liesdontfindyou | Open Post

"I guess so. I mean, you're huge, it's not like I could personally do anything about... whatever you're doing. Other than stealing our fuel, that is."

She's not sure if her relative nonchalance is her lack of sleep or chronic lack of fucks to give, lately. There's a thousand questions swirling in her head and trying to pluck a single one from the whirlwhind is easier said than done when every time she looks at this... 'Cybertronian', another one is added.

"What I am doing is none of your concern!" He flicks his wings almost dismissively, back to scowling again. Starscream's not having a good day, but at least he's too currently self-absorbed to notice Connie still being so baffled down there. "Besides, this fuel is subpar! Who ordered this slag? I'm worth more than this scrap!"

"I don't know who orders that stuff; the Director, I guess? Or... whoever oversees the pilots?" Her nose scrunches slightly in thought, but she shakes her head. "And anyway, it wasn't exactly ordered with someone drinking it in mind. It's just for the ships and in my experience, ships aren't usually picky."

"If I was calling the shots here-" He bites off the rest of the sentence, shaking his head with a snarl. He draws himself up to his full height - well, as much as he can without banging his head or wings on the ceiling - and sneers down at her. "I can be as 'picky' as I want. After all- You are addressing Starscream, Air Commander, Second in Command, and eventual leader of the Decepticons!"

"I'm sure that would be very impressive if I actually knew what that meant," Connie says, not even intending to be snarky.

Watch him puff up with fury like an angry bird. "Well- It's very impressive, organic! Our kind is split into two factions, and one day I will be in charge of one of them!" Ah, so he is kinda answering questions, even if Connie hasn't actually properly voiced any yet.

"And when that happens, we'll be able to drive out those blasted Autobots and take back our home!"

Ah, infighting. Connie's seen enough of that for a lifetime.

"Well, as long as that stays far away from us... good luck, I suppose? Though I guess you being 'in charge' is pretty far away itself if you're stuck in our hangar."

"How can I tell you if we are or not with this mess?" He snaps, gesturing widely at the hangar. "Last time I was online and on Earth, you had barely invented your personal 'mobile phones'! Now you're running around in fragging starships!"

He bristles at her. "It will happen. Just you wait, human. I'll oust that bucket-of-bolts Megatron, and when I do, I'll win this Primus-damned war far quicker than our 'glorious leader' has ever done anything!"

Every new word she hears him say gets filed away into the 'figure out what that means later' pile in her mind. It's quickly growing.

"I mean, the ship has logs of our coordinates, the nearest population centers and more in our databanks, with how long you've been here I'm surprised you haven't figured that out already," Connie says, cocking her head. "I know I'm a... particularly nosy, person, but I think anyone stuck in a strange starship's hangar would try to figure out where they were."

"Don't you think I've tried!? Your - ugh - artificial intelligence has proven quite a thorn in my side! I will make progress, but its presence makes it infuriatingly slow." He sounds so insulted that a mere AI is beating him.

Of course, the fact is he's trying to brute force it more than anything, and yet still trying not to get caught. The 'Con has no subtlety sometimes.

Edited 2020-08-19 21:36 (UTC)

Connie blinks.

"Our..." Artificial Intelligence? "Do you mean F.I.L.S.S.? She's not usually any good at blocking intrusions, I can get past her in my sleep."

"Yes, whatever that pile of scrap is called!" He grits his dentae. Oh, how he hates to be shown up by a mere bag of flesh and bones! "It is in my way, and the usual methods I use on your pitiful Earth computers aren't working! Unless..."

He smirks briefly, and drops his voice to a purr, "You perhaps could assist this poor, lost Seeker?"

Connie narrows her eyes at him. "Oh, I could, very easily. But you'd have to give me a reason I should."

"Ah, well, that's simple, isn't it?" The Seeker smirks. "You have a lot of questions. I have a lot of answers. A small little trade, and you get those answers. Call it an exchange of information." He doesn't mind refreshing human memory of the glory of his kind, after all.

"How am I supposed to know that you're actually giving me accurate information and not spinning me a line?"

Really, she shouldn't be entertaining giving another alien species access to any of their navigational data at all, but... whatever this guy is, he's certainly not Covenant, or anything close, or he'd just have blown the ship to high hell already. Probably.

"You wound me, human." Starscream, you're laying it on a bit thick. "After all, how am I to know you'll be feeding me accurate information either?"

He leans back a bit. "Perhaps there is some information I can confirm... Holos of my home, perhaps?" It might be a bit of a gamble, but it's not like these humans will be able to find it. Besides, Shockwave would just blast any intruders - Autobot or otherwise - out of the skies. He didn't have to tell her that.

"That'd be better than nothing."

She's still not sure why she's entertaining this, the entire situation is ridiculous, but it's the ridiculousness that's keeping her there, she supposes.

"And literally anything I give you about humanity could be verified by other sources."

"Well, if you insist..." A roll of the optics, and he grabs a datapad from his subspace, setting it on the floor and playing back something Skywarp took a long time ago (and ignoring the pang in his spark when he remembers Skywarp is dead). It's Starscream, his tetrajet mode bright against the dark sky of Cybertron, while Thundercracker's blue form keeps pace. It's the tail end of something acrobatic - leave it to Skywarp to start rolling right at the end - and they stop and transform to land right in front of the camera.

Starscream can't help but puff out with pride a bit at the sight. He slagging well earned his position of Air Commander, and in his eyes that display shows it. "There. That's Cybertron."

Connie watches it with all the curiosity that is ingrained within her to her very core, taking in the backdrop and the colours and the motions that answer at least one question on their own, about how a jet could become an almost 'humanoid' form.

"Huh. That's..." She isn't quite sure what she intends to say, but she settles on, "There really are more of you."

"We are an entire species," he snarks back in return. "Now, is that proof enough, or must I show you more?"

Slowly a hand goes to the datapad, just in case. He would rather it stayed close at hand; it was part of the deal to get his body back, that it be returned to him.

"You'll show me more," she says, with a look in her eye that says she means every inch of that assurance, "but later. I suppose it's only fair I show you some information in return."

Starscream eyes her a bit, wondering for a moment if her words are just posturing or if they mean a consequence if he doesn't comply... Only to grimace as he decides he really can't take that chance. "Fine. Show me your... Intel."

She has her own data-pad on hand, though she wishes she had her PC instead—things are generally quicker, on there, but it's not as if she carries it around. The problem with either device, she realises, is that they're exceptionally small and the text even smaller, but she'll cross that bridge when she comes to it.

Pulling up the Invention's current position in space and the nearest population centres isn't hard. It's technically public knowledge, to anyone with the most basic level of clearance.

"Here we go. We're a long way out from Earth, out here, but..."

If a transformers' eyes could bug out, they'd be doing so here. As it is, Starscream is silent for a good few seconds, going over the information with a sharp eye. For all his arrogance and his posturing, he can't help but breathe a soft, "...Primus."

But don't worry; he's gathering himself back up another moment later. "What human year is it? How can you be this far forward in your technology!?" They're nowhere near Cybertron, thank Primus, but it's startling to see how far these human starships can apparently go.

"2548. We've been space-faring for... a few centuries? Give or take a couple decades. There's plenty of documentation on that but I haven't memorised it. We use slipspace travel, we have colonies anywhere from a couple of lightyears away from Earth to eighty lightyears."

She shrugs slightly.

"I'm only in my twenties. This is all I've ever known."

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