Military decals decorated the surface of each of the wings, freshly-transferred -- you could still smell the paint. Each wing spanned two-thirds of the width of the chest, the pair stretching past my upper arms and terminating in slender, swept-back tips. My body's figure gave the impression of balance...of control. It was narrowed to improve aerodynamics. That combined to make me pretty nice plane. Efficient. Slim. Svelte. Graceful too. A huge rubber-soled foot came crashing down on the concrete floor from that first step. It pressed down with incredible force, a loud whoosh of air escaping from underneath the massive object. Internal dampeners in my metal joints then squealed as they got their first taste of action. The solid grey-back slab of rubber wedded to the base of the 'landing gear' compressed and firmed as it sealed itself against the ground. A small flex through the main articulations gave the top of the foot an appearance of a silken slipper -- a single soft mass of synthetic tissue curling and relaxing as my muscles worked out the kinks in their motion. I hoped that was it.
Looking down at the floor, I could see the launching station. From my perspective the markings and lettering were unreadable unless I applied zoom to MY vision. That wasn't important, however. The details need not concern me at the moment. The two large yellow circles I was supposed to stand on in front of an exposed balcony was a clear enough indicator of where I needed to be. Swinging my leg and bringing the rest of my body around, I walked the couple of strides necessary to reach the next station. I smiled when I saw the ground crew emerge, my upper chest was level with the ledge. I was prepared for the next step. "Link active. Can you copy?" a new voice crackled to life, static fizzling in the background. This one reached the internal comlink -- a private line of communication with the base control personnel. "I hear you. Ready for final inspection." I said. They said "You know the drill. Over." A list of things was placed in my menu for quest objectives. That made things much easier than groping around in the dark through it. I brought me arms up and cupped my chest.
Doing that, I was lifting the enormous 'fuel tanks' so that the steel-capped nipples found their way to within reach of the gathering ground crew. The first in a checklist of inspections had begun once I had stopped heaving the nipples into place. Two teams of three began a physical examination of the refuelling ports in the center of the nipples. As they busied themselves, a second group ran a gantry atop my cleavage and scaled the mounds of the chest until they reached my shoulders, then they used an impressed set of rungs that ran from the 'collarbone' to my head -- where they plugged diagnostic equipment just below my winged ears. A third crew busied themselves at ground level, whom I noticed scurrying about in the corner of my eye. They poked and prodded at my feet and ankles, checking for malfunction in the joints and mechanisms there. With the humans bustling all over me, making such a fuss of ensuring I was ready to go, I could not help but giggle. The sensations of all the tiny hands and machines and probes pressing against my cybernetic skin. Tickling me.
Careful enough to avoid letting her body shake with laughter, I parted my lips a bit and produced an audible chuckle. "Try to keep it professional, A.L.I.C.E." scorned ground control, speaking my name like it was nothing more than an acronym. "Sorry." I said, both aloud and over comms. I cleared my throat and continued: "I am ready for the payload." With the go-ahead from the inspection crew given, they removed themselves from my presence. I then exited the hanger on my own. Daylight greeted me as I made my way to the open hangar doors. Those vast steel barriers that had kept her away from the world for days on end, undergoing constant maintenance -- double- and triple-checking my systems so I could be signed off on. I walked, my fuselage-body swaying with confidence. The thoom-thoom-boom of the heavy footfalls felt so quiet to me, and now that the human helpers had scurried away, I could now move without concern of stepping on anyone. Resting my arms firmly against my thigh, feeling the gap left by the curve of my supple ass. I was practically naked in here.
