"Lord Starscream," Sonica walks coolly to the bridge, and he turns around, "Mine-68 is cleared. Where do you want it?"
"In storage. Where else?"
"I was just checking since your kitchen is empty." She smiles with a wink and begins to walk away. She can almost hear his grumbling.
"Hold on, Sonica."
She turns gracefully on her toe.
"Come up here, and we'll calculate the numbers. I need to be sure the supply is balanced."
She saunters to his side.
It hasn't gone without her notice how detail oriented he can be...on good days...and just to be sure she doesn't miss those good days, she puts a lot of though into how she carries herself around him.
She does- or did- the same around Megatron but it's not the same. Starscream allows her to act slyly, and he often reciprocates. When he's in a great mood, they have some amusing conversations.
He brings up the lists of mines with all their updated specs (thanks to her), and they analyze the estimated quantity in each.
Starscream was the only one who recognized her as Eclipse, and his face was the only one she's seen before. He was part of the guard that protected Sentinel Prime. They didn't get the opportunity to really talk and learn about each other, but the casual, passing check ins were enough for exchanged smiles when their gazes met.
Of course, war changes many things and a lot about him is no longer the same. However, in the most comfortable moments, she sees what may have been the old Starscream: a proud, but smart Seeker whose true talent lies in adaption. He takes whatever is given him and works it into plans; this sharpens his mind and blends him inside the best vantage points. On the other side of the coin, when he forces his way into things, it doesn't always work so well.
Sonica watches his optics scan over the logs and his long fingers tap the touch keys. His mind sucks in the numbers and puts them through his digits where he collects the data in one place; all without glancing around and double checking. He's used to this. He's adapted to it.
She wonders if he's aware of his own talents. If he is, he doesn't seem to always know how to use it, but that knowledge comes with self-confidence...which he doesn't have a lot of, and that's not his fault.
"How many mines do we have?" She breaks the silence that follows his pause, as he searches for more numbers.
"Fifteen," He frowns.
It's not bad, but it's not good either. Sonica moves a little closer to his side, meaningfully, and glances over the quantities he recorded. Though he doesn't look at her, she senses his slightly heightened awareness, as well as the cool he's putting on to cover it.
"I give it about an orbital cycle," his manual air systems heave out a heavy sigh.
"Drinking it, or fueling the ship?"
His irritation pokes through, "The ship, Sonica."
Ah, he's regretting the gluttonous party, but his snapping at her fails to erase her smile, "Don't worry about it, Lord. I can scout energon as well as I can harvest it."
"That requires flying within the troposphere. We'll be spotted."
"We can't harvest anything under the cities anyway...maybe. What about the rural areas?"
"We're already searching the rural areas." He thinks a moment, then brings up a map of earth that they saved from the Humans' internet. He zooms in on a city, "There is a huge deposit deep below this metropolis called Chicago."
"Ooo, are you thinking about challenging my 'maybe'?"
She finally gets a smirk from him.
"Maybe."
"Does the city sleep, though?"
His expression becomes snobbish, "If they don't, I'm sure I can find a way to make sure they do."
She chuckles, "I feel there's an easier way to go about that."
"The water, I know. Perhaps I wanted to see how they would react to such a major city suddenly falling into stasis. You're usually the center of fun, not the destroyer of it."
Sonica moves to stand almost right in front of him. For this jeer, she wants him to see the full scale of coy, "Well, well, Lord Starscream, have your entertainment preferences changed? I can adapt to your new tastes. You only need to inform me."
His eye for detail shows up, and she sees it in the way he glances over her figure. "I'll keep that in mind. What are your tastes? Maybe we could find some commonalities to make it easier for both of us."
The cards are dealt, and he's played.
She raises a brow, "I do it."
Purposefully, she waits for Starscream's infamous, one-sided grin of pure mischief. She gets it and folds: "I do my dances and I shake it..." she does a demo with a twirl. "And you all like it..." With a cheesy jazz-hand pose, she pauses to give him a sly look. "My taste is fire."
The grin has wiped off and he just stands there.
Sonica pushes it further with a short tap dance she found on the internet.
"What was that?" He makes a face at her feet.
"Fire, darling; that was fire." She bounces her brows.
"I think you confuse 'fire' for something else."
Sonica lets out a laugh from deep inside her frames. This is her favorite thing with Decepticons. They are so accustomed to a serious way of life that silliness and humor seem to blow their minds. That, and no one has better facial expressions than Starscream. He's so easy to tease.
"Why must you be so odd?" He shakes his head and goes back to their project.
"If I told you, I wouldn't be odd." She takes back her place beside him, but this time, hangs her arm on his large shoulder.
He doesn't seem to mind.
"Anyway, did we find out what numbers go where?"
It takes him half a nanoklik to readjust his thoughts, "We'll go after Chicago, then find out exactly what we have afterwards. I'd also like to get the mass under the arctic ice."
"That'll be harder for me to harvest."
He nods once, recalling how fragile she is. The cold that wouldn't harm him, would slow her down greatly. Prolonged exposure, even at that temperature, could put her systems into emergency stasis or destroy them.
As he thinks about this, it reminds him of a question he's had for a long time.
"Sonica, if you've been around since the beginning of Cybertron, why is your body so weak? Will you not upgrade to something more durable?"
She decides to answer honestly, and sheathes her comedic attitude.
"I've wondered that too. I'm not completely sure, but I think I have some solid theories."
A silence drags in her pausing, and he can't stand it. "Yes?"
"I'm supposed to be fragile. With my abilities- if I go insane for some reason- I would hope that I'm easily dealt with to prevent casualties. And perhaps, in turn, it keeps me from forcibly being used as a weapon. I can't be tortured without risking termination."
"But you regenerate; your spark re-ignites, and you come back as another mechaniod."
"That can actually change, depending on the situation. If I'm really in trouble, the first and original Doradus takes over." She shrugs, "She's only ever had to take over a whole six times, but when she does, few survive the introduction. She's blunt, unpleasant, and very black-and-white."
Starscream makes a short, but thoughtful, hum in response. His mind takes good care of this information, and puts it in a special place within his memory.
"You know what else?"
He turns his head towards her, not fully leaving his thoughts.
A small smirk plays at the corner of her mouth as she watches him from the corner of her optics, "Being fragile also means I'm light weight, and that makes me easy to carry."
Her smirk widens into a lazy smile as she leans fully on his shoulder.
"I see," His brow raises just before roughly shrugging her off.
She catches her balance after a couple skipping halts.
"Look at that," his voice goes up an octave, "easy to push over too. So fascinating."
Sonica has to laugh, "That's good to know. Anything else?"
"You have yet to explain your oddities."
"It's a mystery on purpose, and it's to keep you interested." She tucks her hands behind her back.
His optics take their time returning to her face. Then he smirks, "I said 'oddities' not 'mysteries'."
"Same thing."
"Not exactly,"
Sonica raises a finger but has nothing.
Satisfied, he pretends to glance at the records again and recover, "Anyway, I don't have time to keep playing games with you. I have other important errands." He begins to walk away.
"He's Lord, but busy." She teasingly narrates. "Where are you going?"
"With Soundwave to see about a mech that can cause the sky to quake."
He suddenly halts, "Oh, but I need a small energon cube."
"What size?"
While they exchange soft smiles, he tells her the measurements. Ten nanokliks afterwards, she tosses the miniature cube to him.
"He sounds hot. Tell him I say hello."
Starscream rolls his eyes and continues his exit, "I will bring him here so you can be awkward around him personally."
She giggles, and he disappears into the hallway.
With a short examination of the numbers, she concludes they will have adequate means after Chicago. The arctic stash will give them an abundance. She'll have to privately store the extra in a vile of gold energon to share with the Autobots.
Speaking of which... she reflects on the cube she made for Starscream. It has a slightly boosted energon potency, so that the Autobot computers will pick it up easily. They should supervise Starscream's activity. Skies quaking doesn't sound good.
And if Soundwave is off the ship, she can tell the Autobots that she did see something where the space bridge used to be. There's one speck of dark energon. Hopefully, they can get to it before the Decepticons.