IC Time on Earth: Sun Jul 28 18:56:00 2024

NCC Central Hub

This is the very center of New Crystal City, and serves as the gateway to the other areas of the base. A feeling of claustrophobia exists here despite the fact that this part of the city is open to the air. Now in Battle Station Mode, the Central Hub has far less buildings than usual, as many have transformed themselves into huge laser defense cannons and missile turrets. There are very few positions one can take to hide from the weapons without being forced to take evasive action. The roadways have laser point-defense systems protecting them. The important buildings, including the medical ward and the command center now have a huge layer of thick metal protecting them, covering up the facilities and protecting them from harm.

Contents:

Trypticon <T>

Decepticon Sensor #1792

The Powerbase

Obvious exits:

North <N> leads to Mount R'Lyeh.

Northeast <NE> leads to NCC Dungeon.

Northwest <NW> leads to NCC Medical Ward.

South <S> leads to NCC Coastline.

Southeast <SE> leads to NCC Residential Plaza.

Southwest <SW> leads to NCC Spaceport.

East <E> leads to NCC Arena.

West <W> leads to NCC Central Command.

Fly <Up>

Arachnae arrives from the NCC Medical Ward to the northwest.

Arachnae has arrived.

Arachnae strides out of medical, a datapad in one hand.. and her usual mug in the other. Wings are tipped up and behind her at a rather perky angle, a thoughtful smirk lightening her usually serious features.

About the only portion of his dance that Fleet willingly allows people to see under normal circumstances is his favorite finale, the one where he cuts his jets and antigravs from a considerable distance above the ground and goes into freefall. He loves the feeling of freefall almost to the point of an addiction, but he can give it up at any time. Then, just in time to prevent damage, he tumbles into an upright position and turns on his antigraves while firing his boots up full power, thus filling his chosen landing site with the roar of his engines before he once more shuts them off to touch down gently, gracefully. This is the sort of entrance he makes now. He's a show-off at core, and would probably be a lot worse if he weren't worried about being shot at for being a "wimpy dancer."

It's the sound of bootjets fireing at full that garners the medics attention, optics slitting, head turning to look up and over. A crook to her smile as the seeker comes in for a landing. Showy, but nevertheless a landing. There's a moment of tapping at her datapad, talontips retracted enough not to leave indentations in the surface. A nod to herself and she pads towards where the showoff.. ahem.. landing seeker has come to ground. "Fleet, are you currently busy?" polite, business-like tone.

When Flee dances, he puts his full concentration on his dance, just as he puts his complete attention on the battle (and surviving) while in combat. Thus it is that he comes to his senses before he can acknowledge Arachnae. He shakes his head a bit to clear it, his optics flickering as his processors jump back onto more normal tracks. Arachnae. Busy. Uhm... busy? "No, not really," he answers. "I just came in from a scouting run," the dance, of course, goes unmentioned, "so I have some free time."

Arachnae's smile shades to a grin, wings flicking behind her absently. "Excellent." spoken after watching the mech gather himself. "Won't take but a few moments. A scan.. To refresh my Seeker basic physiology."

"Ah. You mentioned that..." Fleet says a little uncertainly. He likes Arachnae and is always willing enough to help her, but... he has an instinctive distrust of being poked or prodded while perfectly healthy. Still, his experiences with Arachnae in medical bay has thus far been far less painful or inconvenient than with Fulcrum or Hook, so if he's going to be anyone's test subject, if may as well be her.

Arachnae grins like a ferret on jolt soda for a brief flash before working on looking slightly more professional. "Glad you remember." She waves her empty hand towards medical, "If you don't mind spending some of that freetime in medical with me. Promise this should only take a moment or three."

"Oh. Uhm, sure." No doubt some of the uncertainty stems from Fleet's usual loss of confidence one he goes from sky to dirt, but more of it probably has to do with the medical test subject thing. "Not a problem," he says, skuttling towards medical as he talks.

You move northwest to the NCC Medical Ward.

NCC Medical Ward

The Crystal City repair bay is far larger than previous versions in Imperial Headquarters or Trypticon himself. Clearly it was designed by a medic, for a medic. The entire room is rectangular in nature with medical beds arranged in a neat grid pattern. The beds themselves vary, with some being precious little more than metal slabs, and others having full scanners and tools attached, as well as everything in between. In total, there are about twenty beds. There is room for more in an emergency situation. The cabinets line the walls, spaced out between medical terminals. Everything has a place, and organization is key. With battle mode being initiated, the huge windows are covered up as the bay is encased in metal for its own protection. Access can still be gained with the right codes, however. Red warning lights flash on and off.

Contents:

Scrapper's Art <SA> - Fourteen Pieces

MSE CO OFFICE (Earth)

Gumby Medic <NCC>

Obvious exits:

South <S> leads to NCC Central Command.

Southeast <SE> leads to NCC Central Hub.

East <E> leads to Mount R'Lyeh.

Arachnae arrives from the NCC Central Hub to the southeast.

Arachnae has arrived.

Arachnae pads after Fleet, looking merrily pleased. "Good good. Much prefer subjects cooperation in these things. Less chance of dificulty, loss of data or harm." Merry tone to as she picks over to a table, waving a hand. "Have a seat, lie baack and thing merry thoughts. Or something."

Fleet stiffens at the words, "Loss of data" and "harm," then forces himself to calm down. "Erm, right..." he says uncertainly, climbing onto the assigned table and lying back. As for merry thoughts... he's' not really sure what counts, so mostly he just tries to *not* think about unpleasant side effects or what-have-you.

Arachnae reaches up to twitch an overhead scanner into place. Taking several minutes to key in her parameters, the medic doesn't volunteer any reason why she's been asking for these scans. If anything, she's nice and quiet, very quiet. Once the overhead is in place, cycling to the needed spectral ranges, she turns to study Fleet with her own systems. "Hmm." A nod to herself, "This might tingle or elicit static disturbences in any systems that rely on energy signature readings. It's a short duration, high powered scan for mapping neural netware."

... "Erm. Okay." The yellow seeker trembles slightly for a moment, but he quickly regains control, an expression of annoyance with himself flitting across his face before it returns to something a bit more neutral.

Arachnae nods her head once, taloned hand reaching up to trigger the scan. She takes a step back herself, folding wings in neatly behind her.

Fleet says quietly, seemingly afraid that the output of his vocalizer might cause problems in the readings, "And I, er, allowed to shut off my optics, or will that cause problems in the read-zzt?" He frowns. That wasn't a speaker malfunction... it seemed to come from higher up in his processes. Time to shut up, he supposes.

Arachnae blinks and gives the readouts a glance. "You can do either of what you wish, Fleet. Whatever is more comfortable really. The more relaxed you are, the more useful this is to me. I can get variable data extrapolated from baseline readings working off of older archived scans from various subjects over the ages. Oddly enough.." she reaches out to tweak a requested scan fequency, "It's rather easy to get readings off irritated or jittery or other emotional states from a Seeker. But a calm baseline is so much more difficult."

"Right," Fleet answers without thinking. He shuts down his optics because actually, it does help to calm him when he's playing test subject. Calm. Arachnae needs calm... she may have picked the wrong seeker! Still, he makes an effort to calm himself down... what to think of? What calms him the most...? Wait! Of course! Dancing!

Arachnae considers the cache of injectables she has access to.. and decides that that would't make the scan close enough to true. There is the rasp of metal on metal as she shifts her wings about behind her, that soft padding of her feet against the floor as she steps to finetune her scan area. The whistle of the scanner as it passes overhead all meld together to form the sound backdrop of this procedure.

Fleet concentrates on dancing... imagines the wind over and under his wings, the movements, going from languid and graceful to supersonic with little warning, the twists, the rolls. Yes, even the taste of freefall. He keeps his thoughts on these things... or better yet, battle. He'd never admit it out loud, but he did enjoy combat, at least until the whole pain thing happened. How can he not? He was built as a weapon! But that early part, where he was ducking and weaving, applying the grace of his dance to violent ends... pure bliss. With these thoughts occupying him, Fleet is probably as calm as he can be while sitting on a medical table.

Arachnae smiles faintly, absently humming some aria or sonata she's heard since her arrival here enjoying the display of data roll across the screen.

Fleet ... continues to lie there quietly? Despite Arachnae's insistence on humming Earth music. He's in his own little world by this point.

Arachnae ah-hahs softly, tapping a talon on the overhead console to shift the scanner offline now that her data needs are fufilled for the time being. "Thank you."

Fleet remains quiet for a moment longer before it registers on him that things are over. He gets up, bringing his scanners back on-line. "Your welcome." Well, that wasn't so bad! He hops and heads for the exit. "Later." He just FINISHED a dance, but after thinking about it like that, he wanted another one. Or a fight, but fights were really only good until the hurting started.