Disclaimer: Transformers are trademarked and owned by Hasbro. Urielle (Ellie) is my creation though.No infringement is intended or implied. No financial gain received.
A/N Sequel to 'Mech Anatomy 101' and 'Hidden Skin Deep."
Soundwave's Stake
He was never moody. It just did not happen with the spymaster, Thundercracker thought. What was going on?
Soundwave crushed the data link in his hand and allowed the pieces to fall to the deck of the Nemesis' bridge.
"Irrelevant conclusion," he informed in his almost emotionless voice. "Re-examine findings," he ordered the young seeker.
Inclining his head in acknowledgment, Thundercracker said nothing and allowed the interim commander to walk away. In confusion, he looked to his wing-man, Bitstream, and slightly shifted his wing in a semblance of a human's shoulder shrug.
Soundwave kept his tentacles tightly retracted. He had been unconsciously telegraphing his emotions through them. That was unacceptable. A spymaster was aloof, emotionless, unshakeable, he repeated to himself.
He walked past the captain's perch and out the hatch. He needed to get a hold of himself before he started ripping the crew apart.
Soundwave opened the hatch to the captain's observation deck and entered. It would be empty, he knew, providing the perfect place to try and get a handle on himself. He just required some cycles to decompress. It would pass, he thought to himself.
He stood with his back to the entrance and his optics offline as he faced a blank bulkhead. He internally replayed the lessons he learned during his training to try and regain some semblance of control. Eventually, he cycled through the recordings and began to access his more recent memory files. They predictably focused on the girl.
He physically shook himself as he brought his optics online. He knew she had reached the age of assent. Prime himself knew about her claim on him; he had the right to demand his spark if he continued to refuse his stake. He just couldn't put her in that kind of danger.
She had the young Autobot scout anyway, he reasoned with himself, she didn't need him. The knowledge made him angry; she wasn't suffering in the same way he was. He knew she wasn't longing to hear his voice, see his face, touch his skin and be touched by him. She was human. Her society taught monogamy, that it was wrong to share mates. She was better off without him.
The self-recrimination did nothing to restore his self-control. He expelled his vents and allowed his shoulders to slouch, accepting his fate. He was going to accept her claim. But, he would give her time, he decided.
She needed to learn the ways of this new society she had aged into. He would allow the young mech to teach her their mating ways.
Coming to his conclusion, he turned to the imaging device and stepped onto it, opening his chest plates to reveal his spark. The hologram flickered into a solid appearing version of himself, chest plates open so he could see the truth about what she had done to him.
His attention was caught by the pale blue tinge to his normally white light. She had only exchanged with him once, how could he already be showing signs of spark-bleed? Could she truly be that strongly attached to him already? It seemed ludicrous; she was human, and barely a child.
He reached up to his own spark in wonder, the hologram aped his movements. He thought of the girl and noticed how the pulsing got brighter and the blue seemed to get more pronounced. It was a happy color, he thought unexpectedly.
He raised his optics to his face plates and studied them. So harsh, he thought. He needed to be harsh appearing as much to dissuade subterfuge as to instill fear of retaliation when he caught lies.
He wondered if he could modify his own image in some way to appear more approachable to the girl. He noticed, again, as with his spark, when he thought of the girl his optics shifted color, this time to a shade of violet.
Perhaps he was being too self-critical, he thought as he analyzed his reflection. The girl had chosen him, even though he took great pains to stay away from her, and he had looked the same.
The sound of a tentative entrance request on the hatch chased him quickly from the imaging device as he closed his chest plates with an audible clang.
"Proceed," he ordered.
"Soundwave," Thundercracker addressed as he entered the room. "I re-examined the data and cannot find any other conclusion."
Soundwave extended his hand to retrieve the new data link. He replayed the raw footage of deep space for the seeker. "Identify shadow," he said highlighting a slight anomaly in the light of a distant star.
"It has already been identified as a runaway comet teracycles ago," he insisted.
"Negative. Change in velocity of four percent, change in mass of plus twenty-four percent, change in vector of eighty percent. Not a comet," he said as he handed the device back to Thundercracker.
"I'll get right on it," he answered as he accepted the data link back and rushed out of the room.
After the hatch closed again, Soundwave walked over to a hidden panel and activated a secret communications console. Soundlessly, it locked into place and came online. He stood staring at it for a few moments, then smiled in his own mind. Perhaps the young mech would like to know he isn't the only recipient of Ellie's affections.
He keyed in a specially encrypted channel and hailed his soon to be brother- unified.
"Accepting stake of human unified. Designation; Urielle Ellie Guardian Prime. Arrival; two Earth months," he stated before he ended the connection.
He hummed to himself in glee as he erased the channel and diverted all records of the power requirement from the frequency.
Ellie would be his soon.
A/N 2: The imaging device described above is my interpretation of a cybertronian holographic mirror.