Got a Butterfly Body and a Caterpillar Brain

NCC Medical Ward Like its previous incarnation, this medical ward was designed with the medic in mind, with all the modern advances to make the dirty work of repairs a world easier. It is well lit, the blue and violet metal of the walls and decor is a shade paler here, and the ubiquitous filigree is missing, all to assist in ease of cleaning. Still, the place veritably sparkles. In the furniture, there is a subtle motif of blades and sharp edges, as if to evoke the scalpel of a surgeon, although it is all quite safe. Around two dozen beds, more comfortable than their sharp looks would suggest, fill the medical ward, laid out in a tidy grid, and more can be flipped out of the walls should emergency demand it. A set of tracks on the ceiling mirror the grid of beds, allowing advanced scanning equipment and tolls to be swiveled around to the various beds. Computer terminals and cabinets are molded right into the walls at intervals, and while there are the normal medical security cameras, it appears as if someone has set some of the cameras specifically to watch the cabinets.

Contents:

Dead Bodies

Grey Book Of Primus

White Book Of Primus

Shockwave's laboratory &lt;lab&gt;

Gumby Medic &lt;NCC&gt;

Medical Rules

Scrapper's Art &lt;SA&gt; - Sixteen Pieces

Obvious exits: South &lt;S&gt; leads to NCC Spinal Pathway. West &lt;W&gt; leads to NCC Arena.

Dead Bodies

Lying across the floor is a large, bulky Decepticon seeker which by the corrosion and ice frosting over his body, has been here a while. His optics are dead and his lasercore extinguished, blaster marks peppered over his body, and a deep slash in his side. Next to him is a tank-like Transformer, also lying deactivated, though unlike his companion he has a large, faded Autobot insignia on his shoulder. Both are lying side to side, and from a scan of their ancient weaponry, it does not appear that the injuries were inflicted on each other. At the other end of the room is a larger, bulkier mechanoid with no faction insignia at all. Like some ancient, corroded behemoth, it lies dead, its face simply empty black gratings, its armour rusted and dark and charred as if by flame.

Soundwave has arrived.

Fleet arrives from the steel-spun tunnel from the NCC Spinal Pathway to the south.

Fleet has arrived.

Soundwave stomps into the medical bay, carrying a small stack of datapads. He purposefully ignores everyone he sees, in favor of filing all of these documents in various boxes near the primary medbay terminal.

Catechism wanders into the medical ward. She's been carrying around this bit of transorganic spider for a few days now, and she suspects that it's getting rank. Catechism supposes that she should surrender it to someone who is good at science and actually get it analysed. Catechism salutes Soundwave but wanders over to a computer to type in request along the lines of, 'I need someone to look at a bit of transorganic spiderleg and tell me the meaningful parts.'

Soundwave is either spying on Catechism's terminal, or evaluates the sound of the key-clicks (also spying). Seemingly from the Seeker's terminal bounces a familiar multitonal voice: "Affirmative. Prepare table." The Communicator himself taps away on his own keyboard.

Catechism stares at her terminal. She rubs the bridge of her nose and looks over her shoulder. Big Brother is watching. Big Brother is always watching. Alternatively, she may be going quite mad. Sighing, she obeys the voice and seeks out a table that looks clean and not in use. She sets a piece of spider-leg on the table. It's not a big piece, and it was clearly cut with a standard issue knife, rather jaggedly.

&lt;Decepticon&gt; Geo says, "So."

&lt;Decepticon&gt; &lt;:D Catechism says, "A needle pulling thread."

&lt;Decepticon&gt; Rippersnapper says, "Brilliant. You can now conquer an army of Kindergarteners."

Soundwave dumps the last datapad in a drawer and turns to face Catechism. And he stands there, silent and unmoving, staring across the medical bay. For about five whole seconds. Then he clanks on over to the table. "Provide initial analysis/observation..." he commands, maybe knowing the Seeker has just been keeping the piece of spider in a drawer.

&lt;Decepticon&gt; Geo says, "... I was going to ask about this report in regards to Cybertron's surface temperature. Has anyone verified these findings?"

Catechism guesses that Soundwave was really speaking to her and that she wasn't just hallucinating. That's cheering, right? Well. She suspects that Soundwave is just going to hoard all the knowledge based off the spider leg, if there is any, or worse, he'll tell her and then threaten to kill her for knowing. She explains, "Remember Darklab? There was that huge transorganic spider that we ended up fighting. Back on Sikkara, there was a transorganic worm that ate Galvatron. Even father back, near Alkor Zephyr, we fought a transorganic space dragon. I don't know if they're real transorganics or what, but they're leaking peculiar, sir, that we'd fight so many flesh-machine monsters in such a short time. Cyclonus said that there weren't supposed to be any worms that big on Sikkara, and I know that our space stations aren't supposed to have giant spiders on them." Something about the spider strikes her as familiar, too. Catechism chews on her lip, crossing her arms.

&lt;Decepticon&gt; Geo says, "If not, then I think I'll head to Cybertron and take some geological surveys."

Soundwave reaches up above the table to pull a hanging sensor suite down closer to the sample, then activates a series of scans from a nearby set of controls. "Correct. Probability: negligible. Speculation: transorganic mutation increasing. Provide hypothesis." He looks away from his scans, toward Catechism. Maybe he already has one. Maybe the scans have already told him everything he needs to know. But there he is, making Catechism stick her opinions out to either be stepped on or... well, probably stepped on.

Catechism stares at Soundwave, incredulously. She feels like she's standing before a firing squad, and someone has just pushed her a step forward. Her jaws works silently as she attempts to come up with a coherent answer. She's not as smart as Soundwave. She's not as skilled as he is. She doesn't have the kind of experience and expertise that he does. Why is he even asking her? Maybe that's the real puzzle, here. She replies, finally getting herself together, "Sir, I wouldn't consider it a mutation. I would consider it to be intentional. Like... you don't see the humans mutating to have guns growing out of their ears. It just doesn't work that way. I would think that someone did this to these creatures and then put them places where they do not necessarily belong. The locations... do not seem coincidental, sir. Alkor Zephyr has doom prophecies about our kind. Sikkara also knew our kind, despite no records on our part of ever visiting there, and was hit by that ion storm. Darklab was hit by the ion storm."

Soundwave hardly ever gives any physical indication of acknowledgement. This time is no exception. As he touches a single control, a thin green beam extends from a projector in the sensor suite. It widens and passes along the length of the piece of spider leg. "Time manipulation encountered, location: Alkor Zephyr. Probability of expanding phenomenon increasing. Analyzing..." That last bit as the scan stops, and he pauses to read the results.

Catechism doesn't even try to look over at the results. If Soundwave's going to let her know any of them, he'll do it in his own sweet time. She snaps her fingers together and peers more closely at the spider-leg. Catechism notes, "Come to think if it, this thing looked kind of like a Nespan ice spider. Saw those things during the air race, sir. This thing is way bigger, though, and it has all those machine bits." She pauses and makes a rather displeased face. There was that other thing about Nespa...

Soundwave looks up from his scan, straight at Catechism. "Affirmative. Correlate."

The opening of the doors leading to the hub herald are the first and most obvious indication of Fleet's arrival. Once he's actually inside the room his steps, brisk, light, metallic "click-click-clicks" are easily drowned out by the general background clamor of the medical ward. Well, drowned out if one doesn't have super incredibly amazingly sensitive hearing. The Seeker heads directly to a refueling station, he does not pass go, he does not collect two hundred shanix, he does n- okay, actually, he does pause to salute Catechism and Soundwave before moving past them and requesting a refuel.

Fleet asks the Gumby Medic for refueling. The medic complies.

Gumby Medic &lt;NCC&gt; refuels Fleet.

Correlate. Buh-what? Catechism does not do science! She doesn't even do art. Catechism wracks her poor circuits. Soundwave can probably hear the electrons fizzing through her wires. She manages, "Ah, so... we have what looks like a mutant Nespan ice spider with machine bits on one of our space stations. Well. What was one of our space stations and is now shrapnel. On Nespa, in the milk bar," shut up! Catechism had a totally hardcore fight with Defcon in the milk bar, "the bartender mentioned that the first and best king of Nespa was Stroxis. Which sounds a lot like Straxus, and the Nespans call Quickswitch Quockswotch, so they don't really do their vowels like we do, and-" she pauses as Fleet arrives. She waves to him, putting on an entirely insincere cheerful face, as if she wasn't being put on the spot by Soundwave.

Soundwave glares at Catechism. This is no change for fifteen seconds ago. Though it probably wouldn't be surprising if a buzzer went off to indicate the wrong answer, as on a quiz show. But there is nothing, no glimmer, no flicker, not even eerie silence. Without moving his gaze from Catechism, he addresses the other Seeker in the room. "Unit: Fleet. Explain causality violations, location: Alkor Zephyr."

Catechism is off the spot! So she doesn't need to explain that those dead Transformer bodies that are sitting right over there, in the medical ward, were found on Nespa. She also doesn't need to explain the other weird stuff mentioned in the bar. Score! Thank Straxus for little Fleets. She asks, hesitantly, "Sir, that bit of spider-leg... is it really transorganic?"

Ramjet arrives from the steel-spun tunnel from the NCC Spinal Pathway to the south.

Ramjet has arrived.

Fleet's optics flicker brilliantly in response to a surprise-induced voltage spike. "Sir? I wasn't aware of any, besides Catechism's distress signal, and I'm afraid an explanation would be beyond me." He grabs his cube and moves away from the table. "Maybe having so many stars and so much odd radiation and so on in the same system messes with the flow of time, the way it does with gravity, energy, and everything else?"

Catechism is standing near a table, relatively near to Soundwave. There's a hacked up piece of spider leg on the table. Catechism seems to be in good spirits, but if one looks closely at her, she is actually extremely uncomfortable and slightly confused.

Soundwave taps a button, and a thin blue beam shoots down to slice off a piece of the spider's leg. "-Radiation-..." the word bounces off the walls. "Temporal phenomena. Ion storm. Transorganics. Correlation."

Fleet is a bit farther away from Catechism and Soundwave, and holds a partial cube in his right hand. He wears his puzzlement more openly than Catechism does, but it's a mild case, as though Soundwave had remarked on a particularly odd spell of weather. He shakes his head in quick, short movements. "Erm. Sir?" is all he asks.

Catechism has a headache now. There have been a lot of planets that seem to know the Transformers, but the Transformers don't seem to know them. Straxus is involved on at least one of the planets. Transformers made it to or were taken to both Nespa and Ajax Minor... Ajax, of the same name as Commander Ajax. There is an ion storm that is probably going to destroy her home, and because it's doing a chain reaction thing, it may destroy the whole stupid universe. Transorganics. Gnn. She holds her cone.

And as if on cue...

Ramjet appears, face sullen with mulling annoyance. The object of his annoyance is very personal. So personal that they're attached to his arms! Instead of his preference of laser-rifles, tri-rack missile launchers are clipped to his shoulder hardpoint. Each tube is just that -- a tube, with carbon scoring at the edges to reflect how recently they've been used. "...hnnh," he groans. He pays everyone no mind when he walks in, simply striding up to the 'LOOSE PARTS' Bin and taking a moment to unhook the launchers from his shoulders.

Catechism drops her hand to her side, and she asks Soundwave, "So, sir, how hard would it be to construct a..." she grasps at the air, thinking hard, "giant space mirror? Capable of reflecting an ion storm, possibly directionally." So they could reflect it at someone they dislike and keep Cybetron from being torched. She salutes Ramjet crisply when he walks in.

Soundwave stares, possibly dumbfounded. You know, or not. "'Giant space mirror' feasability: low." He ejects a data chip from the terminal and inserts it into a datapad. An encrypted copy gets sent to his master DCI database, and then he slides the datapad over to Catechism. Speaking, he confirms what is in the document. "Transorganic features. Genetic match: Nepsan Ice Spider, nine nine point nine nine eight nine percent. Technological origin: Cybertron. Hypothesis... pending."

Catechism looks rather downcast that the giant space mirror has a low probability. She inquires, "Well, what about just... moving Cybertron? Or constructing a giant forcefield? Ions are... particles, right?" She thinks she remembers that from what little chemistry she learned when she learned how to make bombs. She looks over the datapad curiously and mutters, "Thank you, sir." More loudly, she notes, "So... it's a mutant Nespan ice spider with Cybertronian pieces." She pauses.

Fleet says, "Cybertron?" Fleet asks, startled. Then he turns and frowns at Catechism. "What's this about space mirrors and ion storms?" He takes a sip of his drink. The Decepticon Fleet has been placed on Red Alert (which sounds like the set up of a really bad fanfic, truth be told). The reason, however, is not something that this particular Decepticon Fleet has been told.

And then Catechism talks about moving Cybertrons. Fleet leans forward, towards the two. "What's going on?" he asks, suspiciously."

"....." Ramjet turns his cone to the side when he hears Catechism summarize Soundwave's findings. He says with a groan, "What now?" He takes the moment to lean down, hands going behind his set of leg-mounted wings. The rifles mounted there twist off with a clack and Ramjet straightens up to secure them to his shoulders. Click-clack. Ratchety action. He makes his way to the dissection table and stares at the arachnid part with a look of annoyance. "This isn't one of Arachnae's experiments, is it?"

Catechism points over at the dead bodies and comments, "Those bodies were found on Nespa. Straxus probably visited Nespa. Either way, Nespa has had contact with Transformers going back to before we have any solid records on the matter. It's not entirely crazy for a Nespan ice spider to end up with Cybertronian technology as a part of it. It's just crazy that it would then end up on our Darklab, and it is bleeding *insane* that we would run into similarly altered creatures on Sikkara and Alkor Zephyr." She looks over at Ramjet and answers, "Sir, it's a sample from the spider on Darklab." She ignores Fleet for the moment. If he doesn't know, he doesn't need to worry.

Soundwave just said that. The part where Catechism called it a Nepsan spider with Cybertron pieces. Except he said it with exactitude. Punching Catechism in the face won't make any progress here, though, so he just stares at her.

Fleet is ignored. This is one of those moments where it's slightly more frustrating than it is comforting, but only slightly, so instead the pastel Seeker falls silent, listens carefully, and works on finishing his cube.

"That much I understood," Ramjet says as he glares at Catechism. As she ignores Fleet, he soon ignores her as he looks to Soundwave. He offers the Great Communicator a lift of his cone, "Has Galvatron mentioned convening Command Staff yet?"

Soundwave's head snaps over toward Ramjet. "Classified," he drones, possibly implying that Ramjet isn't privvy to the workings of the Command Staff. Or maybe he's just being a jerk.

Ramjet glares at Soundwave. Even if he doesn't care.

But Soundwave didn't point out that Nespa has had contact with Transformers, which may be more the more illuminating part. Catechism stalks around the medical ward, hands behind her back, and she thinks to herself, ignored, 'Creon - it had Quintesson meddling. It went boom. Ajax Minor - coincidence with Commander Ajax? - had contact with our people - more dead bodies and a few living - and it went boom. Got Full-Tilt's lasercore there, which was probably made by Thunderwing, who does not obey time. Foxworld? Clearly had contact with our people or our myths. Went boom. Furr'hi? We showed up, and the place exploded. Alkor Zephyr - they claim they know us. Had a transorganic space dragon. Think doom is coming. Time is nonlinear there. The ion storm. Sikkara. The sandworm. Darklab. Another transorganic. More explosions. Commander Ajax.'

Everything they touch is crumbling, and it's all coming home to roost.

Ramjet stares at Catechism. "If you keep pacing, I'm going to start using you for targeting practice."

Fleet watches Catechism pace as he finishes his cube and takes advantage of the multiple-Seeker-invisibility-effect.

Catechism stops, stock still. The only link she can see is their own blasted species and their more-blasted creators, the Quintessons. A sort of enforced cosmic penance.

Ramjet just shakes his cone slowly. He tips it forward, letting him brace the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger once again. "Fleet," he says rather tonelessly. He hasn't bothered to turn his cone to look the man down. "Have you procured those weapons from Monacus yet?"

Soundwave goes back to studying the data terminal on the foot of the table. "Increase timetable, project: return to Alkor Zephyr."

"Negative, Air Commander," Fleet replies, tone sheepish. "I haven't been able to locate Ravage." Or rather, his player hasn't been logged in at a good time since the order was given. He winces, his lips momentarily twisted into an ugly frown, as Soundwave talks of the return to Alkor, but the expression is smoothed away swiftly.

Catechism is stumped. She wants to just blame the Quintessons and call it a day, but... she can't just go back to Cybertron and hit the bars. That place is going to die, soon. She's so very frustrated! There's really nothing she can do, but she refuses to accept that. She settles on dryly remarking, "I think that's the point of Ravage, Fleet."

Soundwave closes out his terminal, and strides over to one of the main laboratory benches, where he stands facing the wall. "Unit: Catechism. Create mission specifications, provide for review. Time critical." He hops up and transforms, landing neatly on the bench.

Soundwave spins, folds, and collapses down into an innocuous-looking microcassette recorder, a fraction of his former size.

Ramjet stares at Soundwave.

Ramjet briefly considers kicking him.

Blue Microcassette Recorder briefly considers melting Ramjet's brain.

Ramjet has found this temptation slowly, but surely, becoming too hard to resist ever since becoming Air Commander.

Blue Microcassette Recorder is just a blue microcassette recorder, though.

Hey! If Fleet is going to Monacus on his own, he can just declare it happened off-screen and call it a day. The pastel Seeker shrugs. "That may be so, but he's the one I was ordered to travel to Monacus with."

Ramjet bets he can kick Soundwave toward the other end of the submersible, too. Just one good kick, X'al. That's all he asks of you.

Ramjet decides that he will just pay Fakkadi a visit, instead. Request that several microcassette recorders be provided. Spraypainted blue. That'll burn the urge to kick Soundwave.

Catechism dictates, as bidden, "We need to recover a sample from the space dragon, if there's any left. See if the parts are Cybertronian, too. We need to recover the black box off Fleet's ship - see if that helps explain anything. And... we need to," does she want to say this in public? "...explore how Alkor Zephyr matches certain parts of our mythology to determine the threat level of the world and the appropriate response."

Blue Microcassette Recorder whirrs. And clicks. Whirrs, then clicks. Beep.

"Shall we attempt to capture one of the natives?" Fleet asks, head tilted as he leans back on his thruster-heels. "They're mechanoids, after all. I mean, if we need to compare technology and such."

"The ones that you used to eat, Fleet?" Catechism looks vaguely disgusted. "Yes. Fine. We'll capture a native, too, if it doesn't take too much effort."

"Well, I can promise not to have him for a light snack, if you'd prefer," Fleet deadpans coolly.

Catechism has a mirror in her office, just to make sure that Fleet has a reflection. Some days, the boy is downright creepy. She answers stiffly, "I'll take that promise. I'm sure they're more informative to our scientists when they're alive."

Ramjet vanishes out of reality.

Ramjet has left.

Catechism mutters, "That will have to suffice for now," by way of excusing herself. Her pager has gone off, and she has to arbite that someone has stolen Haze's paint. She bets Decoy did it. Such is life as a minor officer in Aerospace.

Fleet is left alone with Soundwave. Ohnoes! He salutes after Catechism, then looks at the tape deck. "If, erm, you have nothing for me, I need to return to my duties." Here. On Earth. Because all this talk of ion storms and moving Cybertron has Fleet suspecting that he rather doesn't want to be on his home planet just now.

Blue Microcassette Recorder whirrs. Click.

Fleet takes that as a 'no' and heads off.