[ti]Ep 2.5[/ti]Floating an Idea [Starscream]

[Sparkplug]

Episode 2.5 | Week 2 | Day 2

Sparkplug glanced at her pad again.

The slim device’s screen glowed reassuringly, the glyphs set to a similar green as her optics. With a flick of her thumb, she scrolled through the contents of it yet again – engineering calculations, pressure resistances, buoyancy figures... and a surfeit of schematic data on their fallen fortress, the Nemesis. She’d gone over it several times, then gotten nervous and done it another couple of times after that.

It wasn’t like her to be nervous. Perhaps it was the importance of the mech she was making her proposal to, as well as the magnitude of the task she was seeking to undertake. Since Megatron was – well, wherever he was, doing whatever mysterious stuff he was doing – Starscream, as his second in command, had de facto inherited the mantle of Warlord of the Decepticons.

Apparently, he liked to be called Lord Starscream, in fact, and she’d better not forget that, either. The last thing she wanted to do was ruin her whole pitch by using the wrong title. It would be nice to say that it wasn’t like this among scientists, where ideas counted for more than posturing and titles, but if she looked at it honestly, it was exactly the same.

Oh, well. That was probably enough stalling.

Sparkplug shut off the pad, clipping it to her rounded hip with a small magnetic touchpoint, and rose from the small table she had been lurking at. Waving absently to a couple of vehicons that glanced up from their Energon rations as she walked past, she headed for the central command space. The Commander – Lord Starscream¬, rather – didn’t seem to be enjoying his internment under the mountain than any of the rest of them, but he’d apparently been restraining himself from using his wings to get out from under the feet of all the frustrated, displaced Deceptions knocking about, so he should be in what passed for his personal quarters, if he wasn’t overseeing operations personally.

Sparkplug didn’t envy him the position. She’d never particularly wanted to be in charge, and she’d have been getting even more fed up with the claustrophobic rock if she hadn’t have been getting out regularly on patrol. Of course, if Starscream had done the same, his airframe was likely to draw sudden, pin-sharp radar attention in the way that vehicle-formers like herself wouldn’t. Being a ground pounder had its advantages.

Subconsciously slowing her pace little by little, she made her way along the passage, then paused in the mouth of the tunnel, watching the vehicons work at the various monitors. No sign of the Air Commander’s spiky, spindly frame. Oh, well. Time to seek out the beast in his lair, then.

Crossing the command centre with an air of distracted pre-occupation, checking the pad was still resting at her hip, she mounted a shallow set of steps. Pausing politely outside Starscream’s – office? Quarters? War room? Personal chamber? – she knocked twice on the wall in lieu of a formal signalling system. “My Lord?” she asked politely. “Would you have time to talk to me? I wanted to run something past you. About the Nemesis, and all that.”

[Starscream]

Tap. Tap tap.

A single clawed digit knocked gently in thought against the simple makeshift table that seemed to be piled high with evidence that whoever it belonged to was very busy. Old Energon cubes of varying amounts – mostly or nearly empty - were stacked precariously high on one corner near the wall, with one that was obviously being used further near the front – next to strewn datapads.

Tap.

The room itself was nothing special, it was nothing like the vast and spacious quarters he found himself in on the Nemesis, but even despite the lack of size, there was still ample room for the Seeker – and every part of it was being put to good use. A simple berth on the far side of the room that, given the fact it was covered in crates full of various equipment and parts that had been yet to be organized and put away? Meant it probably hadn't been used much – if at all – over the past week or so.

Monitors had been dragged in and set up along the far wall – Vehicons managing to salvage some things from the Nemesis itself, and he was making use of equipment already on hand here at Blackridge. Curiously, one of these larger monitors displayed what appeared to be the blueprints for Haven. Or at least, that's what it looked like – parts of it had scrawled writing and markings that at first glance would look like nothing more than a scribbled mess.

Made sense to someone, though.

Tap tap.

Starscream had been strangely quiet over the past week or so, especially given his new position – rarely leaving the small room that was his quarters aside from the times he felt he needed to make his presence known, or to simply wander to keep himself awake and stretch his wings without actually shifting forms to fly (as much as he longed to). He'd been given this chance- this opportunity - from seemingly nowhere to take what was rightfully his, which meant planning. Of course, he'd planned for this moment – he knew he was the rightful leader of the Decepticons and he'd dreamed of the things that he – they – could achieve under his rule. But that'd been with a floating fortress of a flagship behind them and the vast number of troops and sheer firepower they had at their disposal along with it.

The Nemesis crashing into the ocean couldn't have come at a worse time for him – and this new location for their forces, well... it simply wasn't built for this many, and Pyrotech could only do so much at such short notice.

Plans had to be changed to suit, and quickly.

Expansions would be carried out, of course, but those things took time – even with the manpower they presently had at their disposal. It'd been a week since the crash and by now most of the stragglers had found their way off the doomed ship. Those that had not reported in were assumed lost, and unfortunately they didn't have the resources nor time to dedicate to searching for bodies. It wasn't a priority either, unfortunately – if they found troops who had been left behind while trying to scavenge and recover what equipment they could? It was a boon, of course it was, but they weren't there to look for missing soldiers.

They had a war to win. Or, moves to be taken into winning said war, given the ceasefire that was currently in place. There was also the things that Dart had spoken of, not to mention that virus that'd run rampant. His days as leader of the Decepticons had been off to an unfair and rocky start, but he would pull through.

He always did.

Starscream's gaze seemed to linger a moment on the monitors that hung on the wall, reaching across to grab the half-finished Energon cube from his cluttered desk, and one of the datapads which he would look down to. Another tap of a claw, this time on the side of the cube. A hum of thought – then a polite voice pulled him from his contemplation. Ah, he knew that voice. The chatty one – Sparkplug.

“Mm?”

The distraction was probably needed right about now. He'd been staring at these screens for hours now, hoping answers would jump out at him, but unfortunately they did not.

“Oh, yes – come in, come in.”

He set the cube down on the table and made a point to stand up straighter and adjust his posture before she made her way through and into the room, wings stretching some behind him before relaxing. No longer slouched, he stood tall and proud but made no moves to step forward and greet her. Like most of the rooms here at Blackridge, there was no door - but a simple tarp had been pulled across the doorframe so that he could be mostly undisturbed.

She wants to talk about the Nemesis..? 

The Nemesis, admittedly, had been at the back of his processor over the past few days. Of course he'd had moments of thought regarding it- namely what to do with the damn thing, but that was a problem for the future.

"What did you need?" a simple but to the point question - he assumed she, like many others, wanted to merely request a bridge back and onto the sunken ship to gather whatever meager belongings they could. 

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug smiled brightly at the lanky Air Commander. He'd stood up for her, like a proper gentlemech, and he always seemed to have time for her. While she couldn't imagine where Megatron had gone, during a time of such great stress on the Earth-based Decepticon forces, at least there was his faithful second in command to take charge during their time of need.

Starscream was a lot easier to talk to, anyway. She couldn't imagine having the nerve to take a plan like the one she'd been brewing to the Warlord himself.

Her field vivid with excitement and tinged with nervousness, she spoke up. "Well, my Lord, I've been looking at what could be done to start the recovery process, now that we've gotten ourselves back into some kind of stable state. I mean - the bulk of our technology, weapons and resources are still down there, and while Pyrotech has done his best, and please don't mention this in these words exactly, this place is a bunker, not a fortress. You couldn't fight a full-on war out of it."

She waved a hand dismissively, with a shrug of her left shoulder. "I'm not a tactician, you know all this better than me. Anyway. You deserve to be overseeing a fully-fledged warship, not a big rock with a curtain. So I'd like to lay out my proposed plans for repair and recovery, if that's alright?"

She cocked a brow ridge questioningly, waiting for a sign of assent, then went on, "I've been going over how to tackle this with minimal materials, and using as much native technology as we can, given our supply situation. Okay. First of all, we're going to need to equip some vehicons for underwater operation. That's something we can do here, pretty much. Now, to properly kit them out for aquatic work at the chassis level would be a big job - watertight gaskets, redesigned cooling systems, propulsion, buoyancy and so on - but I think we can do it a lot faster."

Laying her pad on the table, she began pressing buttons, calling up an image of a vehicon in an enveloping coat of thick plastic that bulged at the joints. "If we use simple sheets of heat sealed heavy plastic, zip tied at the joints, with a slow-release air supply, that will keep their internal mechanisms dry. The large surface area will let the colder water cool the air inside, so their gas-based heat exchangers will still function. Small buoyancy tanks at the waist, here, will give them approximately neutral buoyancy, and by compressing or releasing a flexible membrane inside a larger tank on the chest, they can adjust themselves to float or sink. Then, as far as propulsion goes, we don't necessarily have to manufacture a solution ourselves."

Her slim fingers danced against the pad again, calling up a saved image from the human information grid. "The natives actually manufacture propulsive units intended for solo divers to work underwater - we could obtain these in bulk, and by clustering them in groups of four, I've calculated they should be able to tow vehicons around. Can recharge them off electrical subsystems. So that gets you underwater workers, fairly quick, and with minimal effort. Then it's on to the actual recovery."

She paused, looking up at Starscream to check if he had any comment to make, though it was easily apparent she was vibrating with eagerness to tell him her salvage plans for the warship itself.

[Starscream]

Starscream didn't return the femme's smile, but he made a point of standing up straighter and looping his arms behind his back. Far too busy, far too tired to show the same enthusiasm and excitement toward her that she was displaying – if her field was anything to go on anyway. He thought it odd, considering he assumed she only wanted to ask a mere favor like everyone else.

Oh, how wrong he was.

At least she got right into it – the words 'recovery process' made the Seeker's brow quirk curiously. Not quite where he'd expected this conversation to go, but after everything that happened it was probably something that was on a lot of processors – including his own. It figured that some of them were already thinking up ways of how to salvage things.

His lip curled into a subtle smirk at her words about the base. Even he knew better than to comment on the state of things to Pyrotech – he was just thankful that he'd so graciously allowed them to use the area to begin with. Not that he had much of a choice, though. Still, even despite the lack of fresh air or real room to move – things were settling down finally, and given the blueprints and datapads that littered the walls and his desk? Plans were being made and things were carrying on as usual, even despite the change in operation.

Things were slow right now. Quiet. But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

“Ah, don't I just.” quiet, purred words paired with a small flutter of his wings in response to her comment about how he deserved to be overseeing a warship. He did indeed, and found it unfair that he had to start his reign at such a disadvantage. Even despite this, though? He'd rise up. He always did.

He'd nod at her question, easing one arm from behind his back and gesturing to her as if to say 'go ahead'. The fact she had plans already worked out was not surprising – she had initiative, drive; a perky go-getter that seemed to get things done. He knew she'd managed to build and gather the supplies needed for her laboratory on the Nemesis in a short period of time – and even despite the challenge that'd been? She'd met it head on and without fuss.

That was probably why he was willing to hear her out.

He was quiet as she spoke, listening and letting her explain out her plans. Vehicons? Again, not the direction he was expecting things to go, but at this point it was probably needed – the Nemesis had been underwater for a while now, meaning that the whole thing was probably completely flooded. As sturdy and strong as the flying fortress was, there was no way it could withstand basic physics. Cybertronian could be underwater no issue – but for a task such as this where it would be prolonged and they would be working against the crushing pressure? Any help they could get would be beneficial.

As she lay her datapad on the table, he'd take a step forward so he could see better. The Vehicon on the display looked... well, flat out ridiculous – and an amused scoff would escape him. Other than that, he was quiet – letting her speak and explain through her plans.

She'd really thought this out.

Not entirely unexpected.

Another brow quirk was given as she mentioned they wouldn't have to manufacture a solution – even though they were probably more than capable of doing so, the less strain on their resources in this current state of affairs was for the best, and so he'd watch as another image was pulled.

Groups of four per Vehicon? Well, that shouldn't be too hard – of course it'd depend on how many Vehicons they intended to send down, but they probably wouldn't need too many. Not that he was concerned about obtaining the units needed – the only real worry, and it was a small one at that, was that the Autobots somehow found out about it and managed to work out what was going on.

A problem for later. Maybe Dart's love for the native pests would come in useful in helping to acquire what they needed for this – if he decided to go through with this plan, at any rate.

At her pause, he'd glance down to her and gave a bob of his helm.

“Impressive ideas so far, Sparkplug.” he didn't have much to add, and he could only give a half-smile of amusement at how eager she seemed in sharing her plans.

“I'm interested to hear how you propose we recover the Nemesis, however...”

While it'd been something he'd mulled over in the last few days, he hadn't given it too much thought.

[Sparkplug]

Starscream seemed a bit tired, Sparkplug thought. Well, that made sense, given the circumstances. Megatron missing, the warship crash, trying to rearrange everything into a too-small base like a sliding puzzle with no empty squares. Still, she caught his smirk at the sight of her vehicon blueprints, and grinned wryly.

"Yeah, the waterproofing does look a bit weird. It's fast and functional, but dang, it is not pretty. I'll be suiting myself up the same way to oversee. Don't know about you, but I've got no intention whatsoever of getting all that gross organic-laden salt solution all up in my internal cavities. Anyway, the Nemesis itself. So."

Starscream was a scientist, as well as a warrior, and the pose Sparkplug struck now was instantly recognisable as a mecha about to launch into a lengthy lecture. "The first thing we need, before we can do anything else, is get the ship dry. No way to start repairing systems with it all immersed in conductive fluid like that. So that requires a way of getting rid of all the water, and making good all the hull breaches. Trouble is, that requires some big pumps, and a way of finding the breaches, right?"

She cocked her head at him, despite the question being entirely rhetorical, then nodded to herself and continued, "Okay, so let's not pump salt water. That's hard, it'll gum up the pumps with sediment, it's flowing back in as fast as you can get rid of it, and we'd need specialised equipment. Instead, what we do is, we start pumping air back into the internal voids. The air will bubble up to the highest point in the structure, and begin displacing water. Every time the air pocket grows to the point that it encounters a breach and stops growing, there'll be a torrent of air bubbles escaping at the site of the break. That's why you need vehicons on the outside of the ship, spotting for this kind of thing; stop the pumps, seal the breach, then off you go again.

"So, okay - fine. Air pumping solves the sediment problem, and locates the hull damage for you. You'll need an air supply to make that work." She bent over the pad, calling up another image scraped from the human information web. It displayed a thick tube, about a meter in diameter, in dense orange vinyl that was reinforced repeatedly along its length by stiffening metal hoops.

"We get hold of a whole bunch of this tubing, for a start. Again, shouldn't be too hard. We can make it if we have to, but I'm pretty sure we can obtain it via hacking orders through their info grid. Multiple smaller tubes, rather than single big tubes, mean that the stress on each one is less, they're easier to manoeuvre into position, and if a tube breaks, you can seal it off without losing the whole supply. We cap both ends of every line, bridge them into the water above the crash site, then weigh down one end and it'll arrange itself into a nice line from the surface to the ship all by itself. I'm thinking two bunches of nine, arranged three by three, feeding air to either flank of the ship. So then you've got some nice, multiply redundant air lines. But you still need heavy pumping equipment."

Her fingers danced over the pad again, bringing up a schematic of the warship, with two areas highlighted in green. "Thing is, we already have it. The Nemesis has massive airlocks for cargo, on both sides. The interior of the locks will still be dry, because they're sealed on both sides unless they're in operation. So here's what we do. We suit up the vehicons, bridge the lines into position, and drill a set of valves into the outer door of the big cargo airlocks. The valve set is the only thing we'll have to actually make ourselves; wouldn't take me long. A planetary cycle or so, given some decent metal and sealant.

"Once the lines are connected up and uncapped, we set the airlocks to evacuate the air, as though they're pumping for vacuum. They'll dump the air inside the lock into the ship's atmosphere, creating a partial vacuum inside the lock, and that'll constantly be re-pressurised by atmospheric pressure down the hoses. Then we just let them run and run. The air pumping systems in those things can handle some serious throughput. It'll shorten their lifespan to run them constantly, but they've been there for thousands of deca-cycles, their operational lifespan even at full blast is still in the multiple vorns. That'll get you your air supply, from both flanks - if you start pumping on one side only, you might flip the ship, and while it is upside down currently, I think suddenly and violently turning it over will probably cause more damage than it'll help.

"Now, up on the surface, you'll need some kind of floating platform to keep the mouths of the air intakes out of the water, so they don't get swamped if the waves get rough. Easy enough; we'll seal a bunch of barrels and weld them together on spars, shove them through a bridge, and you'll have more buoyancy than you know what to do with. We don't want to be too obvious about this, though, so what we do is, we shape the platform into the rough shape of the kind of boat the local species uses. Some thin panelling to give a vague suggestion of superstructure. Doesn't have to be that convincing, but as long as the shape looks roughly right, it'll go unnoticed by overhead planes, or satellite images. Easy enough to do; we've got enough junk lying around here that we could make something like that trivially."

Bending forward, she tapped the screen a few times. Another green area lit up on the schematic, a large, sturdy chamber central to the ship, towards the rear of the vessel. "So air is pouring in, shoving the water out again. Ideally, there'd still be an air pocket in the rear of the ship, being as it's elevated the most, but even if there isn't, there will be soon enough. There's going to be some structural damage, but I've identified this storage chamber as being nice and strong, well reinforced, with solid bulkheads. Pretty certain the water pressure and shear factor of the ship's weight distribution isn't enough to come anywhere close to crushing this void, with a pretty big safety factor, so once it's dry, this is our beachhead. We can tap the ship systems, track the repressurisation progress, and start making progress in getting systems back online."

She straightened up, leaving the pad glowing on his desk. "Beyond that, we pretty much have to wait and see. Can't give you any estimates without knowing how bad it is down there, and what's failed. If we can get the anti-grav station keeping engines back on line, we can lift the whole thing and let whatever water's still on-board drain out, but that'll take time to check over."

A wry smile touched her flexible lips, as she recognised that - even by her standards - she'd talked at length. Still, with an optimistic bounce to her field, she asked, "What do you think, my Lord?"

[Starscream]

“I suppose we cannot complain as to the aesthetics of the waterproofing – so long as it does its job.” he murmured, nodding his helm as he listened – optics narrowing into a subtle judgmental leer as he mulled it over. The 'suits' were her idea and design – meaning that if they did not work? All the losses sustained because of them would fall upon her.

Another glance was given to the blueprint. Another soft hum of thought.

Someone like Knock Out would throw a fit about wearing something like that, even if it was there to help and prevent damage from salt water – but then again, someone like Knock Out was not entirely suited to this task to begin with. The Vehicons had little to no choice in the matter, especially now, since some of them had not yet made themselves known after the crash – they couldn't afford to pick and choose what they did, and even those suited to other tasks such as mining or even simple data entry would be no doubt sent to help with this task.

They'd lost troops, that was for certain, but as of right now he was unsure as to the exact number– and he did not plan on losing any more, so she best hope that the waterproofing did its job.

At least she'd have time to test and perfect it, though – raising the Nemesis from the depths was on the to-do list, that was true, but it wasn't up there in terms of priority. Not yet, anyway.

He looked over and across to her as she mentioned the Nemesis – and made a note of her posture. Yup, he knew that pose. Then again even if he didn't? He expected it from her, given she was so... chatty.

Aaaand she did not disappoint.

Thankfully he'd already mentally prepared himself for the slew of words to be thrown at him, and would listen to what she had in mind - quietly thankful that this was diverting his attention and thought process onto something else, if only for a moment.

At her rhetorical question he would not verbally reply, merely giving a brief bob of his helm to show he was listening and that yes, she could continue on.

Continue on she did, and even though he'd braced himself for an onslaught of words – he found himself starting to lose his patience with the rambling. Her ideas were grand, and her ambition was charming. Unlike most Decepticons it seemed there was no hidden malice behind her plans or words, she merely wanted to help for the sake of helping...

...But wow did she have to work on the delivery of her plans. Starscream could appreciate she was taking the time to explain it all out – but he of all mechs did not need it. Still, though – he'd let her talk, not wanting to cut her off or clip down her confidence by putting an end to this prematurely. Megatron would've simply dismissed her with a snarled growl of annoyance, and he liked to think he was above their former Warlord in how he dealt with others.

His attention would drop to the pad as she scrolled over it, pulling up more pictures to draw imagery along with her plans. He'd lean his weight onto one hip, looping his arms behind his back and clasping his servos, giving a hum of thought. Hacking human systems to get what they needed was no issue – and he welcomed her thinking outside the box a little as to how to acquire items they needed. The humans were nothing more than pests, but they were resourceful and easily taken advantage of – and he wouldn't say no to making such a huge task easier for them.

Again, she over-explained things. He knew all this, and he'd pick at a thumb-claw behind his back in polite – but restrained - irritation. At least she'd thought things through, though – he knew for sure when and if it came time to follow through with this plan, it'd have to be explained in depth to the Vehicons tasked with doing it – if only to make sure absolutely nothing went wrong. The less attention they drew to themselves the better – both from humans and Autobots alike.

His gaze lingered on the pad a moment as it was left on his desk amongst the others – those ones weren't lit up, however, but were obviously turned on if the lines of text and glyphs were anything to go by. After a moment he'd unloop his arms, resting them at his sides once more – still eerily calm.

“In theory, it is a solid plan.” he started, honestly still going over the mass-over-explanation he'd been given, trying to pick apart the plan into only the necessary details. “Overly wordy, but once you get past the rambling it's solid.” he smirked. His field remained the same tired level of calm it'd been since she entered the room.

“I will consider it – at present it's the only real plan that has been put forward in regards to retrieving the Nemesis from the depths. I do appreciate the amount of thought put into laying it all out, however. I expected nothing less.” he'd give praise where praise was due. “Of course, it will be some time before we can look to raising the Nemesis, given we are only just getting ourselves situated here at Blackridge and priorities have shifted to reflect this.”

He'd look to the datapad once more, but made no moves into picking it up.

“Maybe in that time, you can find a way to condense your plan into something a little less wordy?”

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug listened, with only a small flicker of her field at the word 'rambling' – she was accustomed to being told she talked too much, even if it was usually about her irreverent chatter rather than her plans and intentions. Still, as he went on, she began to discern a familiar tone, one that she recognised from meetings with superiors that were about to turn down research grant requests for whatever she'd been seeking to work on.

But… that didn't make sense. They were stranded in a hole in the ground, protected only by a truce that might have been broken already by the attack on the Nemesis, one which – up until a few days ago – the Decepticons as a whole regarded rather sneeringly as a tissue-thin film between two endless instances of war. They needed to be working on recovering the warship, had needed to be working on it immediately rather than skulking off. She was frankly baffled that she was in fact the first to even suggest such a thing.

Yes, of course they were short on resources, which is why she'd come up with a way of using the ship's own mechanisms in innovative ways to salvage it. She'd found a way to recover a warship with a few rubber tubes and a plastic bag, for Primus's sake!

Instead, she was invited to go away and next time, try not to talk so much.

Sparkplug's faceplate smoothed out, into a flat, reserved expression. She'd argued merits and demerits of her personal projects to many mecha in the past, and at this point, she was more than capable of recognising when further exercising her vocoder was a waste of energon. Especially when she'd seemingly said quite enough already.

Reaching out with her unnaturally structured arm, she picked up the pad and clipped it to a maghold on her waist. What could she do without dedicated resources? Salvage enough metal and parts to construct a set of heavy-duty valves by herself. Carry out some test encasings in plastic; the mecha involved would either have to have a way to seal and unseal the enclosure, or the bags would have to be cut off after each use, and resealed. Plausible, but wasteful. An approximately boat-shaped floating platform would take more junk than was lying around at the Hold, where every scrap of matter was currently being relentlessly repurposed, but away from Pyro's pet project, it shouldn't be too hard to gather up some detritus and fix it into shape.

Or, on the other hand, she could simply do nothing. She'd been ordered by the highest authorities in the Decepticon armada to stop all weapons development, her (completed!) lab and working space was at the bottom of the sea, there certainly wasn't room or equipment here to start over, and if the priority was 'getting situated' – well, she was situated enough already. A driving tour of the energon mines would give the thinnest shred of an excuse necessary to just leave and spend some time driving around. After all, they were at peace. For however long that lasted.

"Understood, my Lord." Her voice was calm and even; professional. "If you will excuse me?"

[Starscream]

Starscream merely quirked a brow at how well Sparkplug seemed to take things. Normally when he had to turn down some scheme or idea, he was met with arguing and threats - or at the very least, raised voices and flared fields - with it rarely ending well for the other party.

But there was none of that, aside from a brief glimmer of a moment there where her field had flickered some, which he would not comment on - but after that, she was surprisingly calm.

It honestly took him a little by surprise. With how wordy she was, he expected her to argue her points further - go over her idea again then and there but with less wording. But there was nothing.

His own field flickered some, wings twitching behind him.

He was well aware they needed to think about recovering the Nemesis. It was, after all, their ‘home’ here on this little dirtball of a Planet. You couldn’t walk the narrow rock corridors of this temporary base without running into or overhearing a Vehicon lamenting the loss of their flagship and the confusion that came with that. Murmured voices that quickly hushed into silence should anyone with any sort of rank happened to be within earshot.

Ah, if only they knew the things Starscream had planned.

It was still very early days, of course - nowhere near the stage he wanted to brag or boast about his ideas. But they were there, and that moment of gloating to anyone who would listen would no doubt come in all due time.

“Hm? Ah, if you must. But - before you leave, tell me-” he turned to look at her, only noticing then that she’d clipped her datapad back onto her waist. It was no issue, he’d heard her plan and would remember it, after all it was a solid, no-nonsense idea that could actually work.

“-Did you manage to salvage anything from your lab after the crash, or are you aware of any Vehicons bringing anything of your equipment here in the days after?”

It really was heartbreaking in a way that she’d gone to all the effort of basically fitting the lab from scratch only to have it lost to the depths. He never did commend her for her efforts with that - it truly was impressive how dutiful she was and how quickly she’d got on with things.

He knew without doubt that Vehicons had made visits to and from the Nemesis in the days following the crash itself to gather what little they could. While space was a factor here at Blackridge, various pieces of important, equipment had been brought back. What equipment he was not sure of, nor did he know what state it was in - the majority of it waterlogged and probably in need of desperate repair no doubt, but…

A pause.

“I ask, because I may have need of your skills.”

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug's flat expression flickered at the question; her optical ridges quirking slightly. If anything could have reached through her quietly angry calm, it was the suggestion that there might be a specific job she was required for.

It was a shame, then, that all her equipment was still stuck at the bottom of one of the festering salty, muck-ridden seas that this dirt ball was drenched with.

"I'm not aware of any of my equipment being salvaged," she replied evenly. "Most of it was not in use when I retrieved it, due to age or defect. While it's all perfectly functional now, or was at the time of the crash, there is plenty of higher-quality equipment in the more established labs that would have been higher priority for recovery. As to whether any of that has been rescued, I do not know. As you are aware, there are a lot of competing priorities."

It was perhaps apparent that, unlike most mecha, Sparkplug responded to frustration and anger by becoming more flatly professional. Her casual, freewheeling chattiness was suppressed by her annoyance, and in her brusque matter-of-factness, there was a glimpse of the femme she'd become after many vorns of stress and warfare, before her re-education.

Sparkplug glanced at her left arm, then back to the lanky dagger of the former Air Commander. "Nonetheless, I have a substantial amount of equipment and tools stowed within my frame. With access to raw materials, I can do most things you might require. May I ask what task you have in mind, my Lord?"

[Starscream]

“Oh? That’s a shame.” there was none of the usual sarcasm laced in his words. His disappointment sounded genuine. Not that they really had the space here at Blackridge for Sparkplug to set up shop again, they did have ample areas throughout this little dirtball of a planet that they could utilize for her. Abandoned mines, for example - while dreary and depressingly quiet, they had so much room - perfect for her line of work, especially with testing of any weapons that may have been produced.

Weapon production was a direct breach of the Truce that’d been agreed upon, but-

Well, what the Autobots didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. At least, not straight away.

Tapping his claws along the stone slab of a desk, he was quiet a moment as he mulled over his thoughts, before glancing to her.

“It is my understanding that you were involved in aiding Knock Out with finding a cure for that… viral plague that ran rampant?” he waved a servo rather casually as he spoke, optics narrowing some.

“While I don’t wish to destroy the fragile ceasefire in designing weapons, I believe utilizing those corrupted nanites in a form of weapon against the organic pests - MECH - may be worth looking into. Obviously, given the Autobots are not aware of the virus itself, any research or work undertaken into this will have to be kept quiet - kept between us.”

Biological warfare was risky and a dirty tactic, one that he usually hesitated to resort to - but given the Decepticons had had the unfortunate luck of being inflicted by the virus itself, surely there was some way of twisting it around to their advantage in this war against MECH, and, possibly further down the line - the Autobots themselves.

“If you feel this is something that could be weaponized, given you know more about the ins and outs than myself, I’m sure we could see about raising the priority on retrieving some of your equipment - if you want it.” a smirk followed this offer, and he’d stand up a little straighter.

[Sparkplug]

The viral plague. Oh yes, she'd been involved in that one all right. It had been a long, long time since she'd been involved in the development of nano-weapons, and even then, it had been from the safe distance of a well-equipped containment facility where the total destruction of all viable samples in purifying fusion flame had only ever been a push of a button away. To suddenly come across an active infection in the air, in the same room as her… and with scarcely more than an analyser, a rock slab and whatever garbage she'd been able to scrounge together…

Well, she didn't want to repeat that experience any time soon.

So she was still nodding her agreement to his initial question, awash with remembered relief that all that was dealt with, when he made his suggestion that they weaponise and spread it further. Sparkplug's grey faceplate blanched slightly as her own nanite compliment reacted to her sudden flare of shock, her energon pump juddering slightly in her chest.

Are you insane?!

That, her filter circuits cut in hurriedly, was unlikely to go over well. Even though she was used to speaking her mind, there were limits.

Are you insane, sir?!

…that probably wasn't going to cut it either.

She forced herself to calm down, and think clearly. Treat it as an academic exercise, work through the possibilities, and try to convince the Commander – the Lord – that he was having a deeply terrible idea.

"The nanite plague is designed to infect living Cybertronian systems," she said slowly, thinking aloud. "It relies entirely on there being an existing complement of nanites to subvert and take over – it's a piece of code, rather than a physical entity of its own. It wouldn't attack Cybertronian technology like terminals and weapons. If MECH had managed to build a living Cybertronian-derived body, it could do grievous harm to that, but I don't think they have such a thing. Or if they do, I haven't heard of it. So it's probably no use against them. It'd be just as effective against the Autobots as it was against us, but there's the truce, and it doesn't need much refining beyond what it is already."

She paused, and rubbed her cheek with two fingers, considering. "It's a vicious little replicator, highly efficient. I could block the loophole in its code, make it much harder to cure, but the risk is always that it'll get off-planet and begin infecting our own holdings faster than we can inoculate. Could end up doing more damage to Cybertronian life in general than we're happy with, especially with the natives trying to compete for technological dominance with us. If you wanted some nanotech-based agent to go after Cybertronian technology rather than biology, you'd pretty much need to start from scratch."

It's a terrible idea, sir. Let's not.

[Starscream]

There was a short moment of delay after his idea and offer. Not too surprising, considering what he was suggesting. Something like this would have to be done carefully, if it could even be done at all - even though they had a cure for the virus that’d plagued several of them, any tweaks to that original coding and infected nanites? They’d have to do further tweaks to any counters so that they didn’t reinfect themselves and get into another horrible mess - a long, complicated process. Something that may be just out of reach, given the lack of equipment at present.

But would it be worth it? To think, this thing had caused Soundwave to crash the Nemesis. It’d caused Flatline - who’d rather fight with wit and sass than actual physical violence - to lash out, taking on several members of the Decepticons much larger than himself. It hadn’t worked of course, but he’d for that moment been completely fearless from nothing but rage.

If they could use this to infect the Autobots, there would be no need to waste resources to step in and endanger themselves in a long and drawn-out battle. The infected members of the other faction would take care of everything, before no doubt expiring from lack of Energon or their own injuries - and the Decepticons wouldn’t have to lift a finger.

Although that would mean missing out on the satisfaction of being the one to eradicate Optimus Prime.

Plus - they couldn’t exactly break the Truce. Despite the loss of the Nemesis, the Decepticons had recovered fairly quickly with new plans put into motion. Their efforts on mining and reinforcing Blackridge, rather than the recovery of the ship - although given Sparkplug’s idea, that part of the plan didn’t seem so far out of reach, even if it wasn’t of a high priority at current.

Dealing with MECH would be a different story. Their biology and makeup far different from that of Cybertronian - they didn’t have nanites, meaning this plague wouldn’t have the same effect. It’d probably hurt them regardless, foreign bodies injected into their systems wouldn’t end well - but the process of getting to that point and getting close enough to administer any sort of injection would be too dangerous and not worth the time.

He would listen as she spoke, bobbing his helm at her words.

“I suppose it is fine as is. We saw firsthand what it can do…” he mused, picking at his thumbclaw.

“I doubt MECH are that far along in whatever it is they are doing, at least I haven’t seen nor heard of anything like that. But never say never. For human pests, they work surprisingly quickly - and while this may prove ineffective against them in their current state, if they do advance to the point of using a Cybertronian-derived frame, it is nice to be prepared - I doubt they’d be expecting a biological attack.”

Looping his arms behind his back once more, he’d quietly hum in thought.

“As for the truce, well… that probably won’t last forever. To have an extra advantage to hold over the Autobots when it finally crumbles? I’m sure that’s what Megatron would’ve wanted.” there was a touch of remorse to his tone, which quickly dissipated as he glanced over in her direction.

“Do the infected nanites need to be in a living host to remain active and… well, alive? Or would simply keeping them contained in pure Energon suffice until it is needed? In a quarantined location, of course.”

He was sure most of the infected nanites had been eradicated by now, but he was sure that either Knock Out or Shockwave had access to those that remained. As horrible as this plague was, if there was a chance to use it to their benefit? Starscream would take it - as dangerous as it was.

[Sparkplug]

Thank Primus.

It wasn't usual for Sparkplug to invoke the deity's name, even internally, without an accompanying string of creative profanity. Hearing Lord Starscream decide that the plague was virulent enough already, however, was enough to flood any sane mecha with a profound sense of relief.

"You really think they might be able to cobble together something out of our tech and our dead that'd be alive enough to register?" Shaking her helm slightly, she added, "Inventive little swarmers, I'll give them that, but I'd be beyond shocked if they managed it. We've been trying a long time, ever since some mecha," her voice sharpened, "decided it'd be a sensible idea to throw the well of sparks into deep space and end our species."

Every single time the thought recurred, it made her angry all over again. The arrogance! The Unicron-damned spark-eating gall! What kind of mass murderer did it take to even contemplate the idea? Her fuel pumped whirred faster within her chest, her body tensing, and it was all she could do to bring herself back to focusing on the conversation.

"...keeping a sample of the plague, in a live host or in an energon tank, will run into similar problems," Sparkplug went on after a moment, residual tension colouring her voice. "The compromised nanites are programmed to form crystalline structures once the energon flow ceases. This might have been a measure to contain the stuff, for testing purposes; any infected energon that escapes an active body crystallises pretty quickly. It doesn't seem to crystallise as long as it's being pumped around, but if you leave the stuff in a living host for long they'll be flooded with psychotics and their internal structure will begin to break down, and if they're put into stasis then you get the crystal growth problem again."

Sparkplug vented a breath. "We still don't know how Flatline carried them in an inactive state for so long. Anyway; holding them in an active state is hard. Maybe if you made a primitive circulation pump in a glass vessel, you could keep them mobile enough not to lock down, but it probably isn't worth it. Fortunately, you don't have to. Like I said, the plague - in essence - is just code. I have a complete download of the altered nanite instruction set. All we have to do is keep a copy safe and secure, and if we ever want more of the stuff, we can load it into a few nanites, let them loose on a tank of energon, and then..." she shrugged, her shoulder guards rising and falling. "Then you've got as much as you need."

[Starscream]

“I wouldn’t put it past them to at least try. They are annoyingly persistent, and to remain unchecked like they are? Anything is possible I suppose.”

His tone surprisingly nonchalant despite the subject matter. There was no comment from him on the Well of All-Sparks, but he would merely nod in agreement, paired with a slight quiver of his wings. They did have Dark Energon, which while it did not create new life like the Well - it did reanimate life long since lost. It wasn’t the same, and Starscream saw it as an abomination - especially with who had been in control of it - yet it’d been the route that their former Warlord had decided to go. Both Megatron and Optimus Prime made poor choices, and now everyone was paying the price.

“I like to assume the worst, in that one day they may just cobble something together like that - and I’d like to try and stay one step ahead. If it means a different approach such as using this virus, I’d like to have it at our disposal.”

All it’d take really was one Cybertronian straggler arriving on Earth and MECH getting to them first. Nobody would even know. That was the scary part in all this. He had no love for the other faction but someone falling to MECH would harm both sides.

While this virus had been an annoyance and the cause of much loss, if they could twist it - USE it for their own benefit against MECH and the Autobots alike? It may be that extra advantage they needed in winning this war once and for all. Megatron may have lost his way, but Starscream was focused.

If they could keep a sample of it intact, anyway. Sparkplug’s words were not promising, and a servo would smear down his faceplate slowly. Only- at the mention of her having the very code that’d been used to corrupt and infect the nanites did he perk up considerably, a mischievous glint in his optics and his wings hiked up slightly. Well that changed things considerably.

Tapping his index digit against his cheek in thought, he’d turn his attention to her.

“Funny how something so dangerous has been reduced to mere lines of coding. You have done well- very well, in fact. Where are you keeping this download? I suggest Soundwave gets a copy at your earliest convenience, if only for the Decepticon Archives.”

He’d want one too, of course. Just for safekeeping. But that probably went without saying. 

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug nodded along as Starscream spoke. It was important to assume the worst, if only because eventually the worst was going to come along through force of statistics, and you had to be ready for it.

Not that Cybertronians, in general, needed to be taught to curb their optimism. For some reason, that wasn't a common problem.

Anyway, keeping a biological weapon around - inert, and contained - wasn't necessarily a bad idea. It was never going to be a good idea to let the thing loose, but now she'd found workarounds to contain it, the stuff had lost a little of the mortal dread she'd initially imbued it with. Not that it hadn't cost them, and cost them hard, of course. If only she understood it better. The secondary structures that it caused to develop were deeply bizarre, and though she now had a rough idea of what the code's original purpose was, the way it manifested was just weird.

She flashed a grin, the residual stiffness in her pose loosening as she was praised. "Thank you. It was a really interesting problem to tackle, I enjoyed that. Of course, being locked in a small room with several mechs that might snap me in half like a cheap tricycle at the slightest provocation was pretty motivating too. As for the code download-"

Sparkplug gave a small jerk of her helm, behind her and to the right, in the general direction of the stony little cupboard insultingly referred to as 'her quarters'. "-it's on an encrypted pad, back with my recharge rack. Commander Soundwave helped annotate the code originally, so I expect he's got that copy, but I'll make sure he's got the version with all my notes on how to trick the Friend-or-Foe signal the nanites were using. Right now, without any hardware to run on, it's like..." Pausing, she considered the metaphor, then decided on, "...like an idea in a locked book. No harm to any mecha, in theory. But, well. Once an idea escapes containment, you know how destructive that can be."

The vague gesture of her slim fingers took in the room, the base, the war and the sadly decrepit state of the universe.

"I'll make sure you have access to the findings. Past that, might be worth getting a specialist in this stuff to go over the code, if we have any mecha available that can do it. I've got the programming experience, and Knock Out's got the medical, but neither of us is a complete expert, and the secondary growths some of the code causes are tough to properly figure out from root causes."

She planted her left hand on her hip, her odd double elbows causing her long arm to fold back and forth on itself. "If there's going to be some time before the Nemesis is the priority, I'm thinking of going and setting up in one of the Energon mines. Got the space out there to set up Attempt No. 2 at a development lab, out of the way and with some elbow room. Might take Vega, too, if you don't mind the absence. She could help out, better not to be out there all by myself, and it's one less chassis crammed in this hole in the ground."

Naturally, the fact that the two of them were... becoming closely acquainted... wasn't a factor in Sparkplug's selection of helping hand.