Starscream was not fond of Kaon. It had none of Vos' cultural integrity or simple beauty; no statues or murals or fountains of cleanser, or even an archive house to be seen for miles. The closest thing to 'culture' the wasteland city had was the remains of a smutty theatre just across the road of where he was stationed this loud and lonely night. It shouldn't have been lonely- Megatron had said he was being assigned a partner for the mission and there were femmes all around him (as well as mechs who kept mistaking him for one and trying to buy him high-grade), yet still he felt isolated amongst the dreary drunkards as they swilled and stumbled everywhere. Starscream pined for the sky bars of his home city; for premium Aerogon and the soothing roar of Seeker engines roaring past the open doors.
He also pined for some Primus-forsaken peace and quiet, but that was relatable to finding a pleasure bot in a clergy house.
Of course, Megatron never mentioned his mission would have him assigned at a glorified strip club, which would have been a dream brought to life for any mech fresh from the Well. But Starscream knew full well what would happen if he allowed himself to be distracted- one of his own trine members was almost castrated when he accepted a lap dance from some Praxian femme when he was supposed to be searching for Autobots in the city. As such, he tried to keep his optics in his glass and away from the stage right in front of him, tuning his audios out from the wolf whistles and cheers from the more fortunate mechs surrounding him. His partner should have arrived by now, flashing a signal with their digits to let him know of their officer status.
He was much too like his poor trine mate though, and eventually one femme almost made his helm pop off from how fast it turned to catch sight of her.
Her frame was the first thing he and any other mech would have noticed about her. It had the same svelte gracefulness as any other bot in her profession, but her curves (as delicious as they were) were far out-shadowed by the menacing arches of metal jutting from her back. Two were arranged in a similar fashion to Seeker wings, while the other four hovered over her hips as they swayed down the stage catwalk. Her optics were the second most mystifying thing; violet spotlights that gave the impression of scanning a mech down to his barest protoform whenever she looked at one. When they locked onto Starscream's his processor lagged suddenly, and she was already on the pole by the time he'd broken away from her trance.
Strangely enough, her additional legs became beautiful things when they assisted her in spinning and twirling to the applause and raining credits of her spectators. The purple of her protoform shone with coolant in the streaming spotlights above and her chestplates heaved when she thrust them forwards. Starscream was drooling in his glass and he didn't even notice until it started overflowing in his hand. Even so, he only glanced away long enough as was needed to shake his claws dry.
But when he looked back, something other than flashes of bare protoform caught his attention. The femme's golden claws were wrapped around the pole, but one set dangled at her side and crossed over themselves in a very specific way.
Megatron had shown him that very same signal at Darkmount during the mission briefing. He had been ogling his mission partner the entire time he'd been waiting for her, and her dance ended just as his faceplate stopped burning so fiercely. She looked back on the crowd as she walked back to the thick curtain backdrop of the stage, finding Star's optics again and jerking her helm slightly in a summoning motion before disappearing through the curtain gap.
The Seeker's spark simmered in its chamber and he needed another glass of high-grade, no matter how poor it was, before he could face her. The security drones didn't challenge him as he walked through the backstage entrance; Decepticon officers like him didn't need ID.
He wasn't five nanoklicks through the doors before a purr stopped him short. "I thought you'd be taller." Turning to face the source brought him face-to-face with familiar pink optics.
"And I thought you would try to be inconspicuous." The optics fluttered at the stutter of his vocaliser as she shrugged.
"What can I say, I like the attention. You can learn a lot from a mech when he's busy staring at your chestplates." She turned away before he could protest against the accusation in her tone, and he had no choice but to follow her past the line of other femmes preparing themselves for their own shows. Each wink they threw towards Starscream made him almost fall over his own heels, and he all but stumbled like a common drunkard into his partner's dressing room.
She had disappeared behind a large screen; Starscream assumed she was changing her armour and wiping the coolant from her frame. He took in the lushness of her quarters, the lounge sofa at the centre with less comfortable looking chairs arranged around it. He knew which one would be hers and awkwardly seated himself on a different one just as she re-emerged in a light dressing gown. A glass of bubbled, pale gold high-grade was in her hand while the other draped backwards over the top of the lounge when she settled into it, and she watched him as she sipped. Somehow her optics here were even more intense than her stage gaze.
"You know our assignment?" Even away from the crowds her voice was a sultry ballad to his audios.
"I know everything except your designation." She chuckled at that and set her glass down on the table.
"Airachnid. Most mechs can recognize me from just my aft, so I assume you don't come to Kaon often."
"I-I wasn't aware we recruited from... places like this." Starscream shrunk into the frame of his chair, almost tucking his helm into his chest. He was never very good at speaking to femmes.
"You didn't seem to mind being forced to watch," Airachnid pointed out with a smirk. "Besides, this is hardly all I do for the Decepticons." She plucked her glass back up and tipped its contents back past her lips. "I hunt Autobots as well, torture them for information. You'd be surprised how similar energon splattering against your armour is to transfluid-"
"You've made your point," Starscream cut her off with a grimace, unaware of how her smirk grew along with his discomfort. "Can we move on to our mission?"
"Oh, you Seekers are so insistent on getting business done." Airachnid rolled her optics and leaned forward with her legs crossed over. "You're aware of the potential spy within the city?"
Starscream nodded. "Arrived through the north former Underworld gate, with a fake Decepticon insignia. We can assume they're a scout-class, recently recruited so we won't recognise them from previous battles."
"If they're a mech then it's also safe to assume they'll be drawn to 'places like this'." She motioned a servo around her with a raised eyeridge at him. "This club in particular would be a lucrative target due to its clear affiliation with our faction, which is why you're here with me. You will help me pick out any suspicious bots, and if needed stop them from slipping away."
"And why am I needed specifically?" Starscream hadn't bothered asking Megatron during the primary briefing, preferring not to suffer a bash to the helm for 'wasting time'. "Everyone knows I'm a Decepticon officer; why not some Vehicon drone, or a sniper elite mech?"
"Your high status in the Decepticons is precisely why you're needed," Airachnid explained. "If the spy sees you're here, then they'll be convinced that this place is a hoard of enemy data. That will give them cause to linger for as long as possible, which in turn will allow us to formulate a plan of capturing them." Abruptly she rose to her peds and walked towards a wall of closed drapes, tugging them open slightly. Starscream looked through the gap and saw the floor of the club heaving with bots; mechs shoving for space near the stage and the bar stool he'd sat at barely half a breem ago now groaned under the weight of a bulky triple changer and the orange femme seated in his lap.
"While your attention was otherwise occupied, I spotted one mech who might fit our description. You see that yellow one by the bar?" She pointed a claw in his direction, and Starscream quickly found him amongst the usual grey and violet paint jobs of the milling Kaonites around him.
"His back was turned to me the entire time, but he hardly drank from his glass. There was nothing distracting him from drinking, so he must have wanted to stay alert. And he kept checking his wrist, which meant he either had a paint scratch there or some sort of communication panel."
"A set up commonly used by Autobot scouts," Starscream commented, remembering how Knockout would go on about how all the 'Bots he dissected had such similar (and primitive) built-in comm arrays.
"Exactly." She jerked the curtains closed again. "I'm going down there again. You should leave five klicks after me, so he doesn't think I'm connected with you. Make sure he sees you at least once, and look like you're planning something, like he would have cause to investigate you."
"That won't be a challenge, I assure you."
Airachnid smiled for the first time that evening. "Then let's get to work."