| abstract
| - Dreadwind is slumped at the recharging console though apparently not plugged in, either he didn't quite make it in time and has ground to a halt mere millimeters from salvation or he's fully recharged and just can't be bothered to actually leave and continue his so very tiring and demanding duties. Redshift rolls in, a pair of crude WHEELS bolted to his torso, below which there is only dangling wires and broken pieces. "SLAGGIT, there aren't HERE either!" Dreadwind is disturbed from his dark melancholy and his mind claws its way through the darkness and back to the world of pain and suffering. His head shifts slightly his dull optics resting on one of his responsibilities taking in the somewhat horrific injury he however doesn't seem at all moved by it. "Your legs? No one cares about them, only you, it would be far better to just get used to the wheels before you get any worse..." Fusillade figuratively appears in a whiff of brimstone and smoke. Without much introduction, Fusillade shimmies over to Redshift's table. Leans over him, chin jutted out slightly in a gleeful moue. Fusillade leers. Redshift rolls around the repair bay, checking in various nooks and crannies for his missing parts. "Maybe they just got delivered to a different repair bay..." He mutters. His legs and hips are missing, so he's almost sitting on the floor, held up by only a pair of crude wheels. "Fusillade, I hope you're here to help me /look/, unlike that pointless waste of space." He snaps, jerking one thumb at Dreadwind's bemoaning form. "Tut tut," Fusillade tsks at Reshift, "Insubordination of a ranking officer. Your AIR COMMANDER, no less." She sashays over to him, and hmmms thoughtfully, peering down even further at the spacer. "Gimme yer hands." Combat: Fusillade strikes Redshift with her Grab attack! Combat: You took 0 damage. Fusillade cackles, and then cantelevers Redshift forward, so his nose is brushing over the medical bay tiles, and then begins to scoot him around around like a wheelbarrow, using his arms. Dreadwind sighs as Fusillade enters, this is not going to be good, it never is, the more Decepticons around the more likely things will turn violent and that violence is usually turned on him and there is no way to avoid it. "Redshift, your legs are gone and yet you carry on suffering, you will never find them, but in time you will be given new ones so you can suffer the loss all over again." Redshift can do little to resist as Fusillade drags him around the medbay. "I wouldn't hav to be insubordinate if I had an air commander who /deserved/ the title, Fusillade," He grumbles. "Do you HAVE to roll me around? This is really not helping!" A gleeful peal of laughter escapes Fusillade as she zips Redshift around the medbay like an awkward Segway, but she eventually relents. "You'd be no fun on a date," she decrees, tipping him back upright with her index finger prodding into his forehead. "Just steal some of Blueshift's spares, if you really can't wait for the replacement order to come in. While you're at it, once you get back up and about, start sizing up some of the EDC satellites in near orbit around this dirtball. Wipe out the ones directly above Tetrahex and Shark and its canal." Dreadwind sighs again nearly missing Fusillade being almost kind to him by respecting his rank, though in his core he knows it's probably just so she can stab him in the back later. "You have wheels Redshift all you can do now is roll...." "You wouldn't have to worry about getting rolled around if you didn't insist on being a wheelbarrow," Boomslang remarks, coming in and staring blankly at the bizarre and possibly degenerate tableau. Boomslang adds, "Fat chance of successfully challenging Dreadwind for Air Commander as a wheelbarrow, by the way." Redshift says, "Easy for YOU to say, you still have all your limbs!" Scrapper wanders into the Medical Ward, because, uh, he works here. He's covered in dust and sand, which is normal. He pauses. He stares. He looks back at the door. He seriously contemplates wandering straight back out. "Keeping all my limbs attached to my torso is how I got where I am today," says Boomslang smugly, stepping out of the way for a Constructicon. Dreadwind is still slumped near the recharging station and doesn't bother to point out to Boomslang that he had to defeat Blueshift to gain his title so presumably Redshift would follow the same path to failure and thusly confirming the miserable commander's right to the position. "You wouldn't want the position Redshift, i know i didn't and look where that got me..." Fusillade gives Scrapper a faintly sheepish look, then releases Redshift's wrists. "Okay, give it me then," Fusillade says to Dreadwind. Scrapper sighs and enters, since Boomslang so kindly got out of the way, He observes absently, "That, and Seekers are blasted easy to repair. Parts are always in stock. Not so much with the more... custom models." Scrapper glances pointedly at Redshift. "No, don't let g-" Redshift flails his arms, and promptly falls flat on his face. "Great. Now I'm a roomba." "Ha ha suck it!" Fusillade says, overly pleased with her cleverness. Fusillade asides in a hoarse whisper to Redshift, "Blueshift's stock." Boomslang suppresses a groan at the pun, as Fusillade outranks him by too much, and punning is a right of the officer class. "Hey, have any of you seen Swindle or Fulcrum lately? I need to rearm." Scrapper cautions, "Careful, Redshift could develop an incurable urge to eat paste if he uses Blueshift's parts. Or he might just turn purple." He shakes his head at Boomslang's question, because he really hasn't seen either the Combaticon or the blacksmith at all lately! Scrapper tromps over to some cabinets, looking for the varnish buckets. Dreadwind looks at Fusillade, "Give you what? A burden of pain and suffering trying to manage the unmanagable, effort poured into pointless exercise after pointless exercise...." Dreadwind unfocuses and seems to be talking to the space around him, "I am not going to fall for that one existence, i won't play your game i will out wait you." Fusillade sneers at Dreadwind, "I was running all of Military Operations while you were still rotting in prison, I understand the nature of the position." Redshift manages to push himself into a faux-sitting position, although one kinda needs a butt to sit comfortbly. "If you see Swinfle, shake him down to make sure he didn't sell my valuable legs!" Redshift adds with a grumble. "Blueshift's parts are no good, I've had too many modification from my original blueprints, we aren't nearly as compatible as we look." Boomslang taps his fingertip on his chin, thinking. "Oh! Scrapper. That reminds me." He pops open a panel on his left arm, the one he keeps his spare autocannon belts in, and pulls out a small box, about the size of his fist. "I got something in the mail that I'd appreciate if you could install for me. It has some features that are kind of... beyond me, though, and I need your advice." "Fine, stay that way," Fusillade remarks dismissively to Redshift as she airily waves her hand about. "It was an option! But not in bizarro black and white land!" She begins to shimmy off. "LESS compatible than those?" Boomslang asks, pointing at Redshift's new wheels. Scrapper is holding the varnish in one hand and looks very intent on using it for something, but he looks Boomslang over. Seekers are easy to operate on, and Boomslang has a proven track record of not being a twit during surgery. This'll probably be easy, right? A bit reluctantly, he puts the varnish back in the cabinet and walks over to look at what Boomslang has, warning, "If this is another vampire sword, I'm calling shenanigans." That was the last strange thing brought into the medical ward that required his official opinion! "I'm calling shenanigans on just ONE vampire sword," grumbles Boomslang. "It's unnatural. You don't see me making bullets out of mummies to curse the Autobots with." Although he's thought about it. There was that one time it seemed to work really well... Dreadwind barely notices the sneer and contempt that, it's the usual way others treat him even before he accidentally became a commander, but he's decided to not do what is expected and put effort into signing over his position to Fusillade. The fact that she has walked off doesn't stop him reminiscing about the terrible days befor his release to all. "Ahh yes the prison, if only it had rotted me away entirely, the pain and suffering would have died along with me instead it still echoes both within me and through on into the future, the darkness that was grown there has not died, it has merely moved on." Boomslang gives Scrapper the box. It's an eyeball. A big fancy aftermarket eyeball with all kinds of sweet options, and an integral satellite uplink. According to the manual, it can hijack satellites IF the included software is uploaded to them (and if they are compatible with Interstellar Java 9.3). Boomslang explains, "The details kind of go over my head" (this is not entirely true; he doesn't read manuals) "but I'm not sure if Earth's satellite network can be made to work with this. I was hoping you could figure out a way. I'd like to get the full use out of it, you know? It was expensive." He doesn't mention where he gets the petty cash to buy these kind of things. Scrapper perks up a bit. Ah, that was a very good answer, Boomslang! Scrapper nods and agrees, "Mummies probably wouldn't work very well, anyway. Too liable to turn into dust. Ag, let's see, what do we have here..." He takes the box and peers inside. Oooh, fancy! Probably expensive. He thumbs through the manual but just skims, because real engineers never read the manual. Scrapper does not ask about how Boomslang coud afford it, he just replies, "Sure, I can get it going. A bit of surgery for the install, and I'll put together an delivery package to get the code into Earth's satellites. Just get me a nice, recognisable piece off an Autobot or Quintesson some time soon, and we'll call it square." "Any particular kind of Autobot?" asks Boomslang, confident enough to consider giving Scrapper a choice. Scrapper likes that confidence. He'd like a little return on his time and effort, after all. After a bit of thought, he replies, "Well, given that Omega Supreme's kind of a challenge... let's say a Dinobot." Constructicons don't really like Dinobots. Old feud. "Or one of their jumped up technicians - Grapple, Hoist, Perceptor, First Aid. You know." He waves a hand dismissively. Scrapper fetches a tray and stand and carefully settles the box on the tray, then starts laying out an array of tools. Redshift wheels over, a bit dismayed that the medic is working on an already /perfectly functional/ Decepticon while he's still suffering from a bad case of ripped-in-half-by-a-mad-tyrantitis. He tries to see what's going on, but he's stuck at crotch-height since he is only half of a Decepticon. Boomslang sits down, thinking about the list of Dinobots and jumped-up technicians. Grapple's got a missile arm, Perceptor is a mobile cannon, First Aid is inexplicably invincible... maybe the Dinobot would be easier. He'll have to work up some kind of attack plan. "Aye aye," Boomslang replies, sitting quietly and switching off his left eye. Dreadwind finds the talk of suffering depressing even if it is for the Autobots and not directed at him, for once, they're all just playing existence's game spreading the suffering to more and feeding it exactly what it wants. Dreadwind is at the similar height level to Redshift but he does have the option to stand up again, if he can gather the motivation necessary to do so. He just sighs as his mind is slowly tugged away from reality by the swirling darkness within. Is Redshift promising to get Scrapper art supplies in exchange for surgery? No? Then Redshift can wait. Scrapper taps a button, and an optometrist's armature descends from the ceiling, a frightening piece of work designed to hold a head in place, with a rest for the chin. He guides it down and tries to secure it around Boomslang's cone, explaining, "Wouldn't want any sudden cranial movement while I'm operating." Boomslang fortunately has very little upward peripheral vision thanks to his cone, so he's spared the menacing sight of the ARMATURE, second only in its ability to evoke terror to the NOZZLE. "Ahh, right." It is pretty much like the thing that the optometrist uses when he puts in those eye drops and shines a light in your eye to look at the retina to make sure it isn't detaching or doing anything strange, just sized for giant space robots with weirdly shaped heads. Cautioning, "This will feel a bit strange," an understatement, Scrapper grabs a screwdriver and slips it under the facial plating around the left optical sensor, to pry it up a bit so that the unit can be slid out. Boomslang tries not to wince. He hates that thing. But at least it's not Hook. Scourge arrives from the steel-spun tunnel from the NCC Spinal Pathway to the south. Scourge has arrived. Scrapper doesn't do quite as good a work as Hook, though that is sort of like saying a volcano is not hot compared to the sun, but at least he won't belittle his patient mercilessly the whole time. Scrapper is doing some optometry on Boomslang, creepy head armature included. With that plating slightly pried back, he reached a long, hooked pair of scissors deep into the socket and snips the cables connecting the sensor to Boomslang. Then, he cuts the servo ties. Sweep Spacecraft steps into the medical ward, examining a piece of what looks like Jetfire's battle helmet. He looks like he's been in a fight, leaking energon from multiple breaches in his armor, and the amount of what looks suspiciously like bomb damage. He's certainly looked better, but then, he's Scourge. He's looked a lot worse before. Harrow rushes in, a little late for her shift, but perhaps no one will notice. She follows the trail of energon to Scourge, and waits for him to find a table, quite unwilling to boss this particular Sweep around. Boomslang glances around with his active right eye, trying to see who just came in, but The Armature has his cone pretty well immobilized while Scrapper works. "How'd it go?" he asks, making a guess; if a couple people come into the medbay making clanking noises, it usually just 'went.' Dreadwind is here slumped over near the recharging area, well in body anyway his mind however has fallen once more into the gaping chasm of bleak all consuming darkness that is continually threatening to destroy what little motivation he has left. Scrapper is in the middle of some relatively tricky surgery on Boomslang, so while Scourge is a relatively important commander, Scourge, too, will need to wait if he wants Scrapper's medical attention. Now, there might be someone else about who could help Scourge! Someone like.... Harrow! With a pair of tongs, Scrapper completely removes Boomslang's old eye and sets it on the tray. It is a perfectly good eye, and Scrapper is sure it will serve some other Seeker well. He carefully removes the expensive, fancy one Boomslang has purchased from its packaging and checks the size of Boomslang's socket. Looks like it'll need to be widened a bit. Scrapper explains, "Going to need to trim a bit of plating and a few support struts. One moment." "I figured," says Boomslang, with a hint of a sigh. "Species this was designed for has a bit bigger head size than us." Scourge doesn't seem to even notice he's leaking, if he even cares, as he moves to an empty table and sits. Looking up from his trophy from Jetfire, he smirks at Boomslang and replies. "Jetfire and some Junkion decided to try to put an end to me. Obviously, they failed. What is it that Scrapper is doing to you?" Figuring it was some upgrade, he doesn't really expect an answer as he puts his trophy away and waits for Harrow, who he noticed follow him in, to come and fix him. Scrapper uses a fine laser scalpel to shave out a bigger socket to accomodate the new eye. Then, he solders the cables and connections from the eye to Boomslang's connections, explaining, "Don't try to activate it yet. Still need to connect the servos, and you'll need the drivers, or it won't make any sense at all. Open up an arm jack." Scrapper grabs a flash drive containing the required software from the box. He'll let Boomslang explain what this particular trinket does to Scourge. Harrow briefly glances over at Scrapper and his surgery, as it did seem interesting, but doesn't linger her attention on him for long, moving to retrieve Sweep spares. She works on Scourge silently and swiftly, having gotten rather good at explosive damage. Every now and then she looks over to make sure Dreadwind hasn't tried to kill himself with an errant scalpel. Combat: Harrow expertly repairs Scourge's injuries. Combat: Harrow is able to repair some of Scourge's internal systems damage. "Visual upgrade," Boomslang replies. He's not sure which sweep that is, but since Scourge has been the most active lately, chances are good that he should answer its questions. "Telescopic long-range vision, stress analysis, that sort of thing. Supposedly it can get satellite feeds but... that'll be tricky since we don't have any satellites of our own around this planet." Boomslang flicks open a panel on the inside of his right wrist to give Scrapper access to a set of data ports. Darkwing slowly starts to recover consciousness on the table he's laid out on. Still in rather bad shape; his armor crumpled almost like tinwhile, with a decent sized hole in the chest. "Oh sure, NOW their are medics here..." He mutters noticing Scrapper and Harrow Scourge glances at Harrow's work while it's being performed, then looks at Boomslang and Scrapper while the upgrade is being explained. "Can it not recieve feeds from other satellites?" Glancing at Darkwing, he smirks and then back to Harrow's silent work. Dreadwind doesn't appear to come back from the darkness even when the annoyingly upbeat and cheery voice of the person that forces him to take part in pointless activities complains about the scarcity of medical staff at certain times, he just sits there on the floor, forgotten and dejected. Harrow peers over the torn wing she's welding back together, trying to make something of Darkwing's status. Combat: Harrow runs a diagnostic check on Darkwing Scrapper explains, "Any satellite /can/ be hijacked, if someone delivers the correct code to it. I think Boomslang just wants to start with Earth." He slots the flash drive into Boomslang's offered wrist, and uses a delicate pair of long, slender tweezers to connect the new, fancier eye to the control servos. Scrapper presses the peeled up plating back down flush and uses a little caulk for a tight seal. "There we go. Install the software, then boot it up. I'll get to work on the orbital delivery package." "Can I take this thing off my head?" asks Boomslang, tapping on The Armature with his free hand while he downloads the installation package from the flash drive and gets started installing the drivers. Harrow winces, but continues working on Scourge until he's covered in gray patches. "With you in a moment, Darkwing." She reconnects a few sensory wires, checks to see if servos are working correctly, and leaves Scourge with the standard, weak painkillers that everyone gets. As she makes her way to Darkwing, she nearly trips over Dreadwind, "What are you doing on the floor!?" Darkwing luaghs softly as Harrow nearly falls on her face. "Where else do you expect him to be Harrow?" Scrapper presses a button, and the armature detaches from Boomslang's head and retracts up into the ceiling. Belatedly, Scrapper answers, "Ah. Yes. Should probably take that off." He rifles through the box and pages through the manual again, noting aloud, "Just need to adapt a universal jack to the installer package, so it'll be able to interface with human-built satellites, and some subversion routines to overcome security countermeasures. Of course, if you could get, say, Soundwave or Ravage into orbit, this would be a snap." He paces over to a bin to grab one of said universal jacks. Dreadwind is dragged mentally kicking and screaming from the peaceful oblivion of the smothering darkness back to harsh unfiorgiving reality, "Doing? I am doing nothing, you would be wise to do the same... but you won't you won't listen, just like everyone else..." The painkillers could have easilly been left out. Scourge has never been much of one to bother with pain, but he sits there while Harrow works. When she moves towards Darkwing, and nearly trips on Dreadwind, he smirks and watches, then glances at Boomslang and Scrapper. "Sounds like a useful upgrade." Pondering some upgrades himself, the Sweep Leader is actually paying attention and filing the information away for a later time. Even his advanced Unicronian systems weren't always the best at everything, but he would never admit that to anyone, even himself most of the time. "For frag's sake," Harrow mutters and attempts to drag Dreadwind to the nearest table, where she haphazardly dumps him to look over the mess that is Darkwing. "Primus, what happened to you? ...Nevermind." She sets to work cleaving off damaged panels of armor. "I'll see what I can do," muses Boomslang, distracted by the installation splash screens occupying most of his field of vision. "I'm no big expert in zero-gee myself, but I haven't seen Soundwave around in a while." Darkwing says, "Catechism tried to drop a planet on me, after being blasted by an even more paranoid then usual Galvatron..." He replies, despite Harrow deciding she didn't want to know." Dreadwind is a heavy burden to carry as Darkwing undoubtedly would tell you if he thought it might pain you in some way, but he puts up resistance to being dragged out of the way, well passive resistance. From his knew position he can now see his partner in gloom, "You bring it on yourself Darkwing all that effort just to do the bidding of existence, there is already more than enough suffering, why bother adding to it?" Scrapper is pleased to note that Harrow is busy doing all the mundane, tedious work of repairing people, while he gets to do fun elective surgeries. He suggests, "There's plenty of spacers. Just convince one to get someone relatively good with code and security into orbit. Maybe that little weasel, too. The smart one. Not the bouncy one." Why Soundwave decided he needed two weasels or minks or ferrets or whatever they are, Scrspper doesn't know, and he doesn't want to know. A quick splice job, and the satellite subversion package is in a format that can be easily stabbed into an unsuspecting satellite. Scrapper tucks it back into the box carefully. With the distant sound of STARDUST.WAV, a new Cosntructicon is born. "Was this one of those tiny little planets that just has a tree or a rose on it?" asks Boomslang, sounding skeptical. "Because I'm pretty sure Catechism can't pick up a real planet in the first place." Darkwing shrugs as he listens to Dreadwind. "When Galvatron orders you to accompany him; I doubt that even you would be stuppid enough to tell him no, brother." The powermaster replies. "I knew it was doomed to begin with, but Galvatron is never going to listen to reason." "A /planet/, huh," Harrow replies tonelessly, "Don't you think you might be exaggerating a bit..." She doesn't think much of the mundane, tedious work she's shelved with. She signed up for it, after all. With Darkwing stripped of nearly all his armor, she works on melted gears and tensors. Dreadwind is of course not going to bother arguing the point over certain people forcing him to do things, especially as Darkwing is one of the few that actually makes some headway in those efforts. "They never listen, no they prefer instead to resort to violence to block out the truth that they cannot bear to hear." Scrapper tries to hand the box back to Boomslang, explaining, "I trust you can find someone to do the installation and delivery work. Let me know if you have any trouble with it and the new unit." He's a little sad that his own lense is gone, but he feels a lot less anxious and worried now - the lense rather set him on edge. He really ought to have Mixmaster check the powder. Darkwing says, "No, Catechism blew up this lense and Planet collapsed in on itself." Darkwing states simply. "Which after that planet X exploding, makes the second Planet to try and take me out. It does seem the the universe is getting tired of waiting and trying to take me out personally..."" "Be careful who you talk about Galvatron and reason around," Boomslang interjects darkly, nodding at Scrapper and taking the box back to stow it in his storage compartment. "The lampposts have ears." Harrow proverbially sews Darkwing back up, and makes sure to magnetize him to the table, as he's in for some rest at least. "Unfortunately you'll live to see another day." Scourge continues to watch the activity, while a gumby makes his way over to the Sweep and begins the menial task of repainting the new armor. Looking at Darkwing, he chuckles and stands almost before the gumby finished the re-painting, shoving the poor medic out of the way. Stepping towards the exit once again, he again pulls the newest of his trophies out and again begins to study the front half of Jetfire's battle-helmet on his way out. Scourge takes a steel-spun tunnel, as reflective and color-shifting as energon, to the NCC Spinal Pathway to the south. Scourge has left. "Its not like he doesn't already know of my feelings. I will admit I was wrong, seeing as it was Cate that blew up the Lenses and not the Autobots..." Darkwing replies with as much of a shrug as the magnets will allow. He really didn't care how others seen his viewpoints or what reactions they might bring. The universe was just a never ending torment, so what was more added on to it? "Yeah, I know. With this Constructicon made armor its going to take more then that to finally offline me it seems. I still had enough strenght to even get here under my own power this time... It needs to try harder next time if it really wants to claim me..." Dreadwind makes the effort of moving his to the left and then to the right before stopping moving once more, "I doubt that Darkwing, it's just the inevitable increase in the suffering that we have to endure for actually putting erffort into living. There's far to many creatures alive still for either of us to go offline just yet, so very many will die long before we will be allowed to rest..." Scrapper cleans up the tools he used on Boomslang and puts them away. Then, he goes for that bottle of varnish, which is the whole reason why he came in here in the first place. He inquires of the Seeker, "Need anything else?" He doesn't have much to say about planets being blown up or Galvatron being crazy, so he stays out of those topics. "That'll do," replies Boomslang, walking out a little unsteadily as he hasn't gotten used to the field of view from his new eye. "I'll keep an eye out for that part you asked for."
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)