Nightsiege Spaceport

 

   The spaceport is as pristine as the rest of the city, but it's here that you start getting your strongest indications of the sheer military presence that's housed in the Aerospace Headquarters to the north. The spaceport is divided into two distinct sections, as about a third of it is set aside for a small amount of civilian traffic and trade, and the rest is in constant motion as the patrols and strike-forces for the Decepticon Aerospace fleet scramble from one of the two landing strips. A huge stylized tower, dignified at worst and awe inspiring at best, rises over the landing strips, orchestrating all the traffic. Large hangars divide the spaceport physically. Positioned at all entrances to the spaceport are the best of the Decepticon's security troops, who, someday hope to ascend to the ranks of Aerospace.

 

Contents:

Long Haul

Scavenger

Decepticon Shuttle <Triumph>

Decepticon Shuttle <Relentless>

Nightsiege Spaceport Hangars

Obvious exits:

Fly <Up> leads to Sky above Nightsiege.

North <N> leads to Outskirts of Imperial Headquarters.

East <E> leads to Courtyard.

 

Scavenger walks briskly along, arms laden with what could be easily and scientifically categorized as "junk". Every fifth step or so, he stops, holds a hand up to his audio receptor and says something in a slow yet upbeat tone that differs vastly from his usual speaking voice. "I *am* a wonderful and worthwhile person." Five steps. Pause. "I am a *valuable* asset to my friends and co-workers." Five steps. Pause. "I *realize* *my* own inner worth."

 

Scrapper is over by the Triumph along with a few other gumbies, refueling the mighty Decepticon shuttle for the conquest that Motormaster has planned tomorrow. The lime green engineer of pure evilness is prepping them, and is currently tapping in a few commands at the side of one of the blackened hatchways leading into the ship. The Constructicon freezes. "Constructicon sense... tingling..." he murmers, taking a look around. And how about that? There's Scavenger walking along, talking to himself about some nonsense. "Scavenger!" Scrapper shouts out, "Get on over here and give me a hand, willya?"

 

Scavenger pauses for a moment, the voice in his ear overlapping with the more familiar voice of his fellow Constructicon and team leader. Asking for help? Works for him. He runs over to Scrapper, excitement in his optics. "Scrapper! I was hoping I'd find you!" he raises his arms full of Primus-only-knows to the 'Con-in-Charge. "I was out looking for stuff. Anything that would help with... Thing. You know." He waves a hand vaguely in the air. "Thing. With all the arms."

 

Scrapper squints at Scavenger. "Cuddles." He says, answering the question of what the thing is with all the arms is. Scrapper quickly glances both ways, just in case whatever it is that Scavenger found is going to suddenly 'wake up' and start clawing everyone's optics out. Scrapper ain't going to make /that/ mistake again... "Yessss?" he says in a wary tone. "What did you happen to find?"

 

Scavenger looks up into space for a moment and says in that Un-Scavenger-like voice again, "*My* skills and *my* talents are what make me a Unique and Special Being." He reestablishes optical contact with Scrapper. "What? Oh. Yeah. The stuff." He drops the pile of 'findings' onto the ground in front of him, and kneels in front of it, living up to his name. He comes up with a small, rusted sheet of metal, "Now -this- appears to be some sort of ancient alloy from Cybertron's deepest, darkest past," he says with an overly dramatic flourish. "I figure that if we do a structural analysis, we'd be able to replicate and produce an armor that will make... Thi... 'Cuddles' an indestructible whassname."

 

Scrapper snorts, "/Your/ skills involve /us/ looking after you to make sure you don't screw up!" he retorts. The Constructicon kneels in front of the findings as well to get better look at it. You know, just in case Scavenger has found something useful. He takes the rusted armour, looking it over with a decidedly unimpressed expression on his face. "Er... maybe Mixmaster can figure it out," he says, quickly passing the buck to someone else. "Squid." He answers regarding the whassname. Cuddles the super squid. Argh, it makes Scrapper's head hurt.

 

Scavenger rummages some more and pulls out a small container of hexagonal nuts. "Now you know that nuts -usually- come in allotments of fifty-to-two-hundred." He hands the container to his fearless leader. "*This* container holds only thirteen." There is an excited glint in his optics as he continues. "It is -my- belief that these are evidence of the existence of a kind of 'super-nut', the restraining capabilities of which have been heretofore unmatched by Decepticon science." He seems unusally proud, if not for his discovery, then for the fact that he was able to use a word like 'heretofore' in a sentence.

 

Scrapper takes the container that amazingly holds /thirteen/ instead of fifty-to-two-hundred, but keeps his glare on Scavenger, adding another tally to the How Many Times Has He Wasted My Time count. Five trillion eight hundred, seventy five billion four hundred, three million two hundred and ninety six thousand and one hundred and _one_. And counting. "Do I have to hit you again to make you stop malfunctioning?" he asks in a calm voice, giving the container back to Scavenger without looking at it.

 

Scavenger is already scrounging for the next doodad, as he says, "Now this is going to look like an ordinary length of spring, but -nothing- else I show you is going to makee sense without it." He grumbles to himself, heedless of the threat of 'corrective injury'. '*My* wit and charm shine though, and *all* my friends like me," he intones in that creepily pseudo-positive voice.

 

Scrapper takes a step back, wondering if this is Scavenger's natural dumbassness peeking through, or if Mixmaster has been doing something to his energon again. I swear, he -never- seems to get tired of that joke. The Constructicon says, "All your friends /tolerate/ you because without a right arm, we'd have to rely on Bonecrusher to pull the trigger, and we all know how he can't be trusted to do squat." Alas, Scrapper is resigned to being forced to sit through this lesson on what Scavenger has found. He peers at the spring.

 

Scavenger holds up the long, boingy spring. It goes up-and-down-and-up-and-down. "Behold the awesome aerodynamics of The Spring. Is it not simply perfect in its simplicity. From... this simple spring, we could..." He pauses in mid-sentence. Putting his hand up to his audio receptor again, his voice shifts one last time from Scavenger-standard to Creepy-Positive-and-Optimistic-Voice. "End of Side One. Please Turn to Side Two."

 

Scrapper's optics go up-and-down-and-up-and-down along with the spring, and he shakes his head, glaring back at Scavenger. "End of side..." he echos, trailing off. "What in all that is lime green and holy?!" he snorts, reaching out to try and grab Scavenger's audio receptor. "Gaaah, you're on the sauce again, aren't you!?" He accuses. "You better not be addicted to those fleshling Self-Help tapes again or so help me I'll have you on sanitation duty!"

 

Hey, that's MY job!

 

You can -share- the job.

 

I refuse! Don't take away the one thing that makes me special!

 

Fine... you can have Scavenger's old job, then. Finding crap.

 

Speaking of sanitation duty, here comes Long Haul! Man, we all saw that one coming a mile away. He's stuffed to the gills with various scrap and destroyed components, part of his cleanup duty here in IHQ. Thanks a LOT, Scrapper. The Constructicon transporter rolls through the Spaceport, heading towards the courtyard and likely intent on dumping out his smelly cargo in Autobot territory.

 

Scavenger looks guiltily up at Scrapper. As he continues holding the spring up with one hand, hoping beyond hope that its hypnotic qualities will distract his ever-so-observant CO for a few moments longer, he quickly shoves a tiny cassette case labelled "Daily Affirmation, by Dr. G.M. Goode" under the scattered pile of stuff he's found. "I wouldn't ever. Not after the last time." He surpresses a shudder as the memories of what happened during the Self-Help Incident of 2019.

 

Scrapper gets a few flashbacks to said incident. The memories of Decepticons spreading the word of love and peace all around... Terrorcons dancing in the field. Scrapper shudders, missing Scavenger as he hides the self help tape. "Alright, alright, lets get this over with. You found a spring, a rusted piece of scrap, and a mostly used box of nuts. Anything else that you need me to waste my time with?" he asks in his gruff tone. Scrapper spots Long Haul off in the distance, but pays him no mind.

 

Lime Green Dumptruck <Long Haul> continues driving, noticing Scrapper at first and then picking up on the fact that Scavenger is right beside him. Well then, that means that unless Long Haul stops now, he's gonna have to make a second trip to clean up all the junk that Scavenger's bringing back into the base. God knows most of it is stuff he just took out, the little punk. Turning towards his siblings, Long Haul sighs to himself and flashes his lights to try to get their attention.

 

Scavenger corrects Scrapper politely, "-Super- nuts." He looks down at his large pile of valuable artifacts and thinks on the question. "No. That's about it, really." He gets on his feet again and looks hopefully at the master builder. "You said something about needing my help?" A chance to be useful! At least! PleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease...

 

Scrapper slaps himself in the forehead with a lime green hand. "Argh... SUPERNUTS." He echos Scavenger with an air of frustration. He points over to the Triumph, "Y'know, I could be getting some /real/ work done here," he snorts. But thankfully, Scavenger seems done and ready to get on with the /real/ work. "Ahem... as you know, we have to make sure these shuttles are prepped and ready." He gestures to the Relentless. "I want a complete systems diagnostic done on the both of them." He squints. "Do I need to send someone with you to make sure you do it right?" Without even waiting for an answer, he snaps to the approaching Long Haul. "Go with Scavenger. Make sure he doesn't suck." Hey, /two/ idiots might be able to do what one normal guy can do, right?

 

Lime Green Dumptruck <Long Haul> screeches to a halt as Scrapper barks orders at him, several bits of garbage sliding out over the top of his box and landing in front of him. "... Ya sure ya want me ta? I mean... Look at th' Despoiler." Long Haul internally shudders at the mere mention of the name, flashing back to the water, and then to the squid. And now he has to help BUILD one of those damn things. How will he survive without breaking out with the willies? Transforming, Long Haul pushes all the garbage that fell off as he changed forms into a pile and looks around for a crate to put them in.

 

Rising up, the dump truck splits apart in several places to form the Constructicon delivery boy, Long Haul.

 

Scavenger's mouthplate tilts slightly downwards to answer Scrapper's question, but instead is cut off as the Scrapmeister bellows for Long Haul. Dejectedly, he picks up a datapad and sets about his work. He'll do the job fore to aft, bow to stern, top to bottom, and he'll do it repeatedly, but as he supposedly "sucks" again, he'll do so as gloomily as is conceivably possible.

 

Scrapper holds up his hands in protest at Long Haul, "Practice makes perfect... but don't screw up again or else Motormaster will eat us all alive." We can only hope that he's joking. The Constructicon nods as both Long Haul and Scavenger sure do seem super-duper happy with their current assignment. Another leaderly job well done! Scrapper turns back to the Triumph, continuing the diagnostic on this shuttle.

 

Long Haul shudders again as he adds to Scrapper's comment, "That or he'll feed us ta Cuddles." Long Haul looks around cautiously, then reaches over and grabs his 'brother' by the shoulder, "C'mon, Scavenger. I can't afford ta screw this up, an yer gonna be my insurance." Long Haul's stupid, and he really isn't very good with technical matters, but he is strong, and that's all that matters when you're forcing your brother to do something under the implied threat of physical punishment.

 

Scavenger looks up from his datapad. "Insur-what?" he asks, his mind clearly on the matter-at-hand of taking care of the diagnostic. He enters a few careful keystrokes, finding solace in actually proving temporarily useful to SOMEone, even if the mystery alloy, Super-Nuts, and the glory that was The Spring failed to impress, he has a chance to prove his worth for sure this time.

 

Scrapper is satisfied that another job has been well done. He taps in a few more buttons on the terminal next to the Triumph's main hatchway and gives the odd glance over at the Relentless, wondering if he's going to have to go doublecheck the work after it's done. Y'know... just in case.

 

Long Haul lets go of his brother and goes to open a maintenance panel, y'know, just in case one of the higher-higher-ups comes in and wants to make sure everyone is working. Clicking the locking mechanism open, Long Haul pries the panel off roughly and drops it to the ground with a crash. He then proceeds to stick his hands inside and just, move'em around every once in a while, while at the same time pretending to be deep in thought.

 

Scavenger winces at the crash and heaves a soft sigh. As he looks over his shoulder, he confirms that, yes, it's Long Haul "fake-working" again. He makes a mental note to octuple-check the contents of that panel after the dump-truck has had his way with it. He doesn't rat Long Haul out. Never has, never will. Instead, he plods from console-to-console, running his scanning equipment up and down it as he takes copious notes on the working status of each.

 

Scrapper, of course, assumes that the pair are hard at work, and continues on with his own merry little project. Surely Scavenger can keep Long Haul in line, right? And surely Long Haul can keep Scavenger in line, right? Right.

 

Airwolf arrives from the Outskirts of Imperial Headquarters to the north.

Airwolf has arrived.

 

Long Haul continues wiggling his hands inside the maintenance hatch, looking over his shoulder every once in a while to make sure no one's actually paying attention to him. It's not that he's lazy, oh no, it's that he has a technical statistic of 48 and his very nature as a Constructicon is questionable. How he helps build anything beyond bringing parts where necessary is anyone's guess, but at least he can /pretend/ to be anywhere near as good as his brethren. Ah, the imagination, such a happy place for Long Haul, where Autobots scream in terror at the very mention of his name, and Long Haul's rugged, manly features are covered in the blood of his enemies... Long Haul snaps out of his daze, realizing that all his moving around has caused his hands to become entangled in several power conduits, optical cables, and other such wires.

 

Airwolf emerges from IHQ and one of the first sights she sees is... chartreuse, Primus help her. Lots and lots and *lots* of chartreuse. Oh yes, and some purple in there as well. Time to sneak off before being seen or before some disaster befalls the Constructicons again. At least there are no giant squids on Cybertron...

 

Airwolf transforms into her jet helicopter mode.

 

Jet Helicopter moves east to the Courtyard.

Jet Helicopter has left.

 

Scavenger runs his diagnostic doodad up and down repeatedly over every square micron of the Relentless and is treated to a cheerful *beepbeepbeepbeepbeep* throughout. That is until he doubles back towards the dillegently not-working Long Haul. As soon as the sensor reaches the open panel, Scavenger's device emits a distressed-sounding "weeooweeooweeoo..."

 

We do not create disasters! That squid was HUGE, so you can't really blame us for... erm... falling into the water, shorting out, getting beaten up by the wildlife, and needing to be rescued by Galvatron. And the fire retardant foam incident was purely Mixmaster's fault. And the time Bumblebee defeated us? Well, that was just luck. Scrapper, meanwhile, is still doin' his own thing. La dee da.

 

Long Haul tugs gently on his hand at first, creating a small creak of protest from the equipment inside as it is nudged slightly out of and then back in to place. Seeing that just ripping out a large section of the cables won't help Long Haul's credibility at this moment, the Constructicon tries wiggling his fingers to loosen and hopefully untangle some of the wires. This helps a little, but he is still very much in trouble. Panicking at the sounds of the fuzz, Long Haul frantically turns and looks around, tugging on the cords once again in an attempt to get free before... Oh wait, that's Scavenger and his stupid datapad. Leaning over, the Constructicon glances towards Scrapper and whispers, "Pssst! Scavenger!"