If Airachnid thought caring for a sparkling was a challenge, soothing a cranky Dinobot was a merciless endurance round. She was even starting to miss Wheeljack's company.
"Me no like humans," Grimlock grumbled through a mouthful of gnarled tree branch. He'd been chewing nonstop to get the taste of Silas off his glossa. "Human icky and weak. Not strong like king Grimlock!"
Airachnid kept herself out of wood-shrapnel range as she cradled a sleeping Scorpia. "I can't argue with you there, Grimmy," she sighed, remembering the sweet sight of Silas' broken body in the dirt. If she ever felt like restarting her collection, his head would have made a fine centrepiece.
Of course, if she had to sacrifice Optimus' goodwill to do it, she'd have to bide her time. In the end she'd be better off just starting a rock collection to keep her trinket company.
"Human hurt Airachnid and baby," Grimlock mumbled after the thid branch had been reduced to bark shavings. She couldn't remember him ever using her actual name before. It was surreal hearing anything more than two syllables long coming out of those denta. "Human deserve squish."
"Autobots don't like hurting humans," Airachnid reminded him.
"Autobots weak," he declared. Again, she had to agree. Primus only knew how they'd survived this long, with a skeleton crew against a warship full of Decepticons. Airachnid didn't really root for either side, but she knew which one she'd bet against when it came to wagers.
Still, she didn't have that Starscream quality of poisoning the servo that fed her- literally.
"Don't let Optimus hear you say that, unless you prefer trees over energon."
Grimlock scoffed through a fresh bite of a log, spitting out a spray of wood chunks and shredded leaves. "Prime nothing! Me Grimlock better than thousand Primes! Me Grimlock save family!"
His defiant roars managed to wake up a flock of birds and Scorpia. Airachnid pressed her against her chestplates before she could start wailing. "Optimus helped, though," she mentioned while gently bouncing her daughter. She knew that the Dinobot's dislike was most likely from jealousy or some primal urge to be superior, but something told her to defend Optimus. Maybe Autobot sympathy was contagious.
"Not much..." Grimlock growled lamely, laying down and settling his helm close to her. "Prime not sire like Grimlock." Like always he turned his optics up to her like a pleading turbofox, waiting for her hand on his muzzle. Airachnid wasn't sure how much longer she could keep up his delusion, especially when Optimus was the one Scorpia imprinted on, so she decided to get it over with while the subject was up.
"You will be a good sire someday, Grimlock," she stated slowly, stroking down the length of his jaw. "And you've given me more help than anyone else would." Of course that was only because he barely knew what a Decepticon was, never mind what she'd done during the war in the name of them. "But... I work better alone. It's always been that way. When my time with Optimus is done... I'd rather raise Scorpia by myself. With no sire." It was as much of the truth as she was willing to admit, without thinking of whether she'd ever truly be free of Optimus, or if she'd even survive long enough to see that day. She was envious of Grimlock's mercifully simple processor, which could only accept what was right in front of it. It took a few klicks to fully realise she was rejecting him.
"No... sire?" The boom of his voice made the sadness in it seem all the deeper. Airachnid forced herself to ignore it, still stroking his muzzle.
"There might be room for a sparklingsitter, but yes. No sire."
For the first time Grimlock's denta didn't gnash together or drip saliva; they were hidden by frowning lipplates. The metal under her palm hummed as a long whine resonated from his vocaliser. It wasn't a welcome sight, but it was better than him rampaging at least. If anything, it was the best result she could have hoped for.
With only one servo holding Scorpia she couldn't stop the sparkling wriggling out of her grip and tumbling down near the Dinobot's closed maw, tilting her helm when she heard his whimper. She almost tried copying his frown and stood up, supporting herself on his helm and spreading her servos over it as if trying to give it a hug.
"Grimmy?" The Dinobot's optics flicked over to the sparkling, and the whine suddenly cut out. The tips of his denta showed through a gap as his mouth slowly turned upwards, and Scorpia gave an enthusiastic smile of her own. Her denta were growing in slowly, some sharper than others, and she seemed proud to show them off.
Airachnid was just grateful she hadn't tried biting anything yet.
xx
"Soundwave. Progress update on the Iacon database."
Soundwave automatically obeyed the order, inputting keystrokes to boil down the windows littering his workspace to a simple estimation: 76% decrypted. He couldn't see Megatron's pleased smile behind him, but he did hear satisfaction in his chuckle.
"Excellent. Continue working." Soundwave had already went back to typing before the new order was even issued. He was about to tune out his audios when he heard pedsteps slightly heavier than Megatron's approaching.
"I was told I would find you here, Lord Megatron. I apologise if I am interrupting," he heard Dreadwing say with some surprise. Ever since his failure to kill Optimus Prime, the Seeker had taken to avoiding any more of Megatron's wrath by confining himself to the armoury most of the day.
Luckily for him, their leader hadn't yet encountered anything to flare his anger today. "You are not, Dreadwing."
"I have heard... unsettling rumours amidst other officers." Soundwave still had his cables plugged in, but he made sure to amplify his audio range. "I trust no-one's word except your own, so I come seeking the truth."
"And what would these rumours be?" The tone that snapped into Megatron's voice would have reduced lesser bots into piles of shivering scrap. All it did to Dreadwing was introduce a nervous quaver to his own.
"That... the traitor Airachnid was carrying a sparkling before her departure."
Soundwave had long since perfected the art of eavesdropping, and it wasn't exactly a feat when Megatron hardly bothered to lower his voice. He knew more about the Airachnid situation than anyone else, but still his audios listened closely while his digits tapped and cables leeched through billions of bytes of data.
"That is true," Megatron confessed after an uncomfortable pause. "The sire of the sparkling is still unknown, but the problem has been dealt with. Do not let it distract you from your duties."
Soundwave almost missed a transmission blip from hearing the predictable lies, yet as always Dreadwing let honour bind him into believing them. "I shall not, my liege. But... I have a suspicion as to who this sire might be. And I worry that Airachnid's defection may compromise his loyalty to the Decepticons."
"Oh?" The sudden opportunity to clear his name made Megatron sound even more predatory than usual.
"I have heard that Breakdown has held a particular liking towards Airachnid, ever since he delivered her to us. It could be that the two... interfaced in secret, and this sparkling was proof of their union." Soundwave knew that Dreadwing was only the second mech to make the accusation, the first being Knockout, but at this rate it wouldn't take long for even the slowest drone to connect the dots. He would be the only one left knowing the truth, Breakdown would be outcast, and Megatron would get away with yet another crime against the cosmos. He stopped himself from stabbing his keys as a foreign fury threatened to spread outside the safe prison of his spark.
"An astute observation, Dreadwing," Megatron praised more for himself than the Seeker. "If loyalty is at stake, it may be worthwhile to keep a close optic on Breakdown." Soundwave could only imagine the effort the warlord was making to not make some quip about Breakdown needing an optic.
"I hope that my speculation is false, but it will be a relief to have any more traitors brought to light. Thank you for your time, my liege." Metal scraped together as Dreadwing bowed before taking his leave. Megatron seemed to watch him go before giving the expected order to Soundwave.
"The Iacon database will remain your priority, but increase surveillance on Breakdown. Report any suspicious behavior to me." For the first time in breems Soundwave turned away from his monitor to give a nod, and to ensure when Megatron had left. With no-one else in the room, Soundwave put his database work to the side and pulled up a blank display. He carefully filled it with lines of blue text, meticulously entered and double checked with his internal code banks. Only when everything matched did he hit enter, and the screen filled with a co-ordinate map and a single dot in the center of it.
Soundwave had always suspected Airachnid would betray them as soon as the chance came. She was the fourth bot to have his tracker beacon secretly installed; the others being Starscream, Knockout and, almost ironically, Breakdown. He would have even put one on Megatron if he thought he could get away with it. Starscream's had stopped transmitting vorns ago, else Soundwave might have gone out and dragged the Seeker back himself. Airachnid's was still mostly functional though, and at least told him that she was still alive. He didn't recognise the island that the map showed, and he decided that was for the best. If he couldn't find her, then hopefully Megatron couldn't either.
He was about to close the display and the logging masker when something new cropped up on the edge of his vision. The frequency channel monitor was filled with all manner of reports and wave trackers, but an unknown signal had wedged itself into the mess. It didn't match any of Cybertronian origin, yet most human ones wouldn't even register. Tracking its origin only made Soundwave even more confused- it came from inside some sort of Earth based building, deep within the crust. On ground level the signal would have been even stronger, and he only managed to trace its target by latching onto one of the data pulses.
If the co-ordinates were correct, it was going to the same island that Airachnid had landed herself on, and presented itself with the signature NEMESIS.