Morningstar hung back just beyond the joints of the door surreptitiously listening to the conversation occurring in the near abandoned council chamber on the other side.
He shifted uncomfortably as he stretched a high tension cable in his new frame; this new one was larger and heavier than his original Junkticon frame; the first Cybertronian frame since the reformatting from Junkticon to Autobot.
Whitenoise let out a snickering collection of harmonic tones behind him. The infiltrator bot was also in a new body with a brand new flight mode; his cassettes were nowhere to be seen.
On the other side of the room Lord Megatron's seeker trine huddled and talked incestuously among themselves studiously ignoring Morningstar and Whitenoise. The robustly built trine members were clustered around a receiver that gray and red one had pulled out of its subspace pocket. Morningstar dourly envied their comfort in their husky frames.
The loudest voice belonged to Megatron; the second loudest belonged to Senator Pavilion. Morningstar shifted closer to the door to make out his sponsors' voice over the carefully layered security static. Optimus Prime's quiet voice barely registered on his audios.
"Job for Razor." Whitenoise intoned referring to one of his two cassettes. His harmonic laugh sounded again as a collection of chimes. "Or whatever their using" he thumbed over to the still huddled trine.
"Idiot" Morningstar barely had time to hiss at Whitenoise as the gray and red seeker cocked its head towards them and tossed the receiver to its purple and red trine-mate.
"What is it Autobot?"It chided softly. "Can't hear what their saying?" its voice was deceptively kind despite the sneer on its face.
"It against protocol to spy on you superiors," Morningstar paused registering the red and gray seeker's rank in his heads-up-display. "Lieutenant"
An ugly expression flitted across the seeker's face.
"What's your designation?" hissed out one of the other seekers
Morningstar bit back the instinct to say 'Pitch' "Morningstar" he replied instead as he resisted the urge to brush non-existent rust off his new frame.
The lead seeker pivoted on its ball-joint hips as if admiring him. "Pretty name." it purred, "I'm Straylight." it waved an arm at its trine-mates "Highroller, Skybolt"
"Whitenoise" the infiltrator intoned
Straylight moved forwards away from its trine-mates and put a hand reassuringly on Morningstar's shoulder. "Then between soldiers" a pause while the seeker registered Morningstar's rank in its own HUD "Captain. Why are we here?" Its voice really was very calm and soothing.
Morningstar let out a squawk of surprise, a number of different gag noises from a number of different worlds. Straylight raised an optic ridge in bemusement.
Morningstar quelled the instinct to answer angrily in TeeVee. There were so many things that standard Cybertronian wasn't quipped to express. Like the feeling of being inappropriately, touched by someone to whom you were attracted.
"You and your trine are the ones listening in." he said instead
The seeker Straylight had identified as Highroller bristled and opened his mouth to hiss at Morningstar again when the senator pushed the door open, he beckoned to Morningstar and Straylight. "Morningstar, Lieutenant Straylight, we'll see you now."