“WHEEL-JACK!” a mechanical voice boomed through the hallway of the current Flagship of Optimus Prime. It’s sound large and ominous, like it came from t he ship itself The Autobot’s Chief Mechanical Officer, and current subject of the voice’s ire, was facing an open panel in the wall, about the middle of the ship’s tower. A strange, and strangely cobbled together device was in front of him, and he had just moments before finished bolting it securely to the wall.
That booming voice hit his audio receptors like a big, blunt, rocket. An air bubble rose through his fuel intake, and the support struts in his fett buckled slightly. He whipped around quickly, expecting some great looming force to fill the void of the hallway behind him. Perhaps the great Combiner Devastator, remembering some past grudge at a construction site before the war, having broken in and crammed his full might in the tiny hall…
Instead, there stood a diminutive little car bot, no more than half his own size, if not bulkier given a broad shoulder structure. Save his single bright red noggin, the bot was cast almost entirely in black and midnight greys.
Wheeljack steeled himself, and spoke with great bravado. “Ah, Scamper! You’re just in time! I was about to-”
WHAT did I TELL you? WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT TAMPERING WITH MY SHIP’S SYSTEMS?” What were my EXACT words?” Scamper raged with a fury.
“Uh…” Wheeljack looked down at his feet and began pressing his fingertips together, for he genuinely did not remember. “Don’t?” The scientist guessed.
“IF I FOUND YOU TINKERING WITH SOMETHING ONE MORE TIME,” Scamper said, making a grand gesture of repeating himself, “I WAS GOING TO SHOVE YOUR NEW INVENTION SO FAR UP YOUR EXHAUST PORT RATCHET WOULD HAVE TO REMOVE IT FROM YOUR GLOVEBOX!”
It was then that Wheeljack remembered why he used so many screws to mount his new contraption.
“I’ don’t see what you are so worked up about, Scamper.” He said almost sounding apologetic. “Nothing has exploded, yet. I was just trying to-”
“He’S TaStInG CoLoRs, mannn.” Scamper said in a snide, mocking tone.
“I… I don’t know what that means” Wheeljack admitted.
“Me neither. But I keep hearing him say it, over and over in my head.”
“I was just trying to boost the range of our Energon scanners is all,” Wheeljack confessed, “we’re getting low on resources and have yet to find a suitable planet-”
“Oh, I KNOW what you did.” Scamper interjected again, shoving Wheeljack away from the device mounted to the wall and studying it. “What you did was create a bridge between His Visual and Olfactory inputs. What Bothers me,” Scampers Optics settled on what he thought he was looking for, and wrapping his thick metal hands around several edges of Wheeljack’s device, he began to pull. “Is that everyone else seems to think you know what you’re doing.”
Disappointingly, rather than the whole device, only a small chunk of the components in Scamper’s hand snapped off. Disappointing, but looking at the parts in his palms still brought the small mechanic some level of satisfaction. He shoved his hands into the sparking holes of the machine and began to pull, slowly but surely removing piece after piece of each individual part.
“How about-” Wheeljack started to say, as Scamper went to town. “Maybe instead you could unscrew it…” more chunks of Wheeljack’s months of hard work hit the floor with the jingle of loose change, “It does come off,” He sighed, forcing0 a staticy air through his vocalizer, turned and pulled a crowbar out of his toolbox.
“Here, just use this.” he said, proffering the tool to Scamper.
The other autobot held the larger rod in open hands, studying it for a second before raping his right fist around the curved end and swinging it towards its rightful owner. “If I find you anywhere near a toolbox on my ship EVER again,”
Wheeljack wondered if he should remind the small Autobot that Optimus Prime was captaining, but decided that perhaps he was in enough peril as it was,
Scamper continued, “You’ll be fixing the Warp Field from the OUTSIDE.”
“But,” Wheeljack stammered, “I’m an Engineer. What am i supposed to do to help the War?”
Scamper turned to face the offending sensor range booster, still clutching the crowbar like a baseball bat. “I don’t care. Take up Coloring Pages. Try fencing with Grimlock.”
Wheeljack was pretty sure whatever sword style the Dinobots practiced didn’t qualify as “fencing”
“Not my Problem.” Scamper added, before taking a wild swing at Wheeljack’s invention. “But if I find you within 300 yards of ANYONE’s tools, even anyone who turns into a tool,”
“But he’s only 700 feet tall in his robot mode,” Wheeljack corrected without thinking.
“Pree-cisely,” Scamper hissed sadistically as he smashed at the device, over, and over, and over again.
“Oh, okay.” Wheeljack said, deciding it was best he left before Scamper ran out of stuff to smash. The Engineering Officer bent down to gather his remaining tools
“LEAVE THEM” Scamper snapped without looking away. Wheeljack dropped the spanner in his hand and backed away slowly. He shuffled backwards all the way to the end of the hall. All the way through the next hall, and backwards into the elevator down to the Crew Quarters.
---
Later, Scamper stood proudly in the pile of rubble and detritus at his feet. He was worn out, but he felt vindicated. All that remained of the wall mount was a sparking mess of wires and the twisted frame of the box, still stubbornly and securely screwed to the wall. He’d have to remove that, of course-- properly this time-- so he could reconnect his charge’s sensor network, but for now, it was Scamper 6, Wheeljack 4, and he was okay with the cost.
He looked at the pieces more intently. “Hmn.” he thought to himself. “A 4-D high definition Energon scanner piggybacking off of Metroplex’s own Quantum field.”
Scamper nodded. “Not bad.”
==========================
I wrote this as a sort of companion piece to my
Blueprint Sketches-Metroplex Ship Mode. and while I think I can say Scamper and Wheeljack came first, both projects were ultimately born out of the same thought-exercise of Metroplex, his mini bot “City Speakers” and the ecosystem of him and the other Autobots. Hopefully this gave you the same chuckle I had watching it in my head.
If you like Starships, please pop over into my other topic and give me some input on Ship Designs.
