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Shockwave lifted the last of the Predacon remains into a specimen jar, sealing it away for transport. All was in readiness for the next stage of production, and he would begin his work as soon as he returned to the makeshift laboratory on the planetary surface. Still, there remained one thing more for him to do before he left the Nemesis. Megatron would not begrudge him this brief time for personal matters. He pinged Soundwave with a request for his location.
To his surprise, the coordinates Soundwave transmitted did not correspond with the main bridge, but the upper decks. Requests for additional information were met with teasing silence. Curious, Shockwave headed for the airlocks.
At this altitude the atmosphere shrieked over the deck, cold and sharp, strong enough to scour it clear of any debris the crew might be foolish enough to leave unsecured. Neither of the deck's current occupants took any notice of the wind, however.
Shockwave was not given to sentimentality, but he allowed himself a moment to appreciate the sight before him. Soundwave stood watching the Predacon, not cowering as Starscream did but fearlessly, his upturned face alight with the readouts of some scan or communication. The creature seemed captivated by it, its long neck curled so close that its vents must surely have been mixing with Soundwave's own. Though far smaller, Soundwave looked every bit the predator alongside their new hunter, his spare frame perfectly tuned for maximum efficiency.
He was beautiful.
The Predacon, highly attuned to Shockwave's energy fields after so long alone with him on a dead planet, swung its head around abruptly, and the moment was broken. Shockwave saw, in the brief flash as Soundwave, too, turned in his direction, that his visor had been displaying scans of the Predacon itself.
The creature lumbered towards him, its head lowered to solicit petting from its creator. Having found that such behavior tended to encourage obedience in his clones, Shockwave indulged it. It sighed, its optics half-shuttering, and pressed harder into his hand.
Soundwave watched them, motionless against the wind, his head tilted at a minute angle. An unobservant bot might find him entirely opaque, but Shockwave knew him well enough to read the curiosity in his stance.
"Project: Predacon is ready to commence," Shockwave said without preamble, "As you are no doubt aware, this will require me to remain at my off-site laboratory for some time. If you wish to conclude the data exchange, it would best be done before I depart."
Soundwave inclined his head. The sunlight glanced off his visor, refracting into a cascade of color across its surface. He stepped forward, silently, and crossed into the shadows of the airlock.
Shockwave ceased petting the Predacon. It seemed disgruntled, and butted Shockwave's hand in hopes of resuming the activity. When no more was forthcoming, it snorted, gathered itself up on its haunches, and leapt up onto one of the long spines ringing the hull of the Nemesis. There it spread its wings in order to engage its primitive solar converters, its pose strangely reminiscent of basking behavior in the fauna of this planet. Shockwave left it to its business.
The common grunts scattered before them as they made their way through the halls together. That was as well. Shockwave had always found crowds to be disagreeable, and the press of so many strange frames irritated him more than ever after his long isolation. Soundwave walked beside him, the only welcome presence out of the whole lot. He maintained perfect economy of motion, his step unhurried. Anticipation sparked through Shockwave, raising his charge marginally, and though he gave no outward sign that the Vehicons might be able to detect, Soundwave moved to walk that much closer to him, their fields crossing and parting.
Soundwave turned down the corridor that would bring him to his quarters and Shockwave followed. His own quarters presently consisted of a partitioned section of the Nemesis laboratories, and were less than suitable for the activity at hand. At the door, they paused so that Laserbeak might undock from his host. The deployer dropped from Soundwave’s chest soundlessly, unfolding his multi-planed wings.
“Greetings,” said Shockwave, holding out his arm as Soundwave had taught him long ago. Laserbeak chirred in response, alighting on his plating with a quiet whirr of his antigravs. Shockwave scratched gently at a gap in his plating just behind one of his feelers, and like the Predacon, Laserbeak leaned into the touch with every sign of pleasure. “I trust you will be well, Laserbeak? We may be some time.”
Laserbeak chirred again, rising into the air. In a rare show of cheek, he tweaked the end of Shockwave’s left primary antenna with one of his feelers as he passed, slipping hastily down the corridor before his host could think to reprimand him.
Soundwave transmitted an injunction to avoid the Air Commander’s sight, but received no response. They were an odd class, deployers, and one Shockwave had not properly appreciated before his association with Soundwave. Their lateral thinking confounded his logical processors, but in the hands of a clear-sighted host they became an invaluable resource. Shockwave lamented that Laserbeak seemed to be the last of Soundwave’s team.
Alone now, they progressed into the room. Soundwave had no more use for personal belongings than Shockwave did, and without the knickknacks that had once belonged to his deployers cluttering the floor, his quarters had been pared down to the most basic necessities: a recharge slab, a separate dock for Laserbeak, a fuel dispenser. He kept only two markers of rank, an enormous data terminal and private maintenance facilities.
Shockwave made to approach the recharge slab, but was arrested by a tug at his hip. Looking down, he watched one of Soundwave’s long feelers slide around his waist, the clamp at the end parting to display his delicate data cables. He had not heard Soundwave approach, but he could feel him, now, as he let his field flare about him, prickling against Shockwave’s back. A second cable joined the first, and Shockwave turned in their embrace, coming face-to-face with the communications specialist.
Shockwave flared his own field, a rare indulgence, rarer still since he had been left for dead with no company but his own test subjects. As their signals crossed, Soundwave’s visor activated, tracking the ebb and flow of electromagnetic energy between them. One of his feelers twined with the energon line that fueled Shockwave’s blaster, tugging gently. Shockwave’s spark spun up at the touch, and he watched as the display on Soundwave’s visor caught the change, painting a ghostly image of his frame in the form of the charge crawling over his plating. Shockwave drew his hand down Soundwave’s back, a long stroke following the line of biolights from collar to hips. Soundwave arched, and his visor dutifully displayed the ripple in his field.
“Fascinating,” said Shockwave. He might have experimented with the display further, but Soundwave pressed forward, closing the space between them and tightening his feelers’ embrace. Shockwave allowed himself to be redirected towards the maintenance facilities.
Soundwave’s preoccupation with watching him bathe defied reason, but Shockwave found that he was willing to indulge it. Their first coupling had occurred in the decontamination suite in his old labs in Tarn, and the symmetry of renewing their association in the same way pleased him.
Shockwave stepped into the unit, spacious for shipboard facilities but a rather close fit once Soundwave followed him. He activated the solvent spray, which a quick chemical analysis indicated was mostly hydrogen dioxide. There were some advantages at least to worlds as water-rich as this one; they were unlikely to run short as long as they remained in orbit. It rained down over him, catching against his antenna, and to his surprise the temperature seemed to have been pre-set to his preferred range. He well recalled that Soundwave, or perhaps his deployers, preferred it significantly warmer.
He looked at Soundwave, who merely gazed back, his posture relaxed, his field smug. Ah. He had planned this all along. Satisfied, Shockwave stepped under the spray and began cleaning the grit from his plating.
He worked methodically, efficiently clearing the accumulated filth of his last retrieval mission out of his seams. The solvent drummed against his plating, running in rivulets over his frame. He had yet to discern what it was about this activity that charged Soundwave’s spark so. Since perfecting the cortical psychic patch he had seen more than he could ever wish of the ridiculous things Autobots wasted drive space on, and no few had harbored fantasies with such a setting, but they were wholly unlike his encounters with Soundwave. Shockwave did not make a fool of himself by posing or flaunting his frame, he merely washed. Yet he very clearly felt the intensity of Soundwave’s attention and the ardent note in his fields.
For a long moment, Soundwave merely watched. They were so close in the confined space that his field felt almost like a physical touch, yet he kept his distance while Shockwave selected a brush. He had an impressive array to choose from, especially for one who kept few personal possessions, for though Soundwave was hardly vain, like the medic, he had always taken meticulous care of his and his deployer’s frames.
He stepped closer as Shockwave bent to begin scrubbing at the pebbles ground into his undercarriage, picking up his own brush in spindly fingers. He applied it vigorously to Shockwave’s treads, which allowed him to also press up against his back between them. His body burned like a live wire, in sharp contrast to the cool solvent spray. Shockwave shuddered.
The two of them made quick work of it, particularly once Soundwave engaged his feelers also. The stiff bristles felt pleasant against Shockwave’s plating, and Soundwave’s frame sliding against his own as they wove around each other in the narrow space felt more pleasant still. Soundwave twined around him, slipping easily from one place to the next as Shockwave turned under the spray. The solvent still ran cool, but their frame temperatures warmed the unit to dizzying levels.
It was well that Shockwave had already been relatively clean before they began, as Soundwave’s proximity, the maddening desire in his field, was quickly driving him to distraction. He set aside his brush and turned, catching Soundwave up in his one good hand. He clutched at Shockwave’s shoulders eagerly, throwing aside his own brushes with uncharacteristic abandon. Soundwave had always responded favorably to the strength of Shockwave’s frame, which puzzled him. If strength was what he desired, there were many finer frames among the Decepticons, including their Lord. Still, it was flattering.
The feelers became active again, coiling around Shockwave’s limbs, seeking for the joins in his plating. Shockwave fumbled for the controls on the solvent, flicking off the spray lest he fry his circuitry. He arched, loosening his surface layers, and immediately he felt the cool, hard pressure of the clamp locking down against his side. His armor was far too thick to pick up on the sensation of Soundwave’s data cables slipping out of their protective casing, but when they wriggled beneath…
Shockwave cried out as the fine tendrils buried themselves in his circuitry. He staggered, bracing against his gun arm, as his hydraulics suddenly lost pressure, though he managed to keep Soundwave clasped to his chest. He felt every hair-thin sensor writhing inside him with agonizing clarity. They delved deeper, into systems not meant to be touched by anyone, far out of reach for even the most slender-fingered of bots. Standing over him now with predatory alertness, Soundwave watched him, his head tilted to the side, his fields billowing about him eagerly. His visor displayed a new schematic of Shockwave, thermal this time. He blazed, furnace-like, white-hot at the spark and red out even to the tips of his fingers.
Shockwave was watching the display when Soundwave’s second cable clamped down directly over his spine. He reeled, dropping at last to his knees in the damp maintenance unit, vocalizing freely. The cables sank directly into his neural net, hacking into his sensory suite as easily as if he were one of the native’s primitive computers. False readings of heat, cold, and touch swept over him, leaving him trembling at the communications officer’s mercy.
Once, Shockwave had been ashamed of his sheer volume during their encounters. He had always found the rule of baser coding to be distasteful at best, and been rather dismayed to discover that he was not so above such animal impulses as he had once thought. Soundwave had had to expend great effort to convince him that such shame was pointless and irrational. Now, however, he let his frame react as it would, writhing and gasping, and his hand clutched at Soundwave’s waist, then the broad plane of his arm.
As diverting as such preliminary activities were, however, Shockwave was intimately aware of their timetable, and in any case had little patience for purely physical activities when what he truly desired was so near at hand. He triggered the autorelease on his interface ports, two conventional inputs installed below and to either side of his chest plating.
“Please,” he said, for once uncaring of the staticky quality of his voice, “let us continue.”
His vents stuttered as Soundwave swiftly extracted his cables from beneath his plating and curled his feelers around, winding around each other back to front. They pulled, inexorably guiding Shockwave to sit back, leaning against the unit wall, and Soundwave arranged himself on the floor between his thighs. Shockwave had hardly registered the sudden loss of false readings in his systems before Soundwave plugged into him properly, his clamps locking down against Shockwave’s ports.
Shockwave’s head spun, his optical feed cutting out abruptly in a vain attempt to slow the sudden onslaught of charge to more manageable levels. No matter how many times they did this, the initial linkup always felt the same; too much too fast, both of them lusting for the touch of another processor with a hunger that, Shockwave knew, few others thought them capable of.
Trust was not given easily or gladly in the Decepticons. The first time they interfaced, ages ago in Tarn, he had wondered if he was not a bit mad to desire such a thing. He was loyal enough, as Decepticons went. At the least, he had no desire to become Lord himself and every reason to be grateful for a master willing to indulge his more esoteric experiments. Even so, it was only logical to fear what Cybertron’s most talented hacker could do with free access to his processors. He had things he would rather Megatron not know about, projects and plans of his own. Every Decepticon did.
Soundwave had not hacked into his most secret files. In all the millions of years since, Soundwave had never taken from him more than was given freely.
Dimly, Shockwave could feel Soundwave’s hands on his chest, drawing out his own data cables. They were only standard connection jacks, nothing like Soundwave’s exotic equipment, and had to be plugged in by hand. Soundwave pinched them delicately in his spindly fingers, spooling out the cable and slotting them home in his own chest.
Abruptly the cacophony of data snapped into focus, their two-way connection regulating the flow between them.
Query, Soundwave asked, his mind’s voice loud and unmistakable, Shockwave wishes to begin?
“Yes,” he replied, the last word he would speak aloud for some time.
The link opened, and Shockwave trembled. Soundwave’s mind unfolded before him in mathematically-precise splendor, more beautiful, more efficient, than anything he had ever encountered. Since perfecting the cortical psychic patch, Shockwave had become quite familiar with the processing patterns of the average Cybertronian, and it had only served to tell him what he already knew; that Soundwave was a marvel. He traced the precise, organized banks of memories reverently, following the lines of tags from one data cluster to the next with great pleasure.
Soundwave poured data across the connection in an unstoppable flood, the load so heavy Shockwave’s processors staggered under it. Not that Soundwave’s management was inefficient; to the contrary, the transfer was more streamlined than ever, each incident accompanied by precisely the correct amount of data. It was only that so much had happened since their last parting, and so many things had demanded Soundwave’s attention.
Shockwave drank it all in eagerly, relishing the thoroughness with which Soundwave performed all tasks. He could not possibly unpack all that Soundwave sent him in this moment, but the rest would keep him company during the long hours in the lab to come. For the moment, he let only a few streams play across his active memory, guided by Soundwave’s insistent presence in his processors. They passed fleetingly; Soundwave’s takedown of Airachnid, the pulse of the Destroyer’s spark, the surprising skill in the hands of a native subadult.
He paused over a detailed recording of himself, leaping down the side of Darkmount rebuilt, feeling bemused. Clearly, Soundwave had directed one of the Nemesis’ cameras to track his movements. He had only meant to make the quickest descent possible. He supposed it looked more impressive from an outside perspective.
Energy looped between them, piggybacking off of their connection, and already Shockwave could feel his systems straining to keep up. He composed his own transfer, clumsier than Soundwave’s but no less thorough. Soundwave had never hacked into that to which he was not welcome, but Shockwave found he himself holding back less and less each time they coupled. Perhaps it was unwise to be so trusting, but in this case he felt there was little point in withholding information. There was not much for him to share, really, save some details of his renewed interest in cloning techniques. The long hours of solitude had left him with little else to do.
Soundwave swayed above him, nearly overcome by the feedback loop. He braced himself against Shockwave’s cannon arm, and Shockwave allowed his other hand to trace over his chest, over the sensitive lines where a deployer would dock, over and over and over. Soundwave made no noise, but Shockwave could not help but think his quietness had a different quality about it than the silence on Cybertron.
Shockwave had always valued solitude. So few of his fellow Cybertronians processed at anything near his level, they only impeded his work. Many times, he had wished that he could simply do away with them all, the low-grade troops, the Autobots, the idiot neutrals, so that he could work in peace and quiet. Yet when he finally had that, the barren peace of a dead planet, he found that there was one spark, at least, that he missed, one intellect his equal, and without it, he was, unexpectedly, lonely.
Unbidden, his field reached out, meshing with the one he had missed so fiercely he scarcely knew how to process it. Such things were weakness, surely, and yet Soundwave’s field reached for him in turn, as Soundwave’s hands reached for him, and Shockwave overloaded suddenly. The burst of charge shot through their cables, sending Soundwave over as well, looping back into him over and over until he almost feared that it would short his processors.
It did not. They lay together for a long moment, listening to the ping of cooling metal and the hum of their fans. Soon they would have to take up their duties again, and it was not entirely logical to put that time off by simply lying around, but Shockwave told himself that it was at least necessary to give his systems time to reset. Soundwave’s amusement zipped across the connection.
At last, Soundwave shifted, disengaging his data cables. Shockwave felt them slither around him, back into their housing in Soundwave’s chest. He raised his hand, which shook slightly, much to his consternation, and unplugged his own cables.
Still they did not rise. Instead, Soundwave settled himself more comfortably on Shockwave’s chest, idly picking through his collection of brushes with one hand. His visor, for once, was blank, but it was easy enough for Shockwave to read the languid pleasure in his field. They regarded each other in companionable silence. A few stray sparks discharged in the puddles of solvent left on the maintenance unit’s floor, miniature violet lightning.
Soundwave held up a brush, not one of the large ones they had used earlier but a tiny one he reserved for his deployers’ detailing. He turned it in his spindly fingers. “Shockwave: highly valued,” said Soundwave abruptly, “His loss: deeply felt.”
Shockwave started. Soundwave spoke aloud in his own voice so rarely, even he had only heard it a handful of times. It reverberated in the air between them, multilayered. Carefully, Shockwave laid his hand against Soundwave’s helm, letting his thumb brush the frame of his visor. Quietly, he asked, “By the Decepticons, or by you personally?”
Soundwave turned his head into the caress. “Both,” he admitted.
“I see.” Shockwave let his thumb glide lightly over Soundwave’s visor. “I value you as well, Soundwave. I look forward to the completion of this project, when we may be free to work together, as we once did. I will not be parted from you so easily again.”
Soundwave caught his hand, pulling it away from his visor to regard it critically. Picking up the brush again, he began to apply it to the fine seams of Shockwave’s fingers with the narrow, intense focus he once reserved for his deployers only.
“I am already clean, Soundwave.”
The communications officer made no reply. He had spoken his piece. Shockwave might have protested more, as there was no reason to waste Soundwave’s valuable time when he was only going to return to the dust-ridden planetary surface when they finished, but he subsided. Soundwave made a comfortable weight on his frame, and their fields were still in harmony. Likely they would never merge sparks, or any other foolish, sentimental thing, but Shockwave supposed he could allow himself this indulgence.
It felt nice to have company.