by Longshot » Sun Dec 09, 2007 2:15 pm
- Motto: "Feed them to the Sharkticons!"
Shockwave's Tower - Hangar Control
Though he'd remained largely oblivious to Ghost's presence for the most part, even Starscream wasn't sufficiently self-absorbed to ignore the quiet mumbling and the active search of Shockwave's database. The red and white Seeker cast a sideways glance at his barely-visible subordinate, mouth twisting into an irritated grimace. "You know, that's really annoying," he noted tersely. "If you're going to have conversations with yourself, then the least you could do is switch over to a private frequency and not inflict them on the rest of us. It makes it much harder to pretend your processors aren't completely scrambled."
Yes, the more Starscream considered his present circumstances, the more his mood soured. That ire had to go somewhere; the stealthy Seeker now sharing the control room with him just happened to be available. It wasn't anything personal. "And I'd be careful about how deeply I went prying into the Tower archives, if I were you," he added as his attention returned to the screen in front of him. "Shockwave tends to keep a very close optic on what other mechanoids are doing with his precious data."
Megatron on his worst orn didn't have half the compulsory need to control everything around him that Shockwave did. Starscream couldn't really conceive of a more damning truth than that.
Dismissing these thoughts, the Seeker Commander watched the events unfolding within the hangar with a small, vicious smirk. Though solitude had been his objective, he didn't actually mind Ghost's continued presence. He was too ephemeral to really count as company. Moreover, the chances for improved relations between his troops and their replacements did not seem to be at all promising, from the look of things. Oh, there were some placating overtures, but he rather seriously doubted those would take.
Best intentions aside, neither the Seekers nor the Sweeps could get around their fundamental programming. Their differences--which were really a great deal more superficial than Starscream would have his subordinates realize--aside, they shared the common Decepticon ideals of aggressiveness and a finely-honed competitive instinct. Any working relationship the two groups might develop was bound to be tenuous, to say the least.
Scope's entrance and quick departure was annoying, but ultimately Starscream deemed it unworthy of comment. Though he did have to admit in retrospect that it might have been better to seal the door to hangar control behind him after he'd entered. It just wasn't as private as he'd hoped.
He wondered briefly just how Rapture was doing. She should be well on her way to ingratiating herself to the ranking Decepticons of Polyhex by now. One would expect nothing less from the offspring of Megatron's monotone yes-mech.
Command Center
Onslaught was mildly taken aback by Rapture's candor in responding to Shockwave's inquiry. It wasn't so much that he disagreed with her assessment--Primus knew, he had as little use for Starscream as most competent Decepticons. He was, at best, a vainglorious dilettante and, at worst, a danger to the cause. Either way, he had little business managing a crew of maintenance drones, much less an entire branch of the Decepticon air forces.
Even so, to hear such a blunt assessment from one who was ostensibly one of the Seeker Commander's subordinates was unsettling. Being a practical mechanoid, Onslaught rarely discouraged his own troops from speaking their minds. He rarely had to. They understood they were free to offer their input, up to a point. There were certain bounds, however, that the Combaticon simply would not suffer to be crossed, at least within his own unit.
Still, this had nothing to do with him, or his peculiar sensibilities where protocol and decorum were concerned. And if anyone could appreciate a straightforward response to a straightforward question, it was certainly Shockwave.
Main Hangar
Having lost any real interest in refueling on his way to the Commissary, Dead End's aimless wanderings at last brought him to the hangar. Where he discovered, much to his chagrin, a very large gathering of Decepticons, mostly of the kind that flew and believed that an aerial alternate mode somehow placed them on a tier above that of land-based models. It was absurd, of course. They were as much cannon fodder as any other mechanoid fighting in this pointless war. The fact that they couldn't even see it just made them laughable.
Though the dour Stunticon's first impulse was to move on, he did not miss the tension which seemed to be building among the assembled warriors. And, though his passive, morose demeanor might have belied it, Dead End was not a Transformer immune to the attraction of a little random violence. Who was he to turn down the opportunity for a free show?
He skulked inside, drawing as little attention to himself as his highly-polished, crimson chassis would allow.
