Starscream was famished.
He thought little of slashing a vehicon apart, watching as pink-spent energon peppered the ceiling of The Nemesis's ventilation system. It was foolish of him to feed within the ship, so close to Soundwave, Megatron, Knockout, and countless other Decepticon-officers who would report his crime without hesitation.
But Starscream was famished.
Fortunately, having to hide the body from prying Decepticon eyes was a nonissue. Countless rounds of starvation had taught Starscream to never ever be picky.
He had thousands of surviving sparklings out of ten-thousand for a reason.
Every part of a mech's protoform was consumed, save for the indigestible thick and hard outerskin, and the erotic bits Starscream was always careful to ignore.
He had standards, really.
Even when he was cannibalizing a mech.
He'd already eaten the spark-chamber, the precious white spark-ichor had gone too quickly into his tanks and so the flesh came soon after. The mesh-metal meat of a mech was the easiest part to eat - with just a couple well-placed bites the muscles would unraveled into a tender delicacy of sweet wiring, which Starscream could snap and peel into smaller, more gooey bundles of energy. Each nip at an energon-line made Starscream more ravenous, as if he was determined to eat an entire plateful of spaghetti in a single bite.
Once the meat and muscle went down, all that was left was a mech's skeleton, oil-laden organs, frame and armor, devoid of energon-rich flesh.
Now that the carcass was light enough to move, Starscream could discreetly discard the body within the tunnels near Trypicton's inner sanctum - a place no one else knew about save for himself and Shockwave. He tapped along the ventilation walls until one dropped downwards, revealing a hidden path he could crawled through, tugging the skeleton along as he went.
Already two well-chewed vehicon skeletons had been placed there. Various evidence piles of Starscream's gluttony existed throughout the ventilation systems of the Nemesis.
If only the Decepticons knew just how their Air Commander viewed them all.
As food.
He took out a mesh-rag he kept for the occasion, patting his mouth clean before using it to wipe away any stray droplets of energon along his person, and the walls.
No maintenance drones would be coming across his mess.
The last thing he wanted to do was move after such a big meal, but unfortunately he couldn't afford the luxury of lounging around for much longer.
He'd taken a risk, stopping to eat.
But he needed the extra fresh energy, to ensure the plan moved along perfectly.
Shockwave had planned to intercept Soundwave's movement throughout the hallways, and Starscream simply needed to be ready to spring into action when the distraction occurred.
It was a handful of breems from that moment.
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So Starscream waited.
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And waited.
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Starscream sat still like a statue, reminiscent of a carved gargoyle of quartz-laden granite. His internal timer ticked by and he smiled as he continued to lick his lips from his well-earned meal.
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He hadn't been so bold in eating a vehicon whole in a single sitting in a while. He typically stashed steaks and pieces into his subspace for later.
He was feeling good.
Yet.
What would Trypicton think when he'd awaken and find his walls decorated with chewed skeletons?
Starscream honestly couldn't guess at Trypicton's reaction.
He could only guess it would be bad.
The ancient titan was a grumpy violent mech, crafted during the times of the Primes for war and colonization efforts, but that didn't mean he was the type of mech to tolerate dead bodies upon or even near his person.
What would Trypicton think?
Starscream couldn't say.
He could only hope he wouldn't be blamed somehow.
He wasn't about to take responsibility.
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He waited a couple kliks more, checking himself and the area for anymore stray drops of energon he may have missed.
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Finally he watched as the last breem counted down. Using the energy from his recent meal, he shifted his sparkeater essence to generate an energy shield around his person, which reflected his surroundings - to give Starscream the semblance of invisibility; but the power was limited. Starscream was invisible to Soundwave's cameras, but any mech that crossed his path in the hallways would immediately know something was very wrong.
His powers did nothing to hide his bloodthirsty, ravenous EM field.
Starscream's transparent silhouette stuck out like a sore thumb against the dark metal of The Nemesis, and he bled out an oscillating light as he moved, the energy shifted supernaturally around him like a gyrating mist.
A sparkeater could only be seen as an unnatural static-blip when recorded by a camera.
Or not at all with an energy shield and some concentrated effort.
But Starscream didn't wish to test the ability of Soundwave's cameras.
And he had a deadline to reach.
Everyone aboard knew Soundwave used the best surviving cybertronian technology, when it came to security.
Starscream had no time to waste.
He dropped down from the ventilation shaft into the hallways; he began a hasty run, using all of his mental-processing-power to upkept his shield - least his transparent silhouette dissipated and revealed Starscream to be galloping nonsensically across the halls on all fours - an appearance that would be unbecoming of a mech his stature - twisting and turning down the corridors much like how a feral animal would.
Perhaps if Soundwave ever caught sight of the spectacle, Starscream would resemble his long deceased companion, Ravage.
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Starscream paused a klik, standing upright again as he reached his destination.
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He received a silent ping from Shockwave, devoid of any written message, which gave Starscream the all clear to move.
Both Starscream and Shockwave were in the same hallway of the Nemesis, but neither one dared to acknowledge the other - as it was business like usual. Shockwave had intercepted Soundwave's patrol in the hallway, blocking the mech's path forward with the candor of a steel gorilla.
But the klik-long distraction was vital to allow Starscream access to a tunnel-system Soundwave typically patrolled passed.
Starscream hadn't the time to hear what was being discussed, but he heard words like "interrogation" and "Megatron is upset" from Shockwave. He made himself scarce, weaseling into the closest ventilation-system, almost barfing when he flopped over into the tunnel. The entrance was quickly sealed back up with a small drill he'd brought out of his subspace for the occasion. The little tool hummed as it worked, but due to how noisy the inner systems of a war-machine like Trypticon could be, it was no surprise that any sound of Starscream's presence was drowned out completely.
His shield dissipated, and he heaved a sigh of relief as he curled around himself.
His shield simply took up too much energy to use.
And he'd eaten too much.
'Now I remember why I never feed before a mission.' He paused, struggling to hold back from purging his mech-sized meal. 'That's the last time I gallop down the hallways, either. I feel ridiculous.'
If he spewed chunks of protoform meat across the floor of the vent or onto his person - the smell would be impossible to hide.
Moving around was a tight-fit, even for a sleek mech like Starscream - the given tunnel was crafted to be smaller and more misshapen than the rest, as a security measure: the path led right up into Trypicton's delicate inner systems, and eventually his spark-chamber and processor, if a mech climbed far enough.
As Starscream moved along he noticed claw marks marring the walls nonsensically. He ran his digits along the markings - something inside his processor clicked - the scratches were from a sparkeater's claws. He felt as if he was obligated to see the marks as important somehow, like runes from a long lost dead language. Sometimes he would write secret messages to himself within the tunnels, but he couldn't remember which one this particular marking would've meant.
Then he came across several more random claw marks with no meaning, and he could only concluded that he hadn't been the one to make them.
'Laserbeak, perhaps?' but Starscream refused to believe that sweet little bird would've had reason to scratch up the one particular tunnel he happened to crawl into.
'Perhaps Laserbeak and Soundwave have discovered this place?'
Starscream could only hope a camera hadn't been placed into a hidden spot he'd never noticed before.
He wandered along further and he came across black energon, and Starcream grew one-hundred-percent certain he'd made the scratch marks and had simply forgotten. It was a black acidic stain, which had pitted and pocketed a once pristine and smooth surface - it was very clear that it was sparkeater's blood.
It smelled, just so.
'Strange, I don't remember bleeding down here.' He thought.
Then again, he didn't remember a lot of things.
It wasn't as if Shockwave would've been the culprit of the bleed - he simply couldn't have fit into the tunnels, nor would Shockwave have a reason to venture inside - not when he had access to drones to get a job done.
The answer of the culprit was on the tip of Starscream's processor, but he was much too distracted to think much about it, if at all.
The tunnel only went in one direction, and it ended in an unassuming generic vent-hatch, which opened back into the hallways; it was an exit Starscream used many times over, but his work was far from complete for the evening. He backpedaled, his wings twitched icily when he accidently brushed the tips along the misshapen walls. His claws clacked against an unassuming side of the wall, and the metal broke apart sideways as his servo was scanned - a hidden door that only Starscream knew about had opened.
Starscrean guffawed, twitching his servos, as if sharing to himself a private joke.
Trypicton had been notoriously picky about which bots he would give clearance to weasel around his insides and Starscream had been one such luckily individual. It wasn't common knowledge, but before the war, Starscream had been acting administrator of Trypticon Station.
It was little wonder then, that it was there, where Megatron had found him - all those millennia ago.
Always, Starscream recalled the moment he'd been recruited to the Decepticon-cause.
Join or die, the offer had been.
The words hadn't been spoken allowed, but it'd been given to all the mechs who'd once served Trypticon.
The tunnel bent upwards sharply, narrowing further. Starscream grumbled and he began to claw his way up against the wall, cutting his claws into the same mark-holes he'd clawed open many times before. It was an unconventional ladder, but saved Starscream the trouble of dulling his claws into useless nubs, and allowed him the luxury of not having to focus upon the task at hand.
He thought of what to tell Typticon.
What would get him to wake up?
For good?
He spoke often to Typticon - any chance he got, he'd sneak away to do so.
Typticon...wasn't his friend.
Not really.
Typticon was a colleague.
A good one.
One Starscream could trust to hate Megatron as much as he did.
Soon Starscream would have an ally to help him defeat Megatron, and with any luck, Typticon could be convinced to help fight Unicron.
Unicron.
Starscream shuddered from the mere thinking of the name - a word so cursed that it attracted the attention of spirits long dead.
Eventually, he reached the top, his head decisively clear, his tanks delightfully full.
He had his work cut out for him; especially, if he wanted to succeed in his plan to awaken Typticon.
Shockwave had given him a deadline he fully intended to meet. Between Megatron's developing sparkeater-infection and Unicron's pending resurrection, Starscream felt he was racing against two very deadly monsters.
He was.
But the reality of his situation, had never seemed so hopeless...before...
And urgent.
Not until that very moment.
From the darkness his servo ran across a wall, again finding what he was looking for. A scanner-mechanism from the ceiling activated, the beam an eerie green as it passed over his person.
"Welcome, Starscream." A voice said. It wasn't Typticon, but a pre-recorded message.
A door slide open, revealing Typticon's processor room, in all its glory.
Starscream sat down into a chair, meant for the exact procedure he had done many times before. His servo dragged alongside the wall, before pulling away, finding what he'd been looking for - a cord, horrendously thick with bands of hot purple.
A cortical psychic patch.
After getting comfortable in his seat, he went to plug it in.
He gasped, when he felt the dent in his head.
Looking down at the cortical patch cord, he felt a sense of dread,
Maybe his helm was a little too dented.
It didn't feel like superficial damage.
Starscream was mortified when he felt how deep the hole actually went.
It was as if the dent...the hole...had grown...somehow.
Starscream could only sigh. He'd forgotten to get it repaired entirely.
It would be fine.
It had to be.
Shockwave had done a number on him.
The procedure might kill him.
So what.
"Okay Typticon." His teeth clicked together nervously. "Please listen to me." Sucking in a puff of dust, preparing his systems for what he was about to do. "Listen. Just listen." He began to whisper incoherently, as if listing every sentence he meant to say to Typticon.
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He plugged in the cord.
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"Starscream?"