Going Green

Chapter 6: Work Therapy

"This is terrible," Verdant moaned.

Her ship was an absolute mess. Ultra Magnus had dumped it into the building hosting his ship and Verdant had been tasked with repairing it. Of course, she knew how to fix the ship, but it had never been this damaged.

The alternative to fixing her ship would be to go back into the main base and help Ratchet, but the medic had taken care of every aspect of his team's technological needs before she came along. She felt like she was impeding on his work.

Ultra Magnus didn't care what she was doing, as long as it was productive. He was far too busy bossing the other insubordinates around. They were clearly rusty on the concept of a chain of command—if not altogether ignoring it.

So that left her with fixing the ship.

The thrusters were busted, the entire floor was shredded, shrapnel was everywhere, the side was caved in, the control panel was squashed... Verdant could have spent the next hour listing all the parts that needed repairs or replacement. She sat in her collapsed seat and groaned.

She was not looking forward to this. Especially not with the horribly primitive tools that Agent Fowler probably pulled out the bottom of a random garbage can. He might as well have handed her a turbofox and asked her to use it as a hammer.

"Ugh," Verdant glanced at her salvaged surveillance equipment and whined.

It would never be the same again.

"You sound miserable and pathetic," Wheeljack spoke up from behind her.

"The frag!" Verdant lept up and glared at him. "The frag!?"

He smirked. "Does Ultra Magnus know you've got a terrible potty mouth?"

She grabbed a random chunk of scrap and threw it at him. "What are you doing in here!?"

"Well, I could tell you a pretty lie or an ugly truth. Which do you prefer?"

"I'd prefer you to take your aft and throw it out the door!"

Wheeljack looked behind him. "You call that a door?"

"Does Ultra Magnus know you're here?" she demanded.

"Dang, I hope so," Wheeljack crouched and picked up a stabilizer. "How is this even inside your ship?"

Verdant rolled her optics. "Does the concept of being blow up and ramming a ravine give you any idea?"

"A little," Wheeljack tossed it behind him. "Well, we have a lot of work ahead of us, so hand me that screwdriver."

"What's a screwdriver?"

"The weird twisty thing," he pointed behind her. "The one with the flat end."

Verdant picked up an anchor. "This?"

"Yeah," he snatched it away and immediately dropped it out a hole in the wall. "You're stupid. How did you survive this long?"

"Get out!" Verdant hissed. "I don't need your help."

"You do, actually," Wheeljack went over to the pile of tools and grabbed a large mallet before pulling a plunger from his subspace. "I'm going to start pounding the shape back into the front of your ship. Go ahead and keep complaining about how difficult your life is. I don't need you."

Verdant scoffed. "You have a lot of nerve to be–"

"Blah, blah, blah," Wheeljack jumped out of the ship and ignored her.

Verdant growled and ejected her tentacles before turning back toward the mess of her ship. Oh, she was going to show that stuck-up fragger who the fraggin' boss was in this slagheap of a vessel.