Editing is for nerds, let's post this thing!
Don't get too excited now, this chapter is ALL Soundwave. We'll get back to that good KO stuff next time around.. whenever that is amiright? :U
Thoughts and criticisms are encouraged and appreciated.
Megatron didn't even turn to look back as his second in command entered onto the bridge. Dreadwing was running late, and he was not a patient mech. These days his patience was running even thinner than normal.
"I hope you have something for me, Dreadwing." He spoke in a low growl, as if to emphasize how annoyed he was already. It was clear to every mech watching: if he didn't hear something he liked, there would be consequences. From the way Dreadwing held himself as he approached, wings high and his back straight, it looked like he definitely had something. A silver Eradicon was following close behind him, and their posture was similarly confident. They also held a small device in their servo, but kept it down by their side.
"My Lord," Dreadwing gave a quick bow before continuing, "with the help of the Vehicon engineering team, we've come up with a plan that will certainly lure the Autobots out into the open- and specifically Knockout."
Finally turning to face his second, Megatron said nothing but only tilted his helm forward expectantly, so Dreadwing continued.
"The Vehicons have created a way to send out a false emergency beacon with a frequency that has been distorted just enough for the Autobots to pick up on it as well. When they pick up this signal, they will undoubtedly come to investigate."
Megatron took a few steps closer to loom over Dreadwing, he still did not look impressed. "I don't doubt that Optimus and his team would be curious, but what makes you think Knockout would come out of hiding for something like this?"
"Well you see, my lord, it isn't just any signal they've managed to replicate." Dreadwing nodded back to the Eradicon behind him, who continued with the thought.
"It's Breakdown's frequency." They said, their wings tilted up proudly. "If there were any way to get that traitor out in the open, it's-"
Megatron held up a servo to cut them off. "Yes I understand." He looked back at Dreadwing, "I had my doubts you would come up with something feasible, but this may yet work… Well done, Dreadwing."
"Thank you, my lord." He said, bowing a second time. "The Vehicons are also to thank; this would not have come together without their input as well."
This only earned a quiet hum from Megatron as he glanced over at the silver Eradicon again. The device in their servo caught his attention. "Is this the device they've created?"
At his prompt, they held up their servo to reveal what they were holding. It was a what looked to be a half spherical computer chip with a number of clamps and tendrils on the flat back end, and about the width of an average spark chamber. The device looked a bit tarnished; there were noticeable chips on the metal and the tendrils on the back appeared to have been sliced apart. It was definitely not something that had just been put together. In fact it didn't even appear to be cybertronian tech.
Dreadwing confirmed this as he replied, "No my lord, the beacon is just getting its last finishing touches by the engineers. This is related to a different matter AA-00 was hoping to discuss with you."
"Capturing Knockout is our top priority. If it's not related, then I don't want to hear about it." With that, Megatron pushed past the two mechs and started down the walkway to the exit.
Once his back was turned, AA-00's wings drooped ever so slightly and they quickly looked over at Dreadwing. The motion was a bit panicked as if to emphasize how urgent this was. Dreadwing took notice and held up a servo in a calming gesture, then he stepped forward to follow after Megatron.
"My lord, I understand Knockout deserves our attention, but the matter is concerning the safety of our mines and the rest of the Vehicon staff. Would you be willing to-"
Dreadwing didn't get the chance to finish. Megatron spun around, glaring down at his second. "I do not like repeating myself." He growled. This silenced Dreadwing who lowered his gaze apologetically. Turning his glare over to AA-00, he continued, "If there is a problem with the Vehicons then fix it yourself. They are under your command, and if you can't do your job then you can be easily replaced."
They quickly clasped their servos behind them, putting the device out of sight and gave another deep bow.
"Of course! My deepest apologies, Lord Megatron. I should not have troubled you with this. Please excuse me." With that, they scurried down the nearby steps and out one of the side entrances. Some of the Vehicon staff at the lower floor had been watching curiously, but as AA-00 passed by, they caught a glimpse of their stiff body language and turned their heads down and away, not wanting to draw their superior's fury.
Megatron didn't notice that they all but stormed away, as his attention had turned back to Dreadwing the moment AA-00 had finished speaking.
"Come, Dreadwing. We'll discuss this plan further in the labs. I'd like to see the engineer's progress on this beacon."
"Yes, sire." Dreadwing started following Megatron towards the exit again, "The preparations should be finished within a few subcycles."
"Excellent. I will personally select a team to accompany me on this mission so we may leave the moment it is finished."
"Oh… you my lord?" Dreadwing fell back a step and then stopped. "I had thought…" he placed a servo on his chassis but didn't finish his sentence.
Megatron stopped just at the door as it slid open and looked back. "As powerful a warrior as you are, Dreadwing, I cannot delegate a mission as important as this." His optics narrowed slightly as he continued, "Need I remind you that you already failed to capture Knockout on this very ship once before?"
Dreadwing didn't get a chance to respond before Megatron stepped through the open door and started down the hall without him. He looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he kept his mouth shut and followed after his master.
The conversation was continuing out in the hall, but not quite audible from inside the bridge. Their voices were further cut off when the door slid shut behind them. It would certainly be possible to cut into the feed of the security footage in the hallway, but switching between cameras continuously as they kept walking sounded exhausting. Also it was completely unnecessary because their destination had already been stated.
With a flick of his tentacle, Soundwave switched the monitor in front of him to a view of one the engineering labs. He shuffled through a few of them before settling on a room with a team of Vehicons working and bustling about in a hurry. This was the busiest looking team and undoubtedly the one he was looking for.
Having found his target, he merely stared up at the screen and waited. Though Soundwave was silent as ever, his mind was racing as he processed the conversation he had just witnessed.
Luring Knockout into the open was certainly a possibility with that plan. As he had noted before, Dreadwing was no master strategist, so his credit to the Vehicon was likely merited. That didn't matter, of course. The trouble was that Megatron was intending to carry out this mission himself. If Soundwave wanted to tag along, this was going to make it nearly impossible. He would have to find a way to follow along without being spotted. That wouldn't be a problem. Stealth was a practiced skill of his; even his alt-mode was geared toward going unnoticed in the sky. If he could get above the battle and locate Knockout, then he could swoop in and finish him before anyone even knew he was there. Even Megatron wouldn't be able to stop him.
While Soundwave was lost in thought, planning for how he could pull this off, a voice behind him interrupted by calling his name. He only glanced over his shoulder at the Vehicon, making it clear he was not interested, then turning to look back at the screen.
Even so, he stepped closer to try and get his attention again. Soundwave had thought he had been quite clear the first time he had tried to assert himself, and yet this Vehicon was nothing if not persistent.
"Soundwave," he said, "why don't you take a break from that? Nobody expects you to get back to work so soon. Maybe you should take it easy."
This wasn't just work. Obviously the Vehicon hadn't been paying attention to the feed, or he might have figured out what Soundwave was up to. That was lucky. He didn't need some drone tattling on him to someone who might actually be able to stop him. On that thought, he would have to eliminate this Vehicon when he did finally sneak out so as to prevent being followed.
Unspooling his other tentacle, Soundwave lashed out at and dug the clamps of his tendril onto the other mech's chassis. With a hard shove, he pushed away and the Vehicon stumbled backwards, finally falling into a tray of medical tools that went sprawling across the floor with him.
Getting rid of this 'Con would be no trouble at all.
The Vehicon didn't say anything further or even try to stand up, he just pulled himself onto his knees and started gathering up the fallen equipment back onto the tray.
Just as Soundwave was about to focus back on the screen in front of him, he heard the door slide open behind him. He quickly switched away from the labs to a random feed. The image changed just as a single mech's footsteps entered the room.
"WY-05, I need you to-" it was the voice of the silver Eradicon from the bridge, AA-00. They cut off in mid-sentence and paused for a moment. Soundwave turned almost all the way around to face them, and saw they were staring over at him. In one servo they still had the foreign device and the other was now planted on their hip.
"Why is Soundwave on the console?" They demanded, looking over at the other Vehicon who was still crouched on the floor amid a mess of tools, "What is going on, WY-05?"
"Oh, um…" The Vehicon, WY-05 apparently, stood up and clasped their servos together in front of their chassis, "I just thought… th-that Soundwave might improve if he was allowed to resume some of his duties. He seemed to be rather bored so I just…" he trailed off, his gaze dropping down to the floor.
How curious. Soundwave hadn't expected the Vehicon to cover for him like this. He wasn't even sure what he was trying to accomplish by lying to his superior. There didn't seem to be anything in it for him, and he would continue to have no help in trying to control his patient.
AA-00 glanced back and forth between Soundwave and WY-05 a few times, then stepped up to the Vehicon. Grabbing ahold of their clasped servos, they pushed them lower to get a look at his chassis where some deep scratches lined the glass and metal from where Soundwave had grabbed him.
"And what happened here?"
"Oh that...? I just tripped!" WY-05 gestured down to the remaining tools still scattered at his feet. "I fell into some of these sharp tools… you remember how clumsy I can be, right?"
After a moment of consideration, AA-00 reached up again, this time taking ahold of WY-05's chin and lifting their face up to expose the cables of their neck. He let out a quiet, surprised yelp but didn't try to pull away.
That wasn't good. Soundwave had grabbed the Vehicon pretty tightly by his throat earlier. It was possible he'd left a mark or dented some cables, but if he had, AA-00 didn't comment on them. They released WY-05 and immediately shoved the device in their servo into his.
"If you say so." They grumbled. They then reached into the subspace on their chassis window and pulled out a datapad. "Listen, I'm not going to get any further resources from high command on this issue, so I'm enlisting your help. You're a human expert, right? I need you to look into what kind of technology this is."
WY-05 turned over the device in his servos curiously. "Oh. This is the one we found in Kevi- er, I mean KV-06, right? You showed me this before."
"Yes, but this time I don't just want your opinion. I want you to research it." AA-00 held out the datapad, tapping on it with their digits. "When you have down time here, I want you looking into this. It's very important that you-"
Soundwave had turned away again. He wasn't interested in some side project the Vehicons were working on. He needed to keep his focus on learning more of the mission to capture Knockout. So he tuned out the rest of the conversation and started poking buttons on the console again. He wasn't able to get back to spying on Megatron and Dreadwing while AA-00 was still there, so he just switched between some unimportant storage room feeds. While he waited, in his mind, he began constructing ways to sneak to the air hangar from here when the time came to do so. Being patched into the security feed of the hallways would make it easy, all he had to do was plan his route.
As he pretended to focus intently on the scenes of Vehicons walking around and empty rooms, AA-00 finished up explaining their new assignment to WY-05 and handed him the datapad. With a short nod he took the items and placed them on the tool tray, then crouched down to finish cleaning up the rest of the equipment on the floor.
Once he did, AA-00 turned to finally leave. Soundwave started prepping the console to switch back to the lab cameras in anticipation. However, as they passed by, they stopped and glared back at him.
"Just so you know, Soundwave," they spoke with a level tone, but there was a bite to it that didn't escape his notice, "I take my role as commander of the Vehicons very seriously. If I think WY-05's safety is in question, I can and will subdue you until your wounds heal."
For a moment, Soundwave didn't move or acknowledge their words at all. Even in the weakened state he found himself in, he didn't actually believe a Vehicon could force him to do anything. At the same time, AA-00 wasn't a pushover like WY-05. They seemed like someone who could get in the way of his current plans and he didn't need to draw their ire any further. So with a quick glance in their direction, he tipped his helm down just slightly to show he understood.
That seemed to satisfy them, and they turned and headed for the door again. As they did they called back over their shoulder, "WY-05 is here to help you, but you have to let him."
Once the door had shut behind them, Soundwave got right back to work, typing a command so the screen switched over to the lab. Megatron and Dreadwing were already there and conversing with one of the engineers. He would have to rewind a bit to get the whole conversation.
As he continued tapping away on the console, WY-05 spoke up again. He was still crouched down, idly poking at some of the tools around his feet.
"Um so… I-I know you don't want to talk, but maybe… maybe you could just listen?" He was speaking in a mumble and keeping his gaze down at the floor. "See, there's a reason AA-00 assigned me to look after you. I was-"
Before the Vehicon could start talking about feelings again, which Soundwave knew was coming, he unspooled his tentacle again and whipped it over, grabbing him by the top of his helm. Though this time, he was careful not to clamp on hard enough to scratch the mech, and rather than throw him backwards, he settled for a soft push which only caused him to fall over onto his aft. That seemed to be enough to shut him up, so Soundwave reeled his tentacle back in and focused back on the work in front of him.
He would have to be more careful about leaving marks on his caretaker. He didn't need AA-00 getting too close and figuring out what he was up to before his plans came to fruition. Also, he seemed to be getting the picture with just a minimal application of force, so there was no need to be extra violent with the Vehicon. Or rather, with WY-05.