I own nothing recognizable. All Cybertronian has been translated into English for your convenience this chapter - when set alongside actual English, it will be differentiated in some form or fashion.
/text/ indicates comm speech
Bumblebee stared at his console, where a glyph had suddenly flashed into life. /Optimus?/ he commed, making sure he had his leader's full attention before continuing. Not that was particularly hard – this particular sector of space was proving to be singularly devoid of anything even remotely interesting. /I'm picking up a signal on the long-range sensors. Faint, distorted, but definitely Cybertronian./ Ratchet, Jazz, and Ironhide came crowding over to look at my station. Optimus remained where he was – though the rest of them could almost feel his yearning to come and have a look as well. Anything to break up the monotony.
"It's not the Allspark," Ratchet commented "but it's more than we've had in stellar cycles. I say we go and have a look." Bumblebee chimed in his agreement, along with Ironhide and Jazz. Optimus looked at the flashing light thoughtfully. "It is true that this is more than we have had in a long time," he said finally "but we would be remiss if we did not finish this sector before we moved on to the anomalous signal." There was a collective sigh, but the mechs returned to their collective stations. Whatever the signal was, it would have to wait until the monotony of this sector was thoroughly explored – there were no Autobots here capable of making the journey without the ship, sadly. Thankfully, they wouldn't be much longer in this sector. Whatever it was wouldn't have to wait long. Relatively.
Blackout swore as an insistent beeping interrupted his light recharge cycle. This area of space had proven so uniformly boring, he'd decided to get a quick nap whilst manning the long-range recon station. He'd set various sound alerts up to wake him if anything did manifest itself – had done so several cycles ago when he'd first been assigned to this station – and this particular noise meant that the sensors had found something non-Autobot. Quickly looking over the data streams, he noted that what he'd picked up was too distorted to tell whether it was Autobot or Decepticon, and while it certainly wasn't the AllSpark or Megatron, it was certainly Cybertronian. /Starscream/ he commed quickly as soon as he finished analyzing and assimilating his data. The answer was swift and irate. /That's Lord Starscream, you insolent glitch! What do you want?/ Blackout smirked – Starscream was so easy to annoy. /I've found something you might want to see on the long-range sensors, "my Lord"/ Silence for a moment, then a short message stating Starscream would be gracing him with his presence posthaste.
Blackout had to give him some credit – when Starscream said "quick," he really did mean "quick." Unlike a few other 'cons he could think of off the top of his processors, who said "quick" but them drew out whatever they were doing just to annoy you. Once Starscream had joined him, he threw his findings up on a larger monitor so that Starscream wouldn't have an excuse to loom over his shoulder. After studying them in silence for a moment, Starscream looked at him speculatively. "Give me your opinion." A simple order, fraught with danger if he answered badly. "I think we should go after it, my Lord." He was proud of himself for keeping the sarcastic inflection out of those last two words. "Whatever it is, it could be a marker from the AllSpark. Or Megatron." Starscream stood in silence for awhile, while Blackout grew impatient. Finally, he seemed to have come to a decision.
"As you said, it is not the AllSpark. And if it is our illustrious leader, back from the dead, then he would surely be angry with us if we went to him without finishing our scans of this section of space. The ship will remain here until scanning is complete while an advanced team – Thundercracker, Skywarp, and myself will go on ahead and investigate the signal." Decisions made, Starscream turned abruptly and left. Blackout shrugged, turned the alerts back on – after reconfiguring them to alert him when the signal currently on them disappeared – and propped his pedes up on the console. Barricade would probably be left in charge, and he didn't care much about what a bot did as long as the work got done – not so hung up on appearances as "Lord" Starscream. Blackout settled back in his chair. His last thought before slipping back into recharge was a stray question about what the Autobots were doing about the signal.