Ch. 18
Starscream crossed the distance between himself and his leader smoothly, quietly, addressing the warlord with a curt clearing of his throat, "Lord Megatron, excuse Airachnid's impertinence. What was it that I allegedly failed to mention?"
He shot Airachnid a dirty glare, the spider smiling despite her new optical patch.
"The Harbinger," Megatron growled.
The seeker crossed his arms, "Yes, what do you need to know?"
"Eons ago, a Decepticon transport crash landed on this planet," Airachnid remarked snidely, typing into the computer's database.
Starscream only frowned, already bored, "I assume Lord Megatron wants new details, Airachnid, not common knowledge. I was the first to scout the crash site when we arrived on Earth."
The spider turned back at him, "Then I presume you recovered the experimental weapon prototype the Harbinger was transporting?"
Starscream smirked; forget giving his perfect little speech to Soundwave, he'd been waiting for this question for almost three weeks, "No such device was located. And accessing the Harbinger's logs would have given the Autobots its location. It remains intact and untouched since its initial basic excavation."
Megatron watched Starscream carefully, almost thrown off by his second's cool and calculated answers. It was unsettling and yet at the same time a gift. He had grown weary of Starscream's groveling and excuses. The seeker's confidence put the warlord more at ease.
"Do you have its location?" Megatron asked.
"It was never logged into the ship's database," Airachnid said smoothly.
Again, Starscream had waited three weeks for this; he had prepared, "Actually, it is," he pointed at the screen, "you must be searching for it incorrectly. You need to look under 'Abandoned Sites and Installations'. All crashed ships, abandoned forts, and other such lost Decepticon holdings are logged there. If you were to look up 'Harbinger', the computer would assume you wished to establish connection with a working ship, not a crash site," Starscream smiled sweetly at Airachnid, "The Nemesis would have tried to call it."
The spider hissed, but stopped when Megatron growled loudly, "Enough! This will cease now, or I will end this for both of you!"
Starscream stood taller while Airachnid just stared him down.
The warlord turned back to the screen, his servos folded neatly behind his back, "Starscream, since you scouted the Harbinger before, I would like you to assist Airachnid in excavating it more thoroughly. Find this device and return it here."
The spider hummed, chuckling, "My personal native guide. How delightful."
Starscream felt himself filling with anger. He hadn't liked this comment before and he certainly didn't like it again.
He was about to retort when Megatron turned his helm, growling again, "Hardly! As it stands, Airachnid, you still have to prove your value to me and the Decepticons. Starscream is my second-in-command and therefore an extension of myself and the cause," he glared at the seeker, "I trust that he can evaluate your prowess for me while the pair of you are in the field."
It was Airachnid's turn to glare as Starscream nodded and gave a quick bow, "Of course, Lord Megatron..."
Starscream was horribly aware of how much he hated Airachnid, more so now as he flew threw the skies at the slowest pace he'd managed since... Well, since the last time, which was now the first time... again. Future sight was tricky.
But here he was again, landing carefully on his pointed peds just above the buried half of the Harbinger. Airachnid was still a few moments away from landing, so the seeker stretched his wings and did a quick visual to assure they were alone. He knew they were, but appearances...
"Your chosen vehicle mode lacks... thrust," Starscream smirked as the spider landed.
Airachnid glared at him, "Are you going to preen or are you going to guide?"
The seeker rolled his optics. He had nothing more to prove to the one-optic femme, and he wasn't going to make the same mistake as last time. Cliffjumper bragging? Back of the processor.
So instead, he pointed down at the ground beneath them, "The Harbinger is just below us. If you wait, I can find a suitable point of en-"
Airachnid had already started digging, drilling a hole large enough for the seeker to drop down into.
Starscream grumbled to himself, "Again? What's wrong with waiting?"
He followed in after her, the two falling into a gap of shredded metal and into one of the halls of the downed ship. The spider allowed her longer, Instecticon legs to carry her on the ceiling while Starscream followed behind. He had given his warning about the computers back on the Nemesis, if she chose to ignore- and there she went again, turning on the computers and sending out that wee little signal.
The seeker didn't bother to question what she was doing, or her methods. And if she asked, he knew what to say, as Megatron had given the directive himself back on the Nemesis. Starscream was to observe her prowess and judge whether she was still fit for the title of 'Decepticon'.
"Ah, here it is. Section twenty-three," the spider purred.
At the back of Starscream's mind, he knew what to expect as he followed Airachnid down the hall, her freakish legs carrying her on the ceiling again. She was going to be angry with him for holding information back, but again, part of her prowess would be to research before investigating. The seeker was happy to go with that.
Starscream watched as she dropped to the floor and turned a corner, "Section twenty-three should be right about... here?" she stopped, meeting a wall of rock and dirt in place of the other half of the ship, "The ship just ends. It must have broken in half in the crash."
Starscream chuckled, "Hm. Or in the air. If you performed actual research, you would have learned that an Autobot battalion shot the Harbinger out of the sky."
Airachnid hissed, turning on him, "How far away is the other half?!"
The seeker smirked, "My, your value doesn't seem to be showing, Airachnid. But I suppose you can only polish dirt so much..."
The spider growled and shot webbing from her servos at Starscream, the mech just barely sliding out of the way. Good, he had remembered that much. And if he was right, the Autobots were close by. It was nearly time to make his escape. Starscream was about to snarl something rude at the spider when she shot her webbing again, hitting him in the mouth. She shot again and again, binding his arms to his body and his legs at the ankles. The seeker fell to the floor roughly and growled, struggling to get free.
Airachnid shoved him onto his back and hissed into his audials, "You're trying to make me look like a fool before Megatron. Have me return empty-handed while you locate the weapon yourself!"
At this point, Starscream knew he was supposed to retort but he couldn't. He glared and shook his helm hard, trying to get the edge of a claw close enough to the webs at his arms so he could free himself.
Airachnid dragged a claw against his chin, dangerously close to the energon lines running at his throat, "You know, you've been acting far too strangely. I may only know about you from rumors and tales, but none of them seem to stack up to the mech before me."
The seeker pulled his faceplates away from her, scowling as she continued, "Even Megatron seems to have noticed. He thinks your confidence is better, for him and the Decepticons, but it leaves me wondering: where is this confidence coming from?"
Starscream stopped struggling, staring her down.
"Something has to happen to be able to find something like that. And during my travels on this planet, I met a human who had an interesting theory about you."
The spider grabbed the webbing at the front of Starscream's chest, wrenching him to her faceplates as she hissed, "He seems to think that you can see the future, that you are precognitive. At first, I thought he was delusional. But now I have to wonder..."
Starscream tried to look at her as though she were insane but it became difficult to do so when she grabbed his chin roughly to look into his optics, "So," she sneered, arching one of her spider legs back in an aim to strike, "tell me what I'm going to do now. Tell me the future, and I may spare your life."