Aeronautics

The mixed light of the orange and yellow stars currently low on the horizon casts a warm light on the otherwise harsh and unyiellding surfaces of Trypticon. Parked in the spaceport, Fusillade is actually basking, the long shadows of her Lancer mode blocking out the light for several of the other shuttles. "Best idea ever. Those Autobots turned out to be useful for something afterall! This is what this planet's been missing. Now I don't have to stay on Earth all the time." Is there actually anyone else within audial-shot?

There is. "It seems like a somewhat unstable system to me" Fulcrum replies, emerging from the shadow of the hangar bays and squinting up at the rising suns, a stirring John Williams score swelling in the background as he shades his optics with one hand. "Not an unpleasant effect though."

Shockwave is. He would have been here earlier but, you know, his watch. Now in order to check the time he has to go into his visual preferences and bring up the timestamp in the corner, which he doesn't normally like because it is an additional distraction with all the other HUD information he gets. He arrives carrying a case of tools and followed by several gumbies laboriously pushing a cart upon which is a stack of great slabs of layered ceramic and carbon-matrix plate.

"It has a dynamic stability which appears chaotic to the layperson but which hides underlying patterns predictable within certain parameters of uncertainty," intones Shockwave as he comes to a halt and glances up at the suns wheeling slowly overhead.

There's a wing-flick from Fusillade. "Ehn, I've gone on a few trips around Cybertron since it's moved. That third star hardly counts, it's so far out. You wouldn't even be able to see it against a normal night sky! And just think. We're only like... two parsecs from Earth. That's... still like forever if you don't have eff-tee-el capabilities, though," she admits. As Shockwave approaches, she ahems. "And uh yeah. About that whole re-entry thing. Sorry about the last few times, I know that the towers on en-cee-cee's shark mode are kinda important. But these human space tiles have lasted me a decent amount of time, at least!" she remarks too cheerfully to Shockwave.

"But urm, yeah. Chipping and cracking's not very fun when it lets plasma inside." The aircraft manages to somehow lean away from Fulcrum on her landing gear.

"The Earthlings' technology is servicable in the short term, but they do not build to last. Their short lives give them a very different perspective on time than my own. All that they make decays as their own poor flesh does," replies Shockwave pitilessly, his eye flashing as he holds out his toolchest. A monopod extends from the underside of the chest and spikes into the tarmac with a *snik-chunk* sound to support it. He unlatches the chest and flips it open, unfolding it into a table covered with tools slotted into clips. Each of them is designed to be used one-handed. "My worksmanship will stand the test of time. Barring combat damage and Autobot abuse, what I have done stays done, forever."

Fulcrum shrugs. "Astrophysics is not my strong point" he freely admits. "Give me the reliability of metal over the long term chaos of gravitational interaction." He considers transforming himself, the better to take advantage of the stange sunlight. No, better not. Although.. hn.. solar panels mounted on the wings... "I could forge some replacements" the blacksmith offers, turning to give Fusillade an apprasing look, optics sweeping over what can be seen of the bomber's underbelly. "I do not trust human manufacturing. One loose tile, and.."

Shockwave projects a visible-laser blueprint from his cannon arm onto Fusillade. "Direct your observation to this draft of my schematics, Fulcrum," he drones. "I propose to remove the Earthling tiles and replace them with larger sheets of our own ceramics, superior in hardness and resistance to both ambient heat and directed energy weapons. This to be surfaced over an underskin of flexible, resilient carbon weave in a titanium-iridium matrix. A honeycomb of semi-rigid polymer to separate the two layers, with spacing to provide both insulation from heat and protection from shaped charge explosives. Your opinion?"

There's a faint creak from Fusillade's landing gear at a few techs putter over and begin sizing up the scorched up dark tiles, and the more pristine, albeit stained, white tiles for less intense heat. There's a quiet 'uh oh' from her as she recognizes a few folks that's she snubbed in the past in bars across Cybertron, and they seem all to happy to be holding crowbars in hand. Even as Shockwave presents his proposal, there's a resounding off-camera flurry of 'whack-crack-POP-snap' with a few 'ow's peppered in. The clatter of tile hitting the ground soon follows.

Space-Going B-1R Lancer says, "Ack, oof, hey WATCH it I know where you recharge! Say Shockwave, -OW-, does that underlayer -oof- actually move through transforming? How do you guys handle the transformation for Blast Off and Astrotrain and the other shuttles anyway?"

Fulcrum examines the blueprints with interest. "An excellent plan" he intones, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I suggest a second, substrate polymer layer underneath the first formed of nanochannels. If the primary layer is ruptured, the substrate will release catalyst particles that will repair the breach. Of course, this will only work for small tears, but it should reduce the need for maintenance."

Shockwave pauses a moment to review his files. "The lower layers are highly flexible. The Outer layer is extremely rigid. Fulcrum and I will analyze your stress points and make cuts in the outer layer along the appropriate stress lines to avoid unintentional cracking. Astrotrain: Utilizes a unique subspace pouch which enables him to evade certain physical laws." Like how his inside is much larger than his outside. "Blast Off: Surfacing material is accordioned into compressed stacks, resulting in a negative side effect of extreme fragility in his larger mode." He pauses again to digest Fulcrum's opinion. "I concur. Your expertise in materials engineering and metallurgy should enable you to construct this layer and fuse the lower titanium-iridium layer to the subject's underlying structure. I will oversee your work, perform fine adjustments and apply the upper layers. My skill with ceramics is superior to yours."

Those piles of half foot-thick ceramic were starting to look might appealing as the drafts become more noticeable. She's settled down now that the chaingang's more than halfway through stripping her undercarriage. "Can I transform? I'm feelin' a little exposed here."

"No," says Shockwave. "You are easier to work with in your larger mode."

Fulcrum nods, slightly annoyed even if Shockwave is correct. He didn't have to come out and say it like that. Flipping open a panel on his forearm, he radios his two assistants, informing them to bring a hover-carry loaded with titanium, cyber-epoxy, carbon nanoforms and various other materials. Oh, and his turbo forge unit.

"It's also easier to see what needs doing" Fulcrum deadpans.

Shockwave is bad at morale-keeping. He has the unfortunate habit of being both unimpressed with the Decepticons he works with and unwilling to lie about it. Or even to not talk about it. He walks around the work area, correcting the gumby plate-extractors and warning one of them to be more careful with his crowbar lest he damage an aileron control cable.

Fusillade can be fractious as well. One wingflap whirrs up to its fully upright position, before falling back down to whack Roughshod across the helm when he passes underneath. She of course is the utmost of still when Shockwave walks past any particular ortion of her, but there's a lot of her to look at in this mode, and he can't see all of it closeup. As Fulcrum's assistants come out, Fusillade chirps, "Kitbash! Repaint! Heeeeeeeeeey!" And then she really wishes for rear-view cameras once they march past her cabin. (Roughshod had the misfortunre of earlier yanking on some of her flight surfaces, letting her find him by touch).

Thankfully for Fusillade's dignity Shockwave does not go so far as to flip her over by one wing. He crouches down instead to help with the connection of the second layer at the wing roots, where stresses (and mechanical tolerances) are most severe. "Fulcrum, status update."

Ka-tonk, Ka-tonk, Ka-tonk, Fusillade's wings ratchet forward at the blistering rate of one degree of arc per second. This allows Shockwave the chance to access the layers under her wingroots.

Repaint and Kitbash wave as Fusillade greets them, Repaint already sizing her up for a STUNNING new tiger stripe paint job and Kitbash thinking about verniers. Lots and lots of verniers. Ooooooooh lots. Fulcrum quickly fires up the turbo forge, and with the help of his assistants, begins to fabricate the initial layer othat will sit underneath the new sheilding tiles, the material emerging in thick sheets that are expertly rcollected into a roll by Kitbash, while Repaint feeds more raw materials into the forge unit's collector, carefully monitoring heat and inperfection tollerances as Fulcrum manipulates the controls.

"Primary layer in production" calls Fulcrum, replying to Shockwave's query.

"Accelerate your work. I have calculated the stress fracture lines and am already cutting the outer layer," replies Shockwave as he holds a ceramic plate up against the wing and slices it precisely into the right shape with his cannon arm before numbering it and setting it aside.

So many sounds, and so few sights to go with them. "Whatcha guys doing?" Fusillade rocks back and forth on her landing gear curiously. Not helping this matter any. There's no one tugging and shearing off her armor any more, and plane modes aren't terribly fun when not zooming around.

Fulcrum grimmaces. It's the old adage. Do you want this done well, quickly, or cheaply? Pick two. "Very well" he says, arms encased in manipulator servos as the blacksmith applies his skills at the nanoscopic level, guiding mechanical looms to create the mesh of microchannels that will repair small tears in the layer above. "Making..things" Fulcrum replies. He's hardly eloquent at the best of times, and right now is not the best of times. "Very intricate things." The last of the new layer slowly emerges from the creation unit, Kitbash rolling it with the rest and hurrying it over to Shockwave, while Fulcrum and repaint begin to reconfigure the forge to fabricate the primary layer.

Shockwave explains, "I am cutting plates of ceramic to fit each of your panels seamlessly. Because ceramic has negligable flexibility it must be jointed at any point where you undergo flexion, transformation separation or high degrees of stress in flight."

"That's.... a lot of places Shockwave," Fusillade realizes aloud at her commanding officer. "Is there anything else I can do to make this go more smoothly?" She ooohs a bit to herself as she hears Fulcrum's mysterious comments.

There's much clanging and a small amount of cursing as pieces of the turboforge are taken off, other parts are attached and other bits are rotated, until Fulcrum is satisfied that it's not going to produce grape jelly or fire retardant foam or purestrain gold. "RIGHT" the blacksmith says, rolling up his metaphorical sleeves and taking control of the manipulator arms once more. Time to make us some titanium/carbon mesh! How many facets in a buckytube again?

"It is complex and exacting work," concurs Shockwave. "Adjust each of your control surfaces to their fullest extension in both directions."

Oh if only she knew the intricacies of molecular carbon engineering, Fusillade might find the work that much more stimulating. Such as it is, she's posing. Upon Shockwave's prompt, she swivels nose canards forward like whiskers on an alarmed Denbolian Talking Catfish, swings wings forward to their full fifteen degree angle forward position, and drops open the sevel slats on the forward leading edges, and the five bi-layered flaps on the rear trailing edges of each wing, revealing the intricate understructures that allow the flight surfaces to be pleated and folded into her fan weapons. Last but not least, the tailslabs flop forward to point their edges to the heavens, the flats pointed at Shockwave's chest. A Tarantellian Gorget-Throat alarm display, perhaps?

Shockwave extends his cannon arm and carefully measures the gaps with a laser as she does so, taking precise calculations on the full practical extent of her range of motion. After all, there tends to be more slop in a practical retrofit than is included in construction diagrams, and it has to be accounted for if jams are going to be avoided. With this in mind he bevels the edges of the plates in the proper locations to allow for the hinging. "Sixteen," Shockwave replies to Fulcrum.

Fulcrum looks up at the movement in his peripheral vision and is immediately distracted from his work, a nudge in the side from Repaint eventually snapping him out of it. Clearing his vocaliser with a cough, he goes back to the creation of the hexagonal weave that Shockwave's new ceramic tiles will attach to, adjusting the temperature of the forge to compensate for minor fluctuations.

Meanwhile, Kitbash has lingered beside Shockwave, and is attempting to convince Fusillade that she needs an aerodynamic spoiler.

"Focus," Shockwave says by way of reminder. No time for Fulcrum to get distracted by a pretty canard or horizontal stabilizer. There is work to be done on Cybertron.

"Well I'm not exactly sure what else I'm supposed to be doing. Can you at least brief me on what I should and shouldn't be doing with all these composites and weaves? I might get a bit carried away otherwise!" fusillade directs at Shockwave, before she mmmms thoughtfully at Fulcrum. "Does it look faaaaabulous, dahling?" she calls out across the tarmac.

Shockwave moves around behind Fulcrum and gives him no room to breathe, affixing numbered tiles just behind his work before the spacing layer has even had time to cool. His semi-intelligent drones pass him the pieces at exactly the same rate that he welds them into place with one of Mixmaster's three-part bonding fixatives.

Space-Going B-1R Lancer stiffens as she feels the construction begin to treadmill its way up her underside! At least the drafts were starting to diminish.

"Hold still," replies Shockwave over Fulcrum's shoulder. "Be aware that due to the spacing you will not be able to feel pressure or superficial damage as acutely as before since your damage sensors are insulated from your exterior. You will have to maintain a more active, conscious awareness of damage since you will not be as able to feel it autonomically."

Fulcrum can't really reply since Shockwave is hanging around looking over his shoulder and metaphorically asking about TPS reports. He mumbles something about control surfaces as he continues to manufacture the durable weave, attempting to speed up production by assigning Repaint some of the cruder work. "Theeeere we go" Fulcrum eventually intones, leaning backwards and wiping some coolant from his forehead as the last of the primary layer slides from the forge unit and into the manipulators of one of Shockwave's drones.

"Okay, you've sold me on the glove canards," Fusillade says abruptly to Kitbash. A bit more quietly she acknowledges Shockwave's instruction. "Right, watch for chipping before reentering. More than I used to."

Shockwave presses down the final plate onto the end of Fusillade's tail with a firm compression of his right hand. "The job is complete," he announces. "The adhesives are instantly bonding but will require six hours exposed to heat in excess of four hundred degrees to fully cure. You may transform but do not engage in combat for a minimum of eight hours."

The sleek bomber rears up, wings collapsing onto hips even as the rear fuselage splits to form arms. The horizontal stabilizer slides up, the forward fuselage folds up accordian style, and Fusillade hops up on thrustered feet.

"So... don't pick fights with the terra cotta while in the kiln, gotcha." Fusillade ducks her head a bit, and frowns a bit at the slightly different shade and patterning -- and thickness! -- of the exterior panelling.

Fulcrum removes his arms from the two servo-cradles and begins shutting down the forge unit, privately wondering if he's made any errors. There's always a chance. Hnn.. no, as far as he's aware, the two layers will perform well. Now free from his task he watches as Fusillade transforms, noting the effect of the new surfaces.

Fusillade face-faults. "I'm... puffy."

"You are somewhat thicker than you were," confirms Shockwave. "A total of six point four inches has been added to every diameter."

Fusillade squirms a bit, twisting around a bit to get a feel for the changes. Taller, too! She takes a step, and promptly falls flat on her face. Rouchshod can be heard braying in the background.

Shockwave reaches down and picks Fusillade back up by her back kibble to help her back onto her feet. "The same increase in measurement also applies to your height. Your weight balance is changed and may oblige a short period of adaptation."

Fusillade is hauled up back to her feet, and mmphs a bit, dusting off her arms. "Understood. After that period has passed and performance in field has been measured to your satisfaction, I will likely draft up a proposal for FTL capabilities given our current campaigns."

"A reasonable request," agrees Shockwave, who is already packing things back up as his drones roll around tidying the area. "Submit it to Ratbat for cost analysis."

"We have a great deal of work to be done on Cybertron now that it has been repositioned," explains Shockwave. "We have been forced to neglect its maintenance and repair and we now face the daunting task of refurbishing much of the surface of an entire planet. Every back must bend."

"I... see where this is going," Fusillade says, rocking back on her heels. "I will perform any sorties that would be required of me," she raps knuckles against her forward fuselage, "And especially space ones since I have to 'earn my keep as it were'." She begins to sidle away...  Grey Snapper, Fusillade says, "Okay so what you're saying is that I should go to Charr for my dayspa treatment? Wouldn't want your makeover to be for nothing, Shockwave."

Shockwave packs up his toolbox, which retracts the monopod. "After you have cured the adhesive," he says over his shoulder by way of reminder as he leads his drones away to their next worksite.

"I KNOW..." Fusillade scuffs the tarmac flooring, before marching over to the space bridge to presumably go cure her adhesive.