Let's Blow Up the Oceans!

Summary: (April 2026) Decepticons and Autobots case out Metroplex and Trypticon for microwave array installation.

Surface

''The majority of the planet consists of thick, dark gray steel plating, interrupted by the occasional empty basin, basin-cum-ocean, and the massive cliffs in the distant north and south polar regions. Bisecting this area is the golden central trench. Though comparatively plain, there's no doubt that this is the exterior of a complex mechanism; plates of metal the size of Earth's tectonic plates fit together as smoothly as the armor of the Transformer it is. The gravitational and magnetic fields in this particular location allow for easier launching into orbit.''

Cyclonus steps out onto the Tarmac, looking over the assorted missile launchers, guns, cannons, anti-aircraft weaponry...

Cyclonus looks past Fusillade, to Scrapper, "How many of these can brough online at once, given current power supplies?"

 Fusillade says, "So.� I've got some fine upstanding contract workers out here that might be able to help you out with those modfications to Metroplex.� Figured that getting some of those lovely ideas modified for our favorite city sized dinosaur might make things go more smoothly. Double the fun and all."

Smokescreen steps out of Autobot City so as to look over the gathered Decepticons and the guns that they bring. Surely, there's more to see here than just Smokey...right? "Evening." he nods. "At least...I think it's evening. Hard to tell without a sun ,right?"

 Fusillade says, "Someone come out here and let us in!"

 Rodimus Prime says, "I hadn't heard about this until just now.� With all due respect, we can probably handle the necessary modifications ourselves."

 Fusillade says, "Oh no you di'int.� Time to pony up."

 Long Haul says, "Hey, they doan want our help, fine with me. I'm busy enough transportin' /their/ supplies over /our/ spacebridge as it is."

 Cyclonus says, "And Co-ordination with our units, Prime? Friendly fire is always a danger in these situations. Given the current truce, it would be in everyone's interest to have the battle stations act in some organized fashion."

"What in the smelt?" is cast Smokescreen's way. However, with a brief wave of hand to excuse the tactician, Fusillade grumbles, "Someone's not too worried about feeling guilty about being responsible for killing off the race. But then again, he wouldn't be able to care if he's dead..." Planting hands on hips, she sneers upwards briefly to the ramparts of Metroplex, before glancing over her shoulder at Cyclonus and the other gathered Decepticons in puzzlement.

Scrapper leans back and shrugs. "Well, if they're going to be bootlegs, I had better get working on contingency plans." Which probably involve a grenade pin, three spools of copper wire, and some Portland cement.

 Rodimus Prime says, "Uh... On second thought, Smokescreen will be out there to greet our esteemed allies momentarily. Long live Cybertron. Rodimus out."

 Cyclonus says, "How Decisive."

 Scrapper says, "And I was just about to set up for a nice cube of energon and a game of universal domination. We're back on the job, it seems, Long Haul."

 Long Haul says, "Dammit! Well... I gots some supplies to deliver, anyways."

Smokescreen hmms, and just grins beatifically at the decepticon horde, despite the fact that they posess enough combined firepower to blow him up many times over. "Scrapper." he asks. "You've got the plans for the microwave cannon, right? I hope that it's not built out of Sharkticon parts. It'd be...distasteful. Even if ironic."

"Well, could always do it better ourselves," Fusillade suggests to Scrapper, before blinking at Smokescreen. "Actually, I think we were coming over to... how shall we say, compare notes? Jetfire was already doing something to Metroplex the last time we crossed paths over the Oceans. Could you let us inside? Promise to play nice," she simpers, holding up open palms.

Scrapper tilts his head to stare at Smokescreen. Then, he shakes his head. The engineer grumbles, "Alas, no. It would be my turbo-charged duvet set that slated to be built of Shakticons parts, and... no. I have not been privy to the microwave cannon plans."

Dump Truck  is, apparently, back on the job. Of course, his job is pretty much /always/ 'carrying stuff about.' The dump truck rumbles towards Metroplex, his truck bed loaded, as promised, with supplies slated for Trypticon, complaining all the trip.

Cyclonus gives Fusillade a somewhat distastful look, stepping off the landing pad and gliding, not exactly gracefully, more like a knife cutting the air, to land beside the Autobot. "Play is not our objective. The weapons systems of our respective fortresses will need to be alterted to suite the objective."

Cyclonus says, "You have some knowledge of these systems? Or at least, Clerance to show our specialist," he gestures to Scrapper, "and our Air commander, what you have done, so we can alter in a omplimentary fashion?""

Smokescreen nods at this. "Gotcha, gotcha- just wanted to make sure we had everything clear. Please, Decepticons- follow me." and this said, he does something that he hasn't done in a long, long time: he turns his back on a

The expression from the Decepticon XO doesn't go unnoticed by Fusillade. "Right, less idiom use around Cyclonus, then," she reminds herself. "Scrapper could always look at it and figure it out, he's great at this kind of stuff," she chirps out, before pointing toward Long Haul. "Him too." She doesn't quite notice that she had gotten volunteered for impromptu tech support!

Dump Truck  is great at that kind of stuff? Uhm... sure. It's all... science, right? "Uhm... sure, Fusillade," he mutters, before following Smokescreen, still in alternate mode. If it comes down to it, he's good to shuffle everything in his truck bed into subspace, but he won't if not needed to enter Autobot City (and it shouldn't be, right? That place is built for ground vehicles, right?)

Main Lobby - First Floor

''This is a spacious, circular room. An Autobot symbol is displayed high on the far wall. In the center of the room is a large computer terminal, one of several places from which Teletran-2 is readily accessible.''

Smokescreen leads the Decepticons inside- interestingly enough, every monitor they see is blank, and every door is closed, locked, and sealed. "Energy conservation." Smokey says. "We're at war, after all...now, this way." he heads towards a handy courtyard, where a large, menacing death-ray sort of device rests in a middling stage of construction. "Now, this is the main Microwave cannon..."

Long Haul stopped by the loading docks. Or something. Anyway, he's now following Smokescreen, but in robot mode, walking alongside his brother, because lime green attracts lime green. The transporter doesn't seem too interested in all the blank monitors and all the closed doors, but with his lack-of-face, who can tell?

"Reasonable security precautions," Fusillade counters quietly. The tone of the dark grey and white flyer is one of quiet acceptance, and not accusation. Her attention is quite clearly elsewhere as they reach the courtyard. Unbidden, a smile just splays itself across her face as she spies the massive machinery. She can appreciate firepower, but knows that the mechanoids that will get the most out of this are the ones painted green.

Scrapper gawks unashamedly. He cannot say that he thinks much of the architectural style, for one thing. He asks, "Ah, so there it is... I don't suppose we'd be able to get a copy of the schematics, for reference?"

Reflector trails quietly at the rear of the group, observing everything. The whole situation is quite interesting to the little spy, and he's more than happy to spend his time following around people who can reasonably ask for interesting items.

Smokescreen hmms, and nods to Scrapper. "Of course." Smokey pulls a datapad out from a concealed storage panel and hands it to the Constructicon. "Now, I'm no weapons technician, but it seems to be a fairly standard modification of an energy projector- you can see that the vector cone focuses the most of the microwaves..."

Long Haul trots after Smokescreen, and then up to the piece of machinery. He doesn't really know what he's looking at, but he might as well at least make a show of looking. In theory, his face mask should be enough to hide his confusion, but the way he frequently stops to scratch the back of his head, shake it, or bounce back on his 'heels' is more than enough to convey it.

Crossing arms over her chest, Fusillade is in the same boat as Long Haul. She visually scans the machinery for any parts that she may recognize, but only manages one or two out of the sea of components. And so, she wanders a bit. Clasping hands behind her back, she sidles to one of the other open atriums, and looks upwards toward some of the taller towers. "So this is mounted up there... What kind of range does this thing have? Is it going to be able to reach across a horizon?"

Reflector saunters around the machine, getting three different points-of-view on it. He actually recognizes more parts than he expects to, but knowing why they're there or what they're actually for is rather beyond him. But that's okay, he's just here to record things.

Scrapper takes the datapad, perhaps a bit greedily. "Oh yeah, I see what you mean. The cone is totally key, and it's super-cooled, too." Like an ice-cream cone! "Oi, Long Haul! Stop gawking and start taking notes. These

"Yeah, but... but..." Long Haul protests before withdrawing a datapad. But he doesn't know what he's looking at! "I... uhm..." The Constructicon looks around, desperate, trapped. He may have been studying of late, but this is still well over his head. Knowing this, however, is one thing. Admitting it in front of others, especially Autobots, is another thing entirely.

Smokescreen hmms, and nods to Fusillade. "With enough Energon pumped into it, yeah." he takes a step back, letting the Decepticons eye up the microwave-ray. "Long Haul," the tactician says, "What do you think of the ion catalyst? Jetfire said he had a system for it, but for the life of me, I'm not quite sure what it is..."

Long Haul lowers his datapad and GLARES at Smokescreen. He glances briefly at Scrapper, but doesn't expect any help there. /He/ probably sees it as some sort of pop quiz... but here poor Long Haul is barely able to solder in a proper And Gate! Finally, the transporter answers, tone sulky, "S'made of smaller components."

Scrapper pipes up, "Catalysts are Mixmaster's specialty. Now, ion transport, I'm sure Long Haul could do." Scrapper chuckles at his own joke, since hey, it's not like anyone else is liable to get it.

Smokescreen nods to Long Haul. "Obviously." this said, he looks back to Scrapper. "I'm glad you could make it though, Scrapper- Hook may be better at smaller affairs, but I don't think he has the overarching vision to make sure it's put together properly..." he hmms, and points out one largish chunk of metal. "What do you think of the weapon mount?"

Fusillade continues to pace, nodding. "Granted, put enough energon into anything and you could make a sun out of it." At least in her world of the metaphorical and hyperbole! For now, she seems content to absorb as much information as possible. "I'm not sure... how size works on these things. But having one on Trypticon would be beneficial, I think. Combined firepower and all."

Scrapper nods, a smirk in his optic band. He neither confirms nor denies but notes, "Large guns are a hobby of mine, and the larger the better. The mount, ah..." He pauses to mentally run a free body and kinetic diagram of it through his head. He shakes his head. "I don't like the pinning. It's not going to account well for the recoil."

Smokescreen nods. "I'll take note of that. You can send Jetfire a message about it..." he shrugs. "I'm better with electronics than with architectual matters..." he hmms. "Seen enough, then?"

Reflector startles slightly at that question, before reminding himself that Smokescreen is talking to Scrapper. Still the very possibility of there being *no more to see* anywhere... Shiver.

Long Haul sighs heavily and waves his datapad around weakly. "I got a few things, but, erm... y'might wanna double check me real quick, Scrapper." It's best not to leave things like species survival in the hands of a trainee, especially not when that trainee is one of the special ed cases of the Constructicons.

Scrapper would totally leave the fate of the universe in Long Haul's hands. Long Haul is, after all, a Constructicon, and if the universe ends, they'll just build a new one. No big deal. "Huh? Oh sure, I can look at it." He peers at Long Haul's data pad. "Just remember, you'll be graded for completeness and accuracy."

Smokescreen hmms, and taps at the side of his head, recieving a radio transmission. "Well, Scrapper- that was Hook just now...he says that he's got something of his own planned...something about re-routing Trypticon's fifth subroutine in order to override the...or was it the sixth subroutine? Message was kind of hazy."

Long Haul hands over his datapad and looks up, shrugging at Smokescreen as he glances back towards Scrapper and waits to see what the foreman of the Constructicons has to say. There's not really much to see here, and Long Haul is more than ready to return hom...

...to more hauling. Maybe he could find an excuse to stick around, after all.

Scrapper scrunches up his non-face as he looks at Long Haul's data pad, rather like a parent scrutinising a child's finger-painting of what he insists is a dog but really looks like a mutant three-headed rooster. "...Hook did? Well, slag. Look, I'm going to have to sit down and crunch some numbers. Will I get back to you here later or is there a broom closet I could borrow?"

Smokescreen hmms. "I'm afraid you'll have to get back to me later. C'mon-" and with that said, Smokescreen leads the little Decepticon delegation down a roundabout path through Metroplex- where, again, every screen is blank, every door is closed...until they're finally deposited out on Neocron's surface!

Long Haul is desposited! And just in time to get back to more hauling! Guess he'll have to wait until later to find out what his grade is.

Reflector lingers as long as he reasonably can get away with, but does straggle along after Smokescreen.

--End--