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[liesdontfindyou]

 

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AUs:

• Connie survives Longshore and either a) is the CT at Sandtrap b) ends up in Blood Gulch c) disappears until another point in time, canon event related or not.
• Connie never defects from Project Freelancer.

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[liesdontfindyou]

"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.

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

"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.

[liesdontfindyou]

"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."

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

"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."

[liesdontfindyou]

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."

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

"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.

[liesdontfindyou]

"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."

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

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."

[liesdontfindyou]

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..."

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

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.

[liesdontfindyou]

"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."

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

A beat. Then, shrill and almost angry, loud and screechy enough to rival a certain AI, "2548!? I've been floating in space for 540 years!?" His engines rev dangerously, and his vents cycle- Five hundred and forty years wasn't much in the life of a transformer - it was barely seven vorns that had passed in their own reckoning, after all - and yet so much could happen in such a short amount of time! Where the frag were the Autobots, the Decepticons?

His kind had been losing. Had they finally lost? Had they been ground under the Autobot pede for good?

His weapons whine as they fire up in his anger, but- He forces the null rays to quiet, to cycle back down. If anything, he could be even more on his own. Even more without anything to return to. "Seven vorns. Those idiots have probably blown themselves up by now!"

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie jumps at the sudden loud noises and automatically scrambles back, staring up at him.

"Whoa, hey, try not to burst my ear drums!"

It's not hard to make the logical leap from 'vorns' to a measurement of time passage, much different from humanity's own, at least. Wow, that's a big conversion discrepancy.

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

"I don't care about whatever drums are in your ears!" But he is getting quieter, and red optics flick to watch the entrances to the hangar quite warily.

"All this time and you haven't heard a peep more from us!?" Oh, he doesn't like the implications of that. The Decepticons should've blazed across the galaxy now, if they were in any shape to make a mark.

[liesdontfindyou]

"Not that I've seen. I mean, look, I know a lot of things I shouldn't know, but I don't have access to records stretching back... 540 years," she says, holding up her hands. "I don't have access to certain levels of clearance. There could have been contact but I have genuinely no way of knowing."

She can't say she'd be surprised if there had been and numerous governments had kept it covered up throughout the centuries. If the Covenant hadn't been actively hostile and trying to wipe out the entire species, she wouldn't have even been surprised if their existence would have been hidden.

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

"Your species has an inferiority complex. How am I not surprised?" His tone is absolutely bitter though, stained with it all the way down.

But he squints deeper at her datapad, over the planetary information, and snaps, "What does 'glassed' mean?"

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie noticeably tenses, swallowing a lump in her throat. Her fingertips catch at a scar across her palm.

"Destroyed. Burned to the ground. The aliens we're fighting, they... they have this special type of energy source for their weapons. On a large scale, it's capable of reducing any human city to a melted, chemical soup that we just... call glass, because that's easier to say. Gets the point across."

She tries not to think too hard about that. About what her own home had been reduced to, somewhere lightyears away from here.

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

Starscream scoffs. He'd be an idiot to not notice just how many planets appeared to be glassed. "A waste of plasma and resources. Your opponents are more foolish than even your kind!"

"If your Autobot friends were still around, they would have cleared up that problem for you. But it seems your governments drove them off!" Or something. Starscream's just guessing.

[liesdontfindyou]

"They probably did, I wouldn't be surprised, but I think this is beyond the reach of whoever the Autobots are, Starscream," she says, shaking her head. "The Covenant want our extinction, they won't settle for less. Anyone who gets in their way..."

She shrugs. The war has always been hopeless. She truly doubts that even a large number of Starscream's kind could have had an impact, and doubts even more than anyone would want to step in on humanity's behalf.

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

"Ah, well, they always did like hopeless causes," he mutters. But if these humans are threatened, that means Starscream is too- At least, as long as he stays aboard this blasted starship of theirs.

But it also affords an opportunity.

"How about I strike you a better deal than just for my information?"

[liesdontfindyou]

Her fingers flex slightly before curling back to pick at that scar, but Connie raises a brow at him, "Depends what that deal is."

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

"As Air Commander, I am an accomplished fighter. The finest flier of the Seekers, second to none in the air! I'll protect this little starship of yours from your enemies, as well as give you information of my kind."

He smiles, but it's all pride. "Is that suitable?"

[liesdontfindyou]

They don't actually see a lot of direct combat with the ship, let alone with the Covenant considering their assignments, Connie thinks, but... she supposes if there ever was that any help would be useful.

So she nods, "Yeah, sure. That's suitable."

[lordmegatronhasfallen]

"Then it's a deal. How do you humans say it? 'You'll scratch my back, I'll scratch yours'?" He smirks and nods. "Perfect."

[liesdontfindyou]

Honestly, Connie has no idea exactly what deal she just made and on behalf of who. No one else knows this... Cybertronian (wrapping her head around the word and all its implications is still a little difficult) even exists, let alone that she's talking to him, telling him things. She hopes it isn't a mistake.

"That's the saying, though I think I'd struggle to ever literally scratch your back." Oh, and she's joking with him now. Maybe she's been up too long. Maybe she'll wake up and somehow this was all a strange dream, provoked by Wash talking about some old cartoon or something.

(It isn't, she knows that really, but that'd certainly be simpler.)