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It was a rarely acknowledged fact that Starscream's roots lay not with the upper Vosian strata so much as with the laboratory elite. Much in the same way, Starscream supposed, that the average Decepticon never really thought about Megatron's relationship with Optimus Prime or truly considered the roots of their revolution.
Though he was loathe to admit it, in terms of research results, his own experiments were still leagues behind those of Shockwave. But Shockwave was a one-optic'd freak of nature so that was to be expected. When placed against any other bot, Starscream was certain his own ingenuity would come out on top.
This was the rationale behind his current plot. An outcast from the main Decepticon fleet though he remained, he was nonetheless certain that it was only a matter of time before Megatron realised what a sorry excuse for a second in command Dreadwing... or Airachnid... or whoever the hell he had in charge these days was. And then he'd come knocking on Starscream's door and demand in that half-furious half-cajoling manner of his for Starscream to take his old position back.
The plot, which was really simple, as all the best plots ought to be (Shockwave should take note, his processor sniped), would be ample proof of his continued loyalty and utility towards the Decepticon cause.
It went as follows: the sniveling Autobots, upper caste losers that they were, terribly enjoyed making merry with the organic lifeforms on the planet. Though Megatron scoffed at directly engaging with the fleshlings, the fact remained that Prime's team had a servos and pede on them simply because the organics were by and large on their side.
The current device then, was meant to sway things in their favour. It functioned like a cortical psychic patch, except instead of hooking into a Cybertronian processor, it would latch onto the little grey matter between the fleshling's optics (squishy little white things with bits of colour, truly nasty pieces of work) and sift through the pertinent data.
As fleshlings were far easier to capture than Autobots, Starscream was certain this device would allow him — and later on, the rest of the Decepticons (once Megatron escorted him back into the fold, of course) — to view the rough location of the fabled Autobot base.
Constructing such a device was a pain in the aft in itself, even without accounting for his situation. But time was the one thing he had a lot of... well, that and miserable two-timing back-stabbing clones. And soon enough his look-alike minions had managed to amass all the parts necessary for his little fleshling processor scanner which he gave the sporting designation of Organics Inner Circuitry Scanner, or OrganScan for short.
After running it through a dozen artificial experiments, all of which came up aces, Starscream decided it was time to put OrganScan to the test.
And for that, he needed an organic. Preferably one with information Megatron — and therefore the rest of the Decepticon cause — might find useful. It wasn't as if he had a surplus of Energon these days, what with being an outcast and all.
Thankfully, the fleshlings were just so easy to lead astray. Starscream vaguely remembered this one: a pudgy little organic Laserbeak had brought back to the Nemesis a quartex before his own untimely departure.
"I do apologise for the accommodation," he said, knowing full well his clone had knocked said captive out cold, "But if all goes well... well, let's just say one of our standards of living will go up at the end, eh?"
And without further ado, he attached the relevant cable — which needed to be tiny in order to accommodate the planet's miniscule lifeforms — to the space between the fleshling's optics. Then, biting back a grimace at the indignity of the action (though he knew full well any information gleaned from this exercise was best left out of the knowledge of any of his power-hungry copies), Starscream plugged his own processor into the other end.
As with the cortical psychic patch, the uplink was instantaneous. Starscream was delighted to note it was even smoother than the patch proper. Most likely something to do with how little data the organics' processors seemed capable of holding.
He was, in any case, in the pudgy little organic's processor and the organic in question none the wiser. And thus he began his cursory search for the Autobot base... or any other choice tidbits.
As expected, the little fleshling's processor was as muddled as was to be expected. Starscream wasn't certain if it was because this organic associated with Prime and his ilk or if it was just all organics, but there was, in any case, far too much in the fleshling's processor devoted to extraneous data. Bytes and glyphs and whole recordings that any reasonable Cybertronian would have stored in an external drive if not deleted altogether... just lying there, next to pertinent information like the location of the Autobot base.
After a whole joor of searching, Starscream finally stumbled upon some memory or another that seemed to include the Prime and his medic in the base in question.
His own optic ridges shot sky-high as the memory flashed by.
"Impossible," he breathed, even as he scrambled for the yet-unused sequence of commands that would allow him to experience the memory in real time. It had been a leftover from the cortical psychic patch code which he had swiped for the construction of the OrganScan and not something he had seriously considered using.
Sure enough, a second slower playback confirmed his initial evaluation.
Starscream stared and stared. The fleshling clearly had no idea what he had just witnessed. He would have been scandalised or disgusted or some combination of the two if he had known. As it was, Starscream was still in shock.
For there, in the pudgy little fleshling's processor, as clearly there as the fleshling's memory of his last refueling or his deactivated carrier, was a scene of Optimus Prime with his medic in the middle of interface.
Starscream must have watched it ten times, played slower and slower each time. He was at once disgusted and intrigued. Who would have thought the last of the Primes was anything other than the picture of chastity? And to be interfacing so openly... so boldly with his own medic. The practiced way which they disengaged from one another at the fleshling's entrance spoke volumes to the frequency of said sessions, as did the fact that they appeared to be capable of silently reaching overload. Starscream stared at the telltale jerk of the medic's hips, as well as the tightening of Prime's servos against the medic's mainline cable, but couldn't come up with any other explanation. Save for the obvious one.
The facts were there, laid out by the unwitting witness. Optimus Prime was regularly fragging his medic. Well, technically, he was regularly being fragged by his medic, but the statement was no less shocking.
Starscream was dismayed to find his own interface protocols bubbling to life at the end of the recording. His spike, which had been neglected well before his (temporary, he insisted) departure from service had now pressurised to half-mast. He disengaged himself from the fleshling's memories, pulling the cable from his helm with unnecessary vehemence before glaring down at his uncooperative piece of anatomy.
No, he thought to himself, firmly junking the half-baked line of interface code. He would not bring himself to overload at the thought of Optimus Prime being spiked by his medic. He would not.
As expected, the OrganScan would prove useful to the cause. The field test had been a success on all counts. After ordering his clone to deposit the fleshling back where he had been found, all that was left to do was wait for Megatron to come knocking on his door.
Well, and consider what to do with this newfound bit of information. Starscream's optic ridges furrowed at the memory. He feared a cortical psychic patch — which he knew his glorious leader might well demand upon his return — would reveal his own knowledge of the relationship. Megatron was obsessed enough as it was with the Prime... there was no chance in the Pit that he'd be able to disregard the intimate nature of their relationship.
The overall Decepticon cause — and inevitable triumph — had absolute priority, Starscream reiterated to himself. If Megatron were unfit to lead, he himself would of course take the reins. It was what he'd promised, after all. And if this little recording was what pushed their glorious leader over the edge... well.
Thus he booted the memory to a little external drive, wiping all traces of it from his processor. It would serve as nice collateral, he decided. A little insurance policy that was sure to distract Megatron long enough for Starscream to return to his good graces.
And if he went back once in a while to said memory... it would be understandable. He needed to remember it was there, after all. And if his spike reacted in the same way as before... well, it would just be a matter of scrubbing his own memories anew. And his servos.
Processor sufficiently made up, Starscream set aside the OrganScan and turned his attention instead to the speech he would surely have to give on the occasion of his (imminent) triumphant return.