Here's the next chapter.
Enjoy!
Soundwave was concerned for the first time in twenty-six vorns.
When the pesky humans had stuck him in the shadowzone, he had been annoyed, at first. Then angry. Then simply energon depleted. The humans, for their part, had conveniently forgotten to mention him to the Autobots, meaning that Knockout and the Vehicons got amnesty, but he was stuck in there for about seventeen solar cycles until he finally managed to figure out how to get out with a single groundbridge.
At first, he had reveled in his freedom and the joy of touching things again. Then he stole some energon from the Autobots and had a good long think. He concluded that, a)there was no point in going back to his former master, b)he would rather rust than work for Starscream or Shockwave, c) his war crimes were heinous and the Autobots would most likely exile or kill him, therefore, d)the shadowzone was probably the friendliest place on Cybertron. For now.
So he decided to go back to the shadowzone, and strayed out of it only to steal energon. He watched as the Autobots slowly rebuilt their world. Occasionally, where he felt there was a need, he interfered - making a computer more easily hackable, or providing a clue or two to the law enforcement, even once helping a bot get away. He almost came to enjoy his unique position on Cybertron.
And then, Airachnid came back to haunt him.
At first, the Autobots hadn't bothered with the two moons, concentrating on rebuilding Cybertron, one city at a time. Then peace and good town planning (courtesy of Bulkhead) lead to prosperity, and the Council relaxed enough to let a group of sparklings visit Moon Base 2 for a field trip.
Hence Soundwave's concern.
He had known that sending Airachnid to Moon 2 was a stupid idea, especially at a time when the Decepticons were trying to rebuild the Omega Lock, but he'd done it anyway because it was the first place he could think of in the 0.839 nanoseconds when she'd attacked him. Also, there was less chance of her trying to wipe their species out from Moon 2.
In addition, he was the only being on Cybertron who knew where exactly Airachnid was. The only other in the galaxy was Lord Megatron, but then he didn't matter any more. So he, Soundwave, was the only being capable of taking any action.
He was not really concerned about the sparklings themselves - he didn't know any of them personally (not that he would have cared if he had) and the Well of Allsparks would produce more, if it came to that. Besides, there were plenty of new couples on Cybertron. What worried him was what Airachnid might do with a ship.
He had been checking on Airachnid around twice a vorn. Her energon reserves had eventually stabilized and reached equilibrium, but a kind of irrational hunger remained. She continued to use her insecticons for energon, commanding them to stay in stasis till she needed them. In other words, she was her usual malicious self, just more driven. He was sure that the only reason she was not trying to attack Cybertron was that she had no means of getting there.
In such a situation, sending a spaceship there, even one as burned out as the Artemis, was like sending an invite. And if Airachnid managed to get to Cybertron, she would definitely cause chaos and upset whatever peace the Autobots had managed to create. As a Decepticon, he should have been the first one to celebrate, really, but...as hard as it was to admit, he liked seeing his world alive again. And more than that, he loved his position of unseen power on Cybertron.
If there was anything that defined Soundwave, it was that he was loyal to his cause. So he finally decided to save it.
He glided onto the Artemis, unseen, behind the crowd of sparklings, and found a comfortable corner to rest in inside the cockpit as the former stealth ship took off.
Soundwave disengaged Laserbeak in order to do a quick scan of Moon 2. Search parameters: Thermal and not in 2 mechanometer range.
He ignored the sparklings, who were oohing and aahing. He noticed that Knock Out was with them, and stored that information away for future consideration. The sparklings were quickly organized into two lines by their teachers and made to walk to the towering telescope in front : Moon Base 2.
Ping. Soundwave sifted through the data he had received from Laserbeak. Negative. He conveyed. Thermal upsurge due to lava pores. Continue search. Add thermal upsurge: 5%-50% to search parameters.
Soundwave took another look at the tall building and the outlines of a plan began to form in his mind. He strode straight through the bumbling sparklings, who paused to poke at bits of moon rock or comment on the dark, bleak landscape. As the moons didn't have an atmosphere, the sky was inky black and strewn with stars. The newlings had never seen such a sky in light polluted Iacon. Soundwave was used to it from his long voyage on the Nemesis, so he didn't give it much thought.
At the back of the building, he did another scan by himself (parameters: presence of silicon, germanium,gold and silver at 90% concentration or above) and easily located the telescope's CPU. Then he moved through the back wall into the CPU unit. From there, it was a simple matter of stepping out from the Shadowzone, feeding the machine enough energon to boot it up, extending his data cables and hacking into the system.
Command Prompt: ?
User: 5177DA88S-42
Command Prompt: Accptd
Dsgnton?
User: Soundwave
Command Prompt: Accptd
Remote Cmnd Trnsfrd To "Soundwave"
Freqncy: 88S-42
Soundwave: Open File 444
Command Prompt: "Security" Files? (Y/N)
Soundwave: Y
Command Prompt: Provide Authrisaton Freqncy?
Soundwave: 88S-42
Command Prompt: Accptd
Entrnces
Alarms
Camras
Guns
Soundwave: Open Entrnces
Command Prompt: Entrnces Main
Secndry
Emrgncy
Windws
Mirors
Soundwave: Open Main
Command Prompt: Main
Soundwave: Open
Command Prompt: -TITANIUM SHIELD
-LASER
Satisfied with these options, he kept the program running in the background, and stepped back into the Shadowzone.
Ping. Again, Soundwave received data from Laserbeak. Positive, He conveyed. Perform rough perimeter search to confirm.
Laserbeak swooped towards the thermally bright figure around 50 mechanometers from Soundwave's position. As they were both in the Shadowzone, there was no danger of being seen. He made out the cruel horns on Airachnid's helm. She had sensed the sparklings' fresh energon, or at least heard them. Confirmed. Calculate ETA.
ETA=2 breems.
Set timer and return. Laserbeak came back to him, and Soundwave went round the telescope to observe the sparklings again. In order for his plan to work, all the sparklings and their caretakers would have to be inside within two breems. Hopefully, they would, or it would be chaos. And most of them would wind up dead.
Not that he cared very much about that. (Did he?)
The moon expert Magnify - Soundwave recalled that Shockwave had tortured him for information on Trypticon - lectured the sparklets about the giant telescope and its creators. 1.5 breems to arrival.
He started talking about the scope's mirror alignment, and one of the teachers interrupted him to scold an orange sparkling for throwing moon rocks at another's helm. 1 breem to arrival. It looked like loss of life would be inevitable. There were simply too many of them for Soundwave to protect alone.
Magnify finished his speech, and the femme teacher treated the bored sparklings to yet another lecture on do's and don'ts inside the structure. 0.5 breems to arrival. Soundwave did not grimace, because he did not care. In theory.
The sparklings finally lined up to go inside. They were awfully slow, because the instructors insisted that they go in a straight line. Soundwave did not consider showing himself to speed things up, because if he did, he would have to kill them to protect his place on Cybertron.
0 breems to arrival. The dark shape of Airachnid appeared on the horizon. He could hear her hiss 7 mechanometers away. He accessed the program and input, Activate TITANIUM SHIELD. The door of the building slammed shut and a gleaming titanium sheet slammed down over it. There. Now even if he was somehow incapacitated, Airachnid wouldn't be able to access it.
There was a loud banging on the door, and Soundwave realised that six sparklings had been left outside. Oh well. Airachnid was too close to do anything now.
He detached Laserbeak and stepped out of the Shadowzone.
Airachnid hissed at the sight of him. She recognized him, apparently. The sparklings squeaked and trembled.
Soundwave extended his data cables and calmly waited until Laserbeak was behind her. They always underestimated him. And they always, always underestimated Laserbeak.
"Energon..." She moaned, showing the weird sucker like appendage that all Dark Energon zombies had. The pounding behind the door stopped abruptly as the sparklings screamed and Laserbeak fired his first shots.
The spider skittered to the side and shot her webs. "Get back!" A recording of Megatron roared at the sparklings, who were frozen with fear. They were blocking his way.
"Run-to the-back!" Multiple voices cried, as he transformed into jet mode and dive-bombed the ex Con. This was it.
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