Soundbyte

Note: Details are left vague on purpose, so things can more easily be tweaked and altered to suit the story.

Information. That's what he was trained to love above all else--gathering and collecting information, sifting through it, collating it, and passing it on to Soundwave. He was a good reconnaissance adjutant, with an eye toward Soundwave's own position since he was hatched.

His first mission was to a planet with only primitive species thereon. It was a simple mission, like all first missions are, and as he expected he passed with flying colors. His next missions rose steeply in difficulty, but he passed those, too. Granted, one was "passed" only technically, as he and his recon-units all but fled the continent, leaving a wake of angered natives behind--but he got the information, and that's what mattered.

He became enmeshed in the war, never able to understand why Optimus Prime seemed to believe that Cybertronians didn't deserve to live. Energon was quickly becoming a scarce resource; so what if it cost other species the lives of some individuals--or the entire race--if it meant Cybertronians would live? The fanaticism of the Autobots didn't help, either, but Soundbyte kept in mind that he was on the right side--the side that would let his people live.

And yet...

He'll never forget the look on that one creature's face as their city was destroyed in the hunt for Energon. They'd unknowingly stumbled upon it, which alerted the Decepticons. Soundbyte was put in charge of intelligence-gathering, and stayed around when he'd finished his task to get a hit of fresh Energon.

Oh, how that creature screamed. Soundbyte didn't know organic creatures could make that sound--that wail. That grieving keen. It stuck with him from that point on, hovering around the back of his mind, seemingly stuck in his logic sub-routines, unable to be deleted.

When he got the call that he was being sent to a little, water-logged, backward planet in an otherwise-irrelevant and insignificant section of the galaxy because they, too, had stumbled upon Energon, that death-wail looped in the back of his mind.

Surely that was a fluke, he thought as he careened toward that water-ball's atmosphere in his space-travel form. It's not like any finite, organic species could ever have the depth of soul and understanding of fighting for one's life like a Cybertronian.

And yet...