IC Time on Earth: Tue Jul 30 10:11:38 2024

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:

Comcast

Catechism

Sweep Sanctum

Shellshock's Workshop

Battlecharger's Bordello

Ramjet's Bunker

Obvious exits:

North <N> leads to NCC Arena.

Northwest <NW> leads to NCC Central Hub.

West <W> leads to NCC Coastline.

Fly <Up>

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 definately 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 noticable 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!

Ramjet has connected.

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.

Comcast has disconnected.

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 blury shapes. "hey Dirge. Hey Cut-throat." ne nods a vauge greeting. " Whats up?"

Fleet's optics flicker in surprise. Cut-throat? As to Ramjet’s 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 incitefull to cuthtroat when he hears dirge speaking with that femme coneheads voice. he turns to look at him...her...them both and frowns. Something sure is'nt 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 definatly 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 disrespectfull questions and instead points at fleet. "Never mind that. what happened to you? Did you say some smelt about the natives primitive recreational transmitions when there were some junks listening? They tried to tar and feather me onetime but that was something diferent."

: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.

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 hasnt 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. thats 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. youd 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' philosphy. He doesn't explain himself to Catechism. She'll just have to ask him about it later.