Repairs: Hook and Starscream

[Hook]

Starscream is lucky that life with the other Constructicons has mostly beaten it into Hook that plans only exist unaltered for the first five minutes of their existence. If this was Onslaught, the white jet would likely be getting sulked at for making him change his plans.

Hook surveys the square, then points to a mostly clear area off to the side. "Over there, Starscream. The rest of you... Starfighter, get up to the mines and start making maps. I would like a general idea of the terrain around the mine entrance, as well as heights, widths, and such for the tunnels. Shortround, go over there and let Starscream take a few cubes, then head up to the mines. Sky-Byte, drop my supplies over there then join Shortround. The rest of you go up to the mines as well - that will likely be the sight of our new base and you might as well begin familiarizing yourself with the environment. When Dead End arrives, he will take care of placing the energon cubes in safe storage."

Guess who Hook trusts to keep properly handle something as important as where their next refueling comes from.

---

Duplicated from a post in the Survey of the Decepticon Base Site thread. Sky-Byte and Shortround can pose in here to do what Hook commanded of them, or in the other thread. I'll follow either way.

[Starscream]

Starscream made his way to where Hook pointed. "You'd think some of these cowards haven't seen a giant robot before." Starscream muttered. "If everyone is going to panic at the sight of Omega, all it is going to cost the Autobots for a guaranteed victory is the fuel to get him to the battle."

"Are there any weaknesses on Omega Supreme that we can exploit?" Even if there weren't, Starscream would just tell people there was anyway. If it made people more comfortable to attack the Guardian Robot, that would be fine by him.

[Hook]

Hook manhandles Starscream casually, taking hold of the Seeker's intakes and turning him as necessary to get a good look at his damages. "Omega Supreme is, unfortunately, rather upgraded from the old Guardian robots. Principal weaknesses would be his lack of speed and intelligence."

"These blast marks are purely cosmetic, correct? Or has your self-repair system glitched?" Hook brushes his thumb across one, tactilely examining the difference between it and Starscream's 'healthy' armor.

"Other weaknesses... Hrm. The various entrances on his person do provide weak spots in his armor, but not exceptionally so. He uses a great deal of fuel, which makes it extremely difficult for him to remain mobilized."

He releases the jet and removes his toolkit from subspace. A power drill and a small hammer are carefully set near the top, however what he steps back to Starscream with seems to be a shielded circle of black not-metal. As he applies it to the minor dents on Starscream's wing, the jet should feel the pull of a very strong magnet right before those small dents pop back into place.

"I suspect some of them have never seen a gestalt before, either. A pity we can't reveal that to them."

[Starscream]

"I am getting repaired by you for morale, purposes, Hook. I am their leader." Starscream said it relatively matter-of-factly, but with a certain sharpness to it that hopefully stopped Hook from questioning further.

"As for wanting a new combiner, don't get your hopes up. We've already found Long Haul the 'good guy', so that rules out Devastator. Our best bet at this point is Menasor, but going by our track record we're more likely to get an lifeless truck that hasn't been imbued with life from Vector Sigma, rather than Motormaster."

Which, now that Starscream thought about it. wasn't all that bad...

[Hook]

"Your morale purposes may not be fully served then. I do not have any paints to touch up your pristine hide with. Repairing cosmetic damages will have to wait until we have more resources available," Hook pronounces with the utter certitude of someone who knows exactly what resources they currently have on hand down to the tiniest nut.

"Turn around, I'm going to repair your back first." He reaches for the drill and checks the drillbit on it. Yes, this is exactly the right size for removing the particular fasteners used to keep armor plates attached to jet-transformers.

[Starscream]

Starscream scowled, but thankfully he turned his back before he did so. Hook was obviously playing some mind games with Starscream. He would pay for that later, oh yes.

"As for our large friend, I'll take what advantages I can get. If I tell people that, perhaps it might give them some false courage in taking him on." Starscream needs to draw a little diagram or two explaining that if some people distract Omega, some people get hurt, but if no people distract him then EVERYONE gets hurt. "Perhaps we can also get a jetpack of some sort designed built for Needlenose, if we can't get his anti-gravity circuitry reconnected." Starscream doesn't realize he doesn't HAVE any circuitry to that effect, of course. "Having that kind of firepower is useful, but I need some mobility on it. At the moment if I want Omega Supreme shot in the head it uses two of my soldiers. If we can halve that, I'll be happier."

[Hook]

"His head isn't really used for much," Hook notes as he begins to remove a whole swath of paneling from Starscream's back. It likely feels very, very strange to the prickly Seeker. "Visual sensors and shooting at things, but there are redundant systems for both of those functions elsewhere in his body."

Alas, poor Starscream. If Hook were truly thinking of playing mind-games, he'd have strapped the Seeker to something. That always makes any efforts to modify someone's programming easier, even if the method used is non-invasive.

"We need another jet before we can create a new combiner entirely as well. I would suggest saving that for well after we have an established base of operations and supply line."

Not that Hook is really thinking all that hard about building a new combiner from scratch. Starscream had inadvertantly brought up the one topic Hook has been trying to avoid thinking about for the last few days. There is a base to design and build, supplies to collect, a thousand more important things to do than fret over Long Haul's condition.

What Dead End had relayed of the conversation with Long Haul, however... That confirmed Hook's worst fear. This is his partner, but Long Haul is still painfully alien to him.

"A base first," Hook says very softly as he finishes removing the armor panel, then reaches for the hammer and begins to tap out the dents.

[Starscream]

"Of COURSE a base first." Starscream said snippishly. "I've been one of the only people who realizes our priorities here!" Starscream tried to not let himself be unnerved by the work Hook was doing, but it wasn't really working as well as he'd hope.

Let's see.. jet combiner. Fleetwind, Starfighter, Skystrike.. Hnn. "I am already the peak of Cybertronian Warfare technology, I'm NOT about to permit a reconfiguration to become some mindless brute's crude flailing limb. If this is some pipe-dream you're working on, look at someone else."

[Hook]

Hook pauses in the tap-tapping with his hammer. "Starscream, you've been rebuilt by Teletraan-One to fit the aeroplanes of Earth, and the upgrades we performed on you so that you wouldn't four million years out-of-date were hampered by being unable to simply take you apart and rebuild you. You are not the pinnacle of any technology, much less Cybertronian technology."

[Starscream]

Starscream was tempted to use his null ray to show Hook what four-million-years-out-of-date could do. Instead he just sighed and realized Hook had no idea what he was talking about. "Oh, of course, Hook."

He took the cubes that Shortround gave him and used them to refuel, glaring at him to take the hint to scurry off. The grown-ups were talking.

"The numbers looked close between Autobots and Decepticons." he mused. "Sadly, numbers don't count for much when Omega Supreme is still 'one'. Starscream wasn't aware of any single gigantic Decepticon that didn't require five or six smaller Decepticons hopping on everyone's shoulders. He stroked his chin. "But why Cybertronians? Why from the differing eras?" Starscream would be happy to just accept that this was his chance to lead the Decepticons to prosperity. But someone brought him here. Starscream did not like the notion of being someone's pawn.

[Needlenose]

Pretty much as soon as Fleetwind puts him down, Needlenose comes sauntering in the direction of Starscream and Hook, his Nebulans trailing after him. Yes, both his wings are horribly mangled. Yes, one arm is still mostly useless. And yet, he's still sauntering.

"Hello, hello," calls out the fashionably late Actionmaster as he approaches the other two. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he says in a way that implies that he really doesn't care if he is or not. "However, I'm putting myself on the queue for repairs. I think we can all agree that at least getting my arm in working order should be something of a high priority, hmmm? The more techs we have around here, the faster we can get things done!"

[Hook]

Hook recognizes that tone of voice. That's the one Mixmaster uses when he thinks Hook has no idea what he's talking about, happily ignoring the fact that he hasn't been listening to the crane for the last half hour.

Clearly, this place was going to be more homey than he thought.

Speaking of more homey than he thought, had Mixmaster gotten rebuilt as a jet in one of those timeline? Normal people should not saunter when they were in that state.

Needlenose's claims of technical competency just reinforce that '...Mixmaster?' idea. Please tell him that the jet isn't a chemist.

"You are a technician? What specialty? And read off your diagnostics, especially on those wings and that arm."

[Starscream]

Hmm. Another technician. Given that the only Autobot he could spot with any technical ability was Perceptor compared to Starscream, Hook and this guy, the Decepticons had the best potential for technical advancement. Heck, from the looks of things some of the Autobots hadn't even invented adequate plating yet.

Wait.. Needlenose has two little robots walking alongside him. Starscream suddenly remembered something about Spinister and his guns.

"Don't tell me YOU have filthy little organics turning into your guns as well!" Starscream said, not even trying to hide the disgust in his voice.

[Needlenose]

"Actually, no," Needlenose corrects Hook, "I'm an engineer. I am, in fact, the greatest, and most fashionably conscious, microchip designer Cybertron's ever seen, and I'll just have to assume the fact that you've never heard of me means your Cybertron is bereft of an equivalent." He sighs dramatically and adds, "I find myself filled with pity. I really do."

"But anyway, I am an engineer, speciality is microchip design, but I can do more general work, or even lower myself to tech work, if it's so required." He looks around and adds, muttering, "And it looks like it is."

Then Starscream asks about the Nebulans. At the term "filthy little organics," Zigzag takes a step forward and growls, "Hey!" But Sunbeam only looks faintly confused, and he lifts one arm to try to sniff at his arm pit (an action that doesn't provide much in the way of results, considering he's wearing armor). Needlenose sniffs.

"Starscream, please! It's not their fault they haven't had a proper bath since coming here! It was hard enough to get that Fleetwind to stop long enough to obtain appropriate fuel-types for them and to allow them to expel their wastes. Really! Some Transformers can be so insensitive!"

[Hook]

It's Mixmaster. Rebuilt as a jet. And evidentally with a memory wipe. But Mixmaster!

Hook barely avoids gaping at Needlenose, and likely winds up staring at the jet in a rather dumbstruck manner. Sadly, this is not because of how awesome Needlenose is.

Fortunately, the little gun'formers jolt him out of things. "They are organics? Why?"

While some people might interpret that as 'why are they organics?', what Hook means is 'why are they your guns if they're organic?'. Sadly, the crane has fallen into the bad habit of assuming everyone around him has the same level of Constructicon-dialect as he has.

"Starscream, your back is done. Hold still while I reattach it."