Trying to use
TRANS(SPEC.ORDR,@ID:"*":@RECORD<27,@CNT>,27,'X')
Universe is returning an error message on @CNT, assuming not used in our Universe flavour, anyone know what the actual trans code would be?
I just realized that the CATS is base so this should work for you. A similarly built I-Descriptor on my system certainly does the concatenation correctly, but I don't have an easy to find example to test the TRANS on top. It does bring back the expected number of blanks based the on the 'X'.
TRANS(SPEC.ORDR,SUBR('-CATS',REUSE(@ID:'*'),@RECORD<27>),27,'X')
Good luck