Elsewhere in Iacon, Stinger sat in a diagnostic chair and tried
his best not to fidget while Wheeljack tinkered with something inside
his right arm.  Physically, he felt nothing, as the arm's sensory trunks
were all interdicted at the shoulder, but it would have taken a much
more phlegmatic Autobot than Stinger not to be at least slightly nervous
at the notion of Wheeljack messing with his weapons systems.
        After the set-to the previous day in Little Iacon, in which his
software-limited weapons had been of no particular use against the
larger geth combat forms, it had been represented to Stinger that he
should go and have that limit removed.  It was slightly ahead of the
prescribed time for that step - he wouldn't log his 568th full petacycle
of operation for another six months or so - but both of his parents had
agreed that, times being what they were on Cybertron just now, it was
probably best not to stand absolutely firm on that point.
        "But don't feel you need to tell your mother about it,"
Bumblebee had remarked with a conspiratorial grin before discomming.
        "But your father doesn't need to know I told you that," Scarlett
O'Hara had told him with a wink before taking her leave of him and
returning to the Command Center.
        Ratchet wasn't available - he was in Aravex with the rest of the
First Guards - but Wheeljack had begged off the expedition with the
perfectly reasonable excuse that he was needed back at Headquarters to
carry on with the repairs to the ACROSS Getter Team's equipment.  So it
was with mild trepidation that Stinger had sought him out and made his
request.
        Disabling the software block in Stinger's status computer that
had limited his weapons to 30% of their rated output was simple enough,
but he should have known that Wheeljack couldn't leave the matter there.
"I tell you what," the engineer had said, "wait right there, I got just
the thing."  Now it was two hours later and there Stinger sat, strapped
into a diagnostic chair ("it's for your safety") with his right arm half
dismantled and Wheeljack installing something into his reconfigurable
weapon module that had come out of an armored case marked HAZARDOUS!  DO
NOT OPEN!
        Stinger was beginning to wonder if it would be insupportably
rude, or more or less what Wheeljack was used to, if he were to gnaw his
own arm off and flee, when from out in the corridor he heard a familiar
voice call his name:
        "Stinger!  Are you down here?  Bulkhead wants to show Miko the
Stellar Galleries."
        Perking up - rescued at last! - Stinger leaned toward the door
as much as his restraints would allow him and called, "Sari!"
        A moment later, the door opened and Sari Sumdac entered - just
in time to see Stinger's partially stripped arm transform into a wide-bore
beam cannon, not unlike Bulkhead's, and blow a hole clean through the
far wall of Wheeljack's workshop.  Wheeljack's only reaction was to look
up from his work, glance at the damage, say, "Whoops," and go back to
what he was doing.  Sari stood in the doorway, her eyebrows raised, as
Stinger gave her a sheepish grin and the damaged wall partially
collapsed.
        "My name is a -killing word!-" she declared, impressed.