield exhaled calmly and strengthened his footing.

"I won't let these emotions cloud my judgement again."

Those last few words sounded practiced. Calm and cold. Like reading a script. He must have said them many times before. Gritting his dentae, he hoped this was the last time he would have to say them. But he would speak nothing more on the subject, instead turning back to the footage expectantly.

His eyes lingered on the solemn lieutenant in his captain's arms until they'd fade from view. He tried to think away the weariness from his features, and for a moment...

It really was just like he imagined it, once upon a time.

[Soundwave]

Soundwave did not move nor prompt Windshield as time ticked along, letting the mech think through whatever demons may be burdening him so that he could catch up to the moment at his own pace. To rush him or try to clip off that process entirely, meant that it would more likely than not simply bubble back up later to continue to cloud his judgment to a point he might as well be dismissed. Thankfully, Soundwave was a patient mech, never one to barrel forward recklessly where finer details and clues could be missed. He could fall still for hours if needed to serve some role or another with relative ease. Due to this, he just... waited.

Watching.

The tightening of a hand, the shift of weight and faint flick of one's gaze... when staring someone down intently such tells could share so very much about the emotional state of another, while also revealing nothing of true value in understanding the why behind it. It was simple enough to put together it was a relationship problem, as was the core of oh so many clashes through the eons of any sentient species that relied on social interaction in some form or another... yet beyond this? Nothing but a simple vague statement referring to someone. Which was fine. Soundwave was not looking for a report or some life story unless it was pertinent to the issues at hand, which is why he did not prompt for more context, so much as note the way in which the statement was presented.

Just as Nokta's own words and actions seemed well rehearsed to fit a situation, so too did Windshield's response at being called out about his displayed emotions. It was more than apparent that something along these lines had possibly been an ongoing issue for years, coasting beneath the surface. Whether past infringements involved this same particular scenario or not was unknown however, for it could just as easily be sourced from any numerous moments of emotion over logic that resulted in needing the same canned reply to placate a superior. To many, that could be the end of it, considering one and done and move on with whatever had been going on, only... that would resolve nothing and would let the cycle continue anew.

Soundwave did not serve to play 'therapist'. That wasn't his job, and frankly, he didn't care what people did on their own time so long as it didn't impact the work that needed to be done for the Decepticon cause. It was this clarifier that made him show interest in Nokta's situation due to the eventual ship's fall, and it was this that made him not instantly drop what was happening with Windshield when others may have.

"I won't let these emotions cloud my judgement again."

/̵/̸You shouldn't think of it like that-//͞

Starscream's voice fell out, the words a passing statement about something that was inconsequential at the moment of recording. Casual, or... as casual as the Skylord generally could be. It was intended to be disarming in its almost helpful nature when used at this moment, breaking what could have been an expected threat of 'don't do it again' that Windshield may have simply droned out due to a repeating cycle of mistake and reprimand. There was no point in making such an impossible command anyway, at least not with something this inert. If it had been something truly deadly that almost took other's lives? Well, Soundwave had no qualms about making his opinions on that matter abundantly clear and carving some hard lines in the sand. Here, however? No.

Advice was given.

In a way.

Soundwave did not elaborate further, not wanting to hold Windshield's hand through some petty personal dilemmas that he needed to face on his own time. Either the other mech let himself be a problem and lose out on what boons he had been given, or he could trial by fire and adapt, unable to rely on a safety net of senseless promises that would not fly far with the navy mech.

As his visor plunged back to darkness, Soundwave's helm would rise while his long arm lowered, his index finger held above the key that would resume playing, though he did not turn to look towards the screen.

He was watching Windshield. Seeing if he felt the need to speak further or not, where it would be in his favor to not offer any other rehearsed assurances.

[Windshield]

Think of it like what? Windshield failed to see Soundwave's meaning—at least initially. He gave him a puzzled look that eventually turned thoughtful as he considered Starscream's borrowed words further. He shifted his helm to the screen, as if to suggest that the Spymaster could continue in the analysis without burdening himself on Windshield's behalf. Though, for a while, he seemed to be lost in his own world, considering a collection of thoughts that would remain only his.

After a while, he spoke up again.

"I just don't want to be a burden on the investigation," the agent crossed his arms slack over his chest, "And I should stay objective even when it comes to—well—the lieutenant's personal affairs."

There was a conscious effort there to not use a more direct, more personal term, or casual terminology like Windshield had used just a short while ago. As if now that he subsumed his emotions, whether that was the intended effect of Soundwave's advice or not, the agent wanted to be more observant and objective. It pulled to the forefront a desire that disappeared under the weight of his emotional affect—a desire to be taken seriously, at least when it truly mattered, sparked by something past and distant.

And in the end, could Soundwave take issue with this conclusion? If it produced better results, surely it meant that impartiality made Windshield a better judge of the unfolding events. Perhaps he took the navy mech's advice the wrong way, learned the wrong lesson, and already thought of ways to extrapolate from it a new facet of his being, but this was Windshield's cross to bear and none of Soundwave's concern.

In the future? Perhaps sooner than later. But not here, not now. Not when they had another mech to judge.