Not Cutthroat and Dirge

NCC Residential Plaza

This area of the city is far more open to the air. The buildings are shorter and don't loom over you like in the other sections. As the city is in battle mode, huge spires can be seen with missile turrets and laser cannons, targetting any hostile invaders. The criss-cross of skylanes is defended by a network of tiny point-defense lasers, making use of the roads nearly impossible if you are not a Decepticon. As this is a non-essential area, this place seems much less defended than other parts of the city. Most of the buildings are not very well protected. Those that house the quarters of the high command, however, have a considerable amount of firepower geared towards their defense.

Contents:

Sweep Sanctum

Shellshock's Workshop

Battlecharger's Bordello

Ramjet's Bunker

Obvious exits:

North leads to NCC Arena.

Northwest leads to NCC Central Hub.

West leads to NCC Coastline.

Fly

Comcast arrives from the NCC Central Hub to the northwest.

Comcast has arrived.

Fleet descends to the Sky above New Crystal City above.

Fleet has arrived.

Comcast strides into the residential plaza, his datascreen in hand. You'd think it was welded to it or something. He is looking this way and that for someone. Someone... but who?

Catechism seems to be perusing a high-tech paint catalogue, which, given that she doesn't paint, is probably not a good sign. She waves at Comcast but doesn't otherwise greet him. He looks busy, and she wouldn't want to interrupt the inexorable glorious victory of the Decepticon empire.

Fleet comes in for a landing, looking a bit less graceful than usual. He's covered in feathers and using a good number of choice Cybertronian swears.

Comcast finally spots the Conehead in the background. "Ah yes.." Comcast says out loud. "Catechism, is it not?" The Seeker makes his way over to where the femme Seeker (Seekeress?) is. "You were at the air show with Fleet. Congratulations on your reactivation. As DCI commander, I have a few questions for you."

Catechism hurriedly hides her paint catalogue, although in her haste, she's a bit awkward about it and makes it rather obvious that she was hiding something. Morale is important, but such diversions can wait. The Seeker straightens herself out to vague semblance of an at attention stance and ponders if she needs to salute Comcast. He's got rank, but he's not MilOps... hrm. After a moment, she settles on nodding, smiling, and answering, "That's me. Thanks! What do you need to know?" She glances over at Fleet briefly and looks a bit aghast. Seekers are generally cleanly, after all, and that's not good, honest battle damage, whatever the slag it is.

Fleet is pulling feathers out of intakes, joints, lifting his foot to get them out his boots, and several other places that go without mentioning. "Slagging feathered flesh germ things!" he growls.

Comcast definitely DOES need saluting... but he seldom insists on it. And the DCI agent is all too aware of Catechism's attempts at hiding the catalogue. He arches an optic ridge at the Seeker, only to turn and notice Fleet with... feathers. Oh, if only Reflector were here again, he'd have a lovely little collection of Fleet pictures. Mind you, if this keeps up, his pictures of the Seeker dancing are going to devalue greatly. How can a threat to someone's pride be worth anything if they frequently display they have none?

Comcast shrugs it off and returns to Catechism, holding up his datascreen. He's getting a little carried away with his own self-importance, but it's not too noticeable at this point. "Just a few details, they're standard. Where were you located in your energy-saving format, and who was the original technician who put you in stasis lock?"

Fleet continues to work on pulling the feathers out of his crevices. There's too many feathers for this to be from a single bird. He must have run into a whole flock of the damn things. As for threats to his pride... no, he doesn't really have much, outside the whole dancing thing. He keeps that secret because, well, being shot at by your superiors for having a hobby that's seen as wussy hurts!

Fleet is covered with feathers, although there's a bit less then there were before. He's pulling them off and grumbling. Apparently he ran into a bird, or a flock there-of.

Catechism looks over at Fleet, having escaping from having to answer the dreaded questions. He still looks like a mess, although less of one. Whatever he did, she sure as scrap doesn't want to do. Not looking directly at him but rather at a bird-free patch of space a bit behind him, she scratches the back of her helmet and asks, "Uh, what happened to you?"

Fleet shakes his hand, sending several more feathers drifting towards the ground. "Those flying, feathered Earth creatures. I had just emerged from some clouds, and they caught me off-guard. Damned germ covered planet. Even the sky isn't free of them."

Ramjet emerges from his bunker after some downtime. there seem to be a few empty energy cans scattered around the sunken doorway and his feet crunch them flat. his machineguns are on crooked and he rubs the back of his cone as he looks around somewhat bleary opticed.

Catechism paces around Fleet, still not looking directly at him. He could be shot up and half-way smelted and she'd look him in the optics, but organic creatures and their remains are a special brand of disgusting she's not familiar or comfortable with yet, which is probably a good thing, really. "That's wretched. There isn't any way to avoid these things?" If nimble Fleet ran into them, there's probably no hope for her. She shudders at the thought. Then, Catechism notices Ramjet, who also seems to be in a bit of disrepair, albeit of a different sort. She frowns ever so slightly. If the empire needs these two to fight now, they'll be in no shape at all to do it!

Ramjet looks around and see's 2 blurry shapes. "hey Dirge. Hey Cut-throat." he nods a vague greeting. " What’s up?"

Fleet's optics flicker in surprise. Cut-throat? Who? As a pastel yellow seeker, he wasn't often mistaken for other people, so this was something of a new experience. As to his question... he studied a few more of the feathers a moment before opening his hand and letting them float away. "Well, these birds aren't, anymore."

Ramjet sees a yellow mech with feathers. cutthroat. "Er. great. teach them to infringe on our airspace huh? is the Khan about?"

Fleet narrows his optics in confusion, giving the other a very 'huh?' sort of look. "Khan?" The longer he speaks to this conehead, the more confused he gets. And he's only been speaking with him for seconds.

Catechism is no longer a hallucination. She is Dirge! A Dirge so doggedly cheerful that he must be overdosing on prescription medication. She gives Ramjet a funny look and asks, "You need some help?"

Ramjet is about to say something, no doubt witty and insightful to cutthroat when he hears dirge speaking with that femme coneheads voice. he turns to look at him...her...them both and frowns. Something sure isn’t right. he decides it's something to do with the blurred visual reception and remedies the problem with a sharp blow to the side of his head. his optics flicker but when the static clears he can see properly. "oh, it's you. No I'm fine why?"

"Because you seem a bit... confused," answers the definitely non-Cut-Throatish (despite being yellow) seeker. He shivers a little, shaking off some more feathers.

Ramjet turns to cut...Fleet? and frowns again, "yeah well I just powered up, what do you expect? Where'd Cutthroat go?"

"He was... never here," replies Fleet, a little uncertainly, and very slowly. He's using small words, too, although 'never' regrettably has two syllables.

The Seeker who is not Dirge shakes her head and shoots Fleet a chagrined look. Then Catechism sees that he's still got bird-bits on him and quickly looks away. She shrugs and replies to Ramjet, "Just wondering if you needed a bucket or something."

Ramjet ignores the disrespectful questions and instead points at fleet. "Never mind that. what happened to you? Did you say some smelt about the natives’ primitive recreational transmissions when there were some junks listening? They tried to tar and feather me onetime but that was something different."

Fleet shakes his head in the negative. "No. Just ran into a flock and haven't got all the bits out yet." He reaches his left hand into his right shoulder intake, working to make more progress in that direction.

Hey, what's wrong with buckets? They hold stuff! And...err...yeah. She crosses her arms and comments in the vague direction of Fleet, "Hope you can get all of that stuff out."

Ramjet ohs, "birdstrike huh? tough break. better get all that stuff off you before Galv sees it. probably cannon you for looking messy." he realises he hasn’t seen the pastely seeker around before. "Who are you anyway?"

"Fleet," answers the pastely seeker. "And I'm working on getting the stuff off. Believe me, I'm not happy about it!" There's mild annoyance in Flee's voice, but he has to be pretty damned annoyed before he'd show even mild annoyance to the other two. It even seems to be edging out his nervousness.

Ramjet rubs the back of his coned head again as he looks fleet over. "mnn. that’s gonna get confusing."

Fleet shakes again, causing his wings to tremble and dislodging a few more feathers. "What is? And why?"

Catechism ponders and suggests to Fleet, "If it's really bad, we can get you an acid wash or something." The medical bay ought to have some dilute acid and, if not, there must be someone around who could whip some up. It's not like an acid wash would make Fleet any paler.

Ramjet says, "you being called fleet. I mean when galv builds his new one and says like, 'launch the fleet' Cyc will shove you out the airlock or something. you’d better watch out for that."

Fleet studies Ramjet a bit warily for a moment. "Right..." he answers slowly. "I'll... be careful of that. It... hasn't happened yet, but I'll be sure to stay on the alert!"

Catechism frowns fractionally and postulates, "Ramjet, our illustrious leaders are intelligent sorts. I'm sure they'll avoid mix-ups."

Fleet gives Catechism a look out of the corners of his optics. Of course, she wasn't there when Galvatron threatened to unleash the might of Fleet on the patrons of the Steel Balloon... and was speaking of the yellow one, not his war fleet. Yes, the mighty pastel yellow seeker.

Fleet trembles again, not out of fear (for once), but to dislodge some more feathers. "You are right about the acid wash, though. I should head towards medical." He begins to walk off.

Ramjet says, "yeah better safe than fragged"

Catechism glances back at Fleet, who isn't quite so disgusting now, and looks confused. What was that about? Decepticon leaders wouldn't be in charge if they weren't capable. The dumb ones end up dead, after all.

And we all know that Fleet is king of the 'better safe than fragged' philosophy. He doesn't explain himself to Catechism. She'll just have to ask him about it later.

Fleet moves northwest to the NCC Central Hub.

Fleet has left.

Catechism sighs and voices, "I sure hope I never run into any of those 'bird' things." If one of those things got sucked into her engines, it might even be dangerous. Earth is such a strange place.

Ramjet says, "yeah well they mostly stay at low levels. usually you can pick up crowds of them on your radar."

Catechism comments, "That's good stuff to know. Thanks. And..." She thinks a bit. This proves to be a bad idea. "Ack! They'd get all in your insides if you transform after being hit by those things. That can't be hygienic!"

Ramjet says, "no worse than the rest of the muck you'll pick up on this dirtball. I remember onetime I flew thru a republican convention and...well lets just say i was picking lumps of them out of my intakes for weeks."

Catechism has no idea what Republicans are. She's pro-Empire, anyway. The cloudy Seeker assumes that they must be some sort of life native to this planet, though. She winces. "Sounds pretty dire. I've had some problems with this stuff called 'snow' and there's dust everywhere here, but I've been pretty lucky."

Ramjet says, "the dust really grinds my gears. you'll need new turbofans every 100k klicks and a complete engine overhaul every 400. The snow is pretty dangerous tho, you should watch out for that. antifreeze and low viscosity hydraulic fluid helps."

Catechism wonders if she ought to be taking notes. She laughs and explains, "Well, at the time, I was more worried about that Autobot and his rockets than the snow. The snow was just a nuisance."

Ramjet says, "yeah but it only appears where it's really cold. low temperatures can put you right out of action here. if you get trapped in frozen water it'll stop the energon from circulating in your systems and shut you down. There was this one con who was frozen like that for like hundreds of thousands of vorns."

Catechism shrugs. "I've spent some time in stasis. But I'd definitely want to avoid getting stuck like that. Ice gets on wings, too... that's a pain. This planet is so wet." She frowns. Why can't the rest of the universe be nice like Cybertron? Well, relatively nice. Cybertron does have those wicked swamps and... never mind.

Ramjet says, "I guess if we ever win this war then it will be."

Ramjet says, "well watch out for the deep water. lots of it is loaded with salts. it can really mess you up with corrosion."

Catechism nods. She can't swim, anyway. Why should she need to? The Seeker chuckles a little. "At least most of the interesting targets on Earth are on land."

Ramjet says, "or in the air. there were theses fish looking natives we had an alliance with onetime but megatron and me had to kick their afts. the others helped a bit too."

Modesty, thy name is not Decepticon. Stealing supplies, stealing credit - it's all the same. Catechism, however, doesn't know how events went. She looks slightly alarmed. "This planet has more than one dangerous type of native?"

Ramjet grins, "not any more. those fish things are history. Unless your a tape robot...then there are plenty of large animals you gotta look out for. anyways I wouldn’t exactly call the humans dangerous."

Catechism drops her arms to her sides and looks a bit defensive. She mumbles, "Not by themselves, but when they get in those exosuit things or jets..." After all, Catechism's first raid on Earth was mostly spent dog fighting a Terran jet. It didn't go terribly well.

Ramjet says, "oh, yeah...those exosuit things are pretty tough. rammed one thru the side of a building once and it still got up."

Catechism takes down a mental note about the durability of exo-suits and explains, "I got into a fight with one of their jets on my first raid. It was tougher than I expected. But not all their jets are that calibre, I've found."

Ramjet says, "yeah, same as it is here. the leaders get all the best hardware."

Catechism gestures vaguely with her hands and says slowly, "They didn't look the same. Different wing structure on their jets. Maybe they were different kinds of humans? I don't know."

Ramjet says, "maybe they were militants"

Catechism ponders. "You said those ones talk about how superior they are. The one in Iran didn't say anything, and the ones in Australia just wanted me to leave. Hee, they got pretty upset once we downed a few of them." She smiles, remembering that raid. Yeah, she took a rocket up the foot, but overall, it was fun.

Ramjet shrugs. "maybe they finally noticed how we always kick thier afts?"

Catechism grins and claps. "Must be that! About time they learned."

Catechism looks embarrassed and hides her hands behind her back. Then, she scratches the back of her helmet nervously. "I do tend to get excited fairly easily."

Ramjet can't help but smile everso slightly. "Yeah, so I noticed...still it is nice to see some actualy enthusiasm around here for a change."

Catechism frowns fractionally and then smiles, like she just had a fantastic idea, which she probably didn't. She suggests brightly, "Maybe some of them just need to get out and do something. Play storm tag, have a game of mecha soccer, go a round in the arena..."

Ramjet just looks confused. "some of who? the militants?"

Ramjet rubs his chin thoughtfully, "I dunno how them playing soccer would help us destroy them all."

Catechism giggles and raises and a hand to her chin. She gestures grandly with her other hand. "No, no, silly! Not our enemies, but us Decepticons. Even universal conquerors need to get out and have some fun sometimes, aside from righteously smiting our enemies, of course."

Ramjet continues thoughtfully, "...unless we had some sort of really big bomb in the stadium and huh? ...oh, yeah. right. I knew what you meant. er...yeah. it's always good to have fun I guess."

Catechism looks delighted at the thought and scratches her chin. "A bomb in the stadium... er, yeah. Cheerful Decepticons are Decepticons more likely to work to their full capacity, after all."

Ramjet says, "If you say so, I've never been an expert on morale. But I do think random executions aren’t the way to make us work harder."

Catechism chuckles and brushes some invisible speck of dust off one of her wings. "Nah, I'm not a morale expert, either." The comment about random executions seems to pass right over her head, or perhaps she just doesn't want to think about that matter.

Ramjet says, "so what is there to do for fun on this dirtball other than crash stuff?"

Catechism snaps her fingers. "Well, there's what I said, although storm tag would probably amount to crashing stuff played that way and... so would most of the other stuff. This place doesn't have a bar..."

Ramjet says, "Yeah, no bar. this place sucks. What’s storm tag? I played some ball game in the olympics onetime...we were winning till the judges changed the rules."

Catechism looks a little surprised. Perhaps it was something only Seekers in her area did. She explains, gesturing animatedly, "Storm tag's a game. You fly around in a bad storm in alternate mode and try not to get knocked down to the ground by the winds, the rain, the lightning, or the other players. If you transform or use weapons or powers, you're out. Last one flying wins."

Ramjet says, "So that’s what they all used to do over razor hills? Well there’s plenty storms on this rock. Sounds like fun."

Catechism nods, grinning widely. "It is! Just want to avoid a storm over water, heh, for obvious reasons. Fleet, Arachnae, and I were going to try it on Earth, but we ran into some snags and nothing came out it."

Ramjet says, "snags? you mean autobots?"

Catechism laughs and shakes her head slightly. "Not snags like that. Oh, I've got to be going. Thanks for the tips about Earth."