Radio:Shockwave to Needlenose

[Victoria Raines]

As he exits repair, Shockwave makes use of Needlenose's newly acquired frequency. //Such a tantrum was uncalled for, Mayhem.//

[Needlenose]

//As amazing as it may seem, Shockwave, lots of folks do things that're uncalled for. Like, say, intentionally undermining one's commander in front of new recruits? Totally uncalled for, but folks do it all the time. The Decepticon way, I suppose.//

Except that you have no sigils, Shockwave. I may feel no particular loyalty towards Starscream, but at least when I follow him, I know I'm following a Decepticon, he thinks but does not say, before adding,

//Scourge is fixed. Someone beat me to it. It's messy, non-standard, not particularly efficient, some of the ugliest jury-rigs I've ever seen, and I think he might now have a waffle-making setting, but it's functional work, and we don't have the resources to make things pretty right now, anyway. The only 'significant' repair he needs right now is to have his door replaced, and that underfoot candy striper can handle that much.//

//For myself, I've had more than enough of taking care of everyone else's owies while my own problems are getting ignored, thank-you-very-much. I'm not some leaking-pump Autobot caretaker.//

[Victoria Raines]

//Waffles? Why would he need to produce a human fuel source?//

//No matter. I spoke naught but truth Needlenose. Surely Starscream's command is not so tenuous that it can not stand against against such? //

//I can understand your frustration at being relegated to camp medic. Are there not others with the proper skills? As for your personal problem- I have only just now heard of it. I would be willing to offer my assistance, in that regard.//

[Needlenose]

Needlenose leaves the waffle question and the truth matter alone, judging both irrelevant and secondary to what's really important: him.

//Dead End's got some barebones level of skill, and seems determined to learn more by hanging out in the repair area as much as possible. Or around Hook as much as possible, not sure. Starfighter, at least according to his record,// which Needlenose got to peak at while he had Starfighter's datapad - thank you, Starfighter! //is actually good enough for day to day, normal levels of work. Wouldn't get him for anything complex or unusual, looking at his record, but I don't see why he can't be pulling shifts for normal repairs, especially since he's nigh-on useless otherwise. Blackarachnia definitely needs to be pulling shifts. Got a chance to watch her first hand, and she knows what she's doing. She seems the most generally useful of the small ones, but that's not too hard considering her competition are those Vehicon nutcases.//

//Those are the only ones below command-rank I know about. In the command rank, I'm hearing this Starscream's a lot more technically inclined than the one I'm used to, I wouldn't be surprised to learn you've got that skillset, and, of course, there's Hook. How it is we managed to start with a random grab-bag of Decepticons from across bunches of different realities and end up with something bordering on a technocracy is beyond me, but it seems to have happened.//

//Oh... and Scourge's field repairs. Was that the toymaker you mentioned? I wouldn't let him near a standard lab with a proper source of materials - you don't jury-rig when you don't have to, makes it harder for future techs doing repairs - but in a situation where you've got to make do with limited resources scavenged from what's on hand,// like, oh, the one they're in, //well, for that sort of thing, looks like he does good work.//

//As for your offer?// Needlenose considers. He doesn't trust Shockwave. For one, he's a Shockwave. For two, he might not even be a Decepticon. But the big point, however, is that Needlenose really wants to fly again. //Sure, I'll take you up on that. I've had enough of being trapped.//

[Victoria Raines]

//Excellent. They can be added to shift rotation as soon as we have recovered from this Skyfire debacle.//

//Speaking of Scourge's 'squire' we need to locate her. I had placed Thundercracker to watch her; once he returns I will ask what became of her. I know nothing of her, only that she tends toward Earth speech, and seems fairly possessive of things she considers 'hers.'//

//We can begin work on fixing your transform issues at your leisure then, as I regard having you fully functional as a priority. But tell me, you have not promised this little engineering challenge to anyone else, have you?// In other words, to Hook. It is always better to know whose toes one will be stepping on before one does so.

[Needlenose]

//Ah? All right. He- she'll be found.// In other words, Needlenose will be telling Spinister about it. He's got some small skills as a tracker, but Spinister has more experience and better adaptations. //Can you describe her physically, at least?//

//Promised? No. Hook's aware of it, and has done some initial investigations, but hasn't had time to do anything more. No promises made.// In other words, as far as Needlenose cares, Hook snoozed, he loozed.

[Victoria Raines]

//Appears to be have a motorcycle alt-mode. Color scheme is various rust shades- oranges and tans, mostly. Some red accents. Red optics. She had an...odd body style, all in all. One with which I am unfamiliar.//

Noting the slight confusion over pronouns Shockwave explains, //I use "she" because her basic build style and vocal patterns resemble the rarer female subset. Though I still fail to see why such distinctions were made by our creator."//

You can practically hear the shrug.

[Needlenose]

//They weren't by ours. I'm still getting used to female Cybertronians, and tend to default to 'male.' Sunbeam and Zigzag seem pretty sure about their ability to tell them apart.//

//Description acknowledged.//