| abstract | - Mimas A tiny moon, Mimas is a barren wasteland marked by a large amount of craters, many more than 40 kilometres in diameter. The largest crater is 130 kilometres across and 5 kilometres high. Its size and shape gives Mimas a coincidental resemblence to the Death Star from Star Wars. Gravity is non-existent. High above one can see Saturn, the planet this moon revolves around. Cyclonus is standing in Robot Mode near to the blasted open doors of the Mimas Super Laser facility. His hands are behind the small of his back and his optics are upon the controls to the laser. It is currently offline given the damage that Hun-Grrr did to the actual systems, along with Dirge and Dreadwind this is no surprise. He is looking particularialy paitent today. Combaticon Hovertransport slows down and stops near Cyclonus. Swindle disembarks the Combaticon Hovertransport . Swindle has arrived. Swindle opens the door and steps out onto the moon, then immediately grabs his throat as if he can't breathe and falls over. Then he gets up, laughing. "Haha, imagine -that-!" Ransack has arrived recently on Mimas as well. Even though the Insecticon has been laying low - for a given definition of low, anyway - as of late, the words 'giant laser cannon' and 'now ours' chained together in a sentence was enough to reignite the Decepticon's passion for destruction. Needless to say, he made his way to the moon as quickly as possible. He's presently walking around the facility excitedly, studying the new weapon. Swindle bounds across the moon and gives the partly-wrecked laser emitter a big hug. "Baby, what have they done to you!" Cyclonus can detect Swindle on one of the few remaining undamaged monitors and grimaces. That particular style of humor is not one which he is in favor of. He can see Ransack as well. << Both of you, get in here. >> He emits, and keeps his hands behind the small of his back while he waits. << It would seem that someone has gotten rather . . exhuberant in here. Swindle, do you have the control mechanisms required to get this laser operational? >> "Hahaha, yesss, finally! A big gun! The BIGGEST gun! I will name youuuu..." Ransack's slightly unsettling interest in the laser is interrupted with the sudden order from Cyclonus. <<-oh. Yessir, right away!>> he responds quickly, boosting away from his newfound interest and back to the commanding officer. Swindle acks and runs into the bunker. "Oh, uh, Weapons Chief Swindle, reporting for duty, Lord Cyclonus!" he calls, saluting. "Now, do I -ever- have the control mechanisms you want. Do you have any -idea- how long I've been waiting to get my hands on the death star?" Swindle continues, "I -knew- it was real!" Cyclonus grunts in a satisfied manner. He switches to local transmissions instead of the broadband. "Well, then?" He asks. "If that's the case, produce them and we will get started. Meanwhile . . . " He looks around, somewhat desperatly. "Ransack, see if you can find a replacement blast door in storage somewhere. Do you feel competant enough to weld a door into place?" He is probably aware of the infatuation that both of these two share with the place. And it probably disturbs him. "So, then. Give me a cursory examination, Swindle, and tell me what you feel we need. I have been over it several times already and I am curious to see if your findings match my own." Ransack salutes quickly. "Of course, sir! Competant is written all over my processor! I'll weld that thing no problem." The salute faulters a little as something occurs to him. "...I can't use my blaster gun for it, can I?" Deep down, yes, he knows the answer to that, but it never hurts to ask. Except when it does. Swindle starts rummaging around in 'pockets' and starts pulling out circuit boards and wiring. "Oh yeah, this is the stuff." He also pulls out a doll that looks exactly like Swindle, posed with a goofy grin and a big thumbs up, and sets it carefully on a control console. The repair parts get piled up on another console. "Okay, I haven't tested all of this stuff, but my sources -assure- me it's all good for at least ten thousand uses. So.. as for the rest of the stuff, huh?" Swindle peeks back out at the emitter, then turns again to face Cyclonus. Matter-of-factly, he states, "We're going to need a new seventeen meter dish with a level 9 laser emitter, and it wouldn't hurt to replace all that wiring and hook up a new Class A fusion cell -- those Human generators have some serious drop-off if they operate at peak capacity for too long." Cyclonus hrms as he hears the damage report from Swindle. It is probably what stops him from kicking Ransack. Then again, he still might. "No!" He says to him, irritably. "Fetch the door and repair it! You can at least put yourself to good use by eating away the twisted supports that will prevent you from replacing it. If you do /extra/ well, I may permit you to test fire the laser." He half turns away from Ransack then, pounding the console in frustration. "The shuttle uses fusion cells. Go cannibalize one from that. But where in the pit are we going to get a new dish and emitter? Can that one be patched?" Ransack takes off immediately after Cyclonus' statement ends. While he was never as good at construction as he was at its opposite number, the idea of being able to use such an imposing weapon of mass destruction before anyone else spurred the Insecticon on to become the best welder /ever/. They were going to paint him green and purple and call him Torchor or something by the time he was done. Chuckling to himself, he makes his way to storage and rummages around for that spare door. Swindle pokes his head back out and holds a thumb up, squinting one optic as if gauging its height. "It -just so happens- that I know where I can get a dish -exactly- like the one we need! But it's going to be at least five thousand astrocredits, plus another twelve hundred for need-it-yesterday shipping. Everything else I have. And you know my motto: If I have it, you need it." Big thumbs up and goofy grin, mirroring the little Swindle doll on the console, which echoes his 'motto' with a scratchy little audio playback. Combat: Cyclonus sets his defense level to Fearless. Combat: Cyclonus strikes Swindle with his Grab attack! Cyclonus is perfectly calm as he listens to all of this, nodding at Ransack. That is how he likes his soldiers. Not so bright, unquestioning and easily motivated. Indeed, he is beginning to like that one. Either way he turns and wanders over to Swindle; peering down at the console himself. Then suddenly he lunges and attempts to grab the Combaticon around the neck with his right hand and force him back into the wall. So that the Unicronian can put his face close to the other one's. "You will provide Mighty Galvatron's Empire with the location of the required dish, and you will do it for the /favorable/ price of four thousand astrocredits and /free/ shipping. Because I will go get it at gunpoint. And in return, the Empire will be /very/ happy with it's servant. Does this seem like a good bargain to you, /SWINDLE/?" Ransack makes his way back into the entrance area, the successfully located door held high over his head like some big dull metal prize. The Insecticon tosses it over by the damaged doorway and grabs the appropriate welding gear (that being just the torch. It's not like he needs more covering over his face than he already has.) He seems to be purposefully ignoring Cyclonus' offer to Swindle. Best not to get involved when a Unicron-guy was on a rampage. Swindle acks and tries to pry Cyclonus' hands off his neck. He kicks his legs as he's being held off the ground. "That sounds great!" he says, quickly. "And in the interest of full disclosure, sir, and in -no way- a criticism of your actions," he gasps out, "choking someone on an airless moon, while an excellent display of Decepticon command-level intimidation, might be better replaced with something more appropriate, like punching Ransack in the auxiliary fuel filter. I'm pretty sure that the display of abject pain and suffering on his face would get me to straighten up and stop doing whatever it is you don't like, sir!" Cyclonus leans in towards Swindle. "I wasn't aware that you had to breathe in the first place. Merely the neck provides an admirable grasping point." Despite the temptation, he does not throw Swindle at Ransack and instead sets him down neatly on his feet and pulls out a credstick from subspace and hands it to him. "Location." He states. Then glances over at Ransack. "Do you feel that the Empire made an /unfair arrangement/?" He inquires of the insecticon. He seems oddly prickly today. It could be PMS, or could be having been beat to hell yesterday. "Eh?" Ransack looks over from his work back at Cyclonus and the poor bas-...er, Swindle. He honestly was trying to avoid paying as much attention as possible but now it looked like someone actually wanted his input on something non-explosion related. That didn't happen much. "O...Of course not! It's totally reasonable. Maybe even too generous." He nods in what would be wisdom if it didn't seem he was oblivious to the fact he was accidentally welding his hand at the moment. Swindle takes the credstick, which vanishes almost immediately like a coin in the hands of a street magician. "I really did mean I would have to order it from a supplier, but for your -extremely generous offer- I can take the Triumph and go get it myself. Won't take long at all! You see, I get alot of good stuff from this supplier -- stuff that's good for the Empire, you know -- and I don't want to damage the relationship I have with him, because if we lose him, it means we also lose spare parts for guys like Trypticon, NCC, oh, I dunno.. he supplies spares for things like.. oxidation lasers and metallic orange fusion cannons as well. It would be a huge tragedy if he jacked up his prices on me or, Primus forbid, withdraw his business.." withdrew Cyclonus waves his hands at Swindle. Both of them. In a sort of 'shoo' manner. "Right." His voice enunciates. "Just . . go get it. Just do it. Spare me the explanation. Your sales pitches make me ill and could be an adequate weapon in and of themselves." He then turns away to go assist Ransack. He stands mutely beside the insecticon, looking down at his work, waiting to see when Ransack will notice what he is doing. Ransack is half-humming, half-singing a little tune to himself about smiting Autobots with a giant laser when he's pulled out of his semi-focus on his work by a tall pointy-headed shadow looming over him. He turns around with a prompt "What? I'm workin', everything's going fine sir!" Noticing Cyclonus is looking some place in particular, the welding warrior follows his line of sight...down to where his hand has been merged with the door. "...Slag." Swindle high-tails it out of the building, and drives the Combativan back to the Triumph, which lifts off soon after. Where he goes, it's hard to say. No, wait, it's not hard to say. Swindle flies straight back to one of his stashes at NCC and retrieves a dish exactly like he specified. He's been trying to get rid of that thing for ages, ever since he stole it from a Russian communications array back on Earth after being contracted by the government through a fake intermediary business to replace the aging dishes, after using -another- fake intermediary business to convince the Russians that they needed to replace the dishes in the first place. So now, Swindle is on his way back to NCC, whistling a happy tune to himself and thinking about the money bath he'll be taking later. Cyclonus figures something as much is up, not that he knows. The end result is that if for 4000 astrocredits, he can demonstrate the power of his fully operational battle station it is a completely acceptable sacrifice to him. Either way, he makes no comment yet to Ransack; simply folds his hands behind the small of his back to watch. His expression says all: Nice going, Ransack. How are you planning to get out of this one? Ransack starts grunting as he yanks at his arm, trying futiley to pull it off from the door. It takes several minutes of this before he finally realizes that as strong as he is, it just ain't happening. There's a moment of silence as the yellow Decepticon's processor mulls over the situation, and then defaults to Ransack's normal answer to problems. With a quick yank of his blaster out of subspace and a pull of the trigger, the welded servo is freed from the door...by having all of the door blasted out around it. He spins around to Cyclonus, hand held up triumphently. "HA HA! GOT I-" The cheer stops midway through as Ransack slowly turns around to look at the blasted and useless door. "...I'll go get another one." Meanwhile, back at New Crystal City, Swindle rummages around through his stash. "Mother of slag!" he curses, "I know I had it this morning! Where am I going to get a seventeen meter dish this late in the day?! OH WAIT! Swindle, you're a genius! I know!" He runs laughing down the hallways of the shark, until he finds the compartment that stores the radar tower for the base when it's in city mode. "Hah! We haven't transformed the city in -ages-, no one will even miss it!" He quickly disconnects it and runs laughing all the way back to the shuttle, stopping to raid the medical bay for an extra couple laser emitters, a few hundred meters of heavy-gauge wiring, some fiber optic cable, and a light snack. Cyclonus is unaware of Swindle and his adventures at this point. He is far more concerned with Ransack and his own adventure with the door. To Cyclonus' credit, the stotic Lord Commander does little more than blink as the metal surrounding Ransack's hand explodes outwards and lands with a tinkletinklesparkle on Mimas' airless ground. If he were human, he would probably be taking a deep breath now. But instead he just turns around and walks with Ransack to the storage compartment. "I thought." He says, quietly. "That you were certain you were competant." Ransack's mouth opens (or it would, instead his mouthplate just kind of droops) and remains that way as he quickly searches his vast database of boasting and self-congratulating for some kind of witty reply that won't make him look like a quick nincompoop in front of the one Decepticon he's been consistantly impressing over the space campaign. Instead of that he ends up with "..Most...of the time!" Yeah, way to go there, Ransack. Meanwhile, back at New Crystal City, Swindle finishes loading the shuttle and preps it for launch. "Oh, this is just the best day ever!" he cackles and rubs his hands together, launching for orbit and beyond! Cyclonus walks along with Ransack. Cyclonus is eerily silent as Ransack gives his statement that he is mostly competant most of the time. He just sort of keeps staring at the Insecticon in a manner that may be calculated to attempt to intimidate him. Alternatively, he may just be trying not to punch him repeatedly. For better or for worse, Ransack is not an easily intimidated robot. At the same time, however, he is quite embarrassed about how much of a huge aft he just made himself out to be. He's thankfully completely quiet on the way to pick up the door and on the walk back, wanting to avoid putting his foot into his non-existant mouth once more. The Triumph lands, this time much closer to the station, and soon Swindle is lugging the dish and other parts out on a hover-pallet, which he pushes over to the base. "Delivery service!" he calls ahead. By radio, yes. Cyclonus simply leaves Ransack to his work. It's easier that way and he probably won't end up kicking him. He also doesn't help Swindle, yet. Instead he stands there and waits for him to come. "How certain are you that the weapon will actually fire, once we complete your 'repairs'?" Swindle pats the dish. "All these parts are rated 98% or above on Swindle's Unconventional Chart of Kinematic Efficiency and Reliability, sir! I -guarantee- we'll have this moon fully functional by the end of the cycle." Cyclonus looks thoughtful, stroking his chin in the classic evil genius sort of way while he contemplates this. "So in other words." He says. "You have no idea if it will hold up past the first firing. Excellent. You may begin the repairs at once. Pull in any others that you need. For every time the laser fails to fire, we will have you shot instead. When you are finished, meet me on Copernicus." Swindle shrugs. "Suit yourself, chief, I take -pride- in my work." He puffs out his chest and everything. "Now, which one of these is the fire button? Just kidding! Sheesh!" Cyclonus gives Swindle the evil eye. He's actually fairly good at it. Then he steps out onto Mimas, transforms, and heads for Copernicus.
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