Chapter 11

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

Preparations for Sam and Carly's wedding had gone on in the background over the last few days. Carly had no one to ask to be bridesmaids, since she had not really made a lot of school friends and hadn't been in one place long enough to grow close to any other women since. Sam would have asked Leo Spitz, his college roommate, to be his best man, but in the end, settled for a simple, casual invitation to the wedding.

He put his arm around Carly. "There are lots of neighbors here, Carly. You'll make friends."

She smiled. She really had little in common with most of the NEST wives, or with any of the three NEST husbands, for that matter. They tended to be southern, and rural. Few had been to college, some had not graduated high school. She was not trying to be a snob, but they had not read the same books—many of them did not even like to read at all—and they did not watch the same things on TV. Carly knew nothing about their passions for NASCAR, or American football, and nothing about deer hunting. Some of their kids played "soccer," but no one followed what she considered "real" football, or knew anything about her favorite players. She did know quite a bit about cars, but that was a subject preferred by the men. No one else liked classical music, and no one played the piano. They had all tried to find something to talk about and failed spectacularly, for the most part.

Until impending motherhood had given her something in common with nearly all of them. Now, they had plenty to talk about. But whether or not that was enough to build friendships remained to be seen.

"Carly, are you going to be miserable living here? Because if you want to go back to DC, we can do that."

"And take Bee away from his family again? He hates DC."

"He'd put up with it, at least a few months out of the year, if you were happier there."

"I just don't make a very good housewife, Sam. I feel like I'm not doing anything. And it's hard to gossip over the back fence when you don't have anything in common to gossip about."

Sam nodded. She had always had a career where she felt that she was doing something important. Then Dylan had come along, and her whole world blew up around her. Now she was pregnant and feeling like she had no more purpose than a tumbleweed. This wasn't a matter of place, but of direction. In one of those moments of clarity that he had come to accept as life in the world of Sam Witwicky, he thought of a project that would call on all the skills that she'd used when she worked for the British Embassy. "Write a book."

Carly laughed. "Do what?"

Sam said, "Write a book. You're good at writing speeches, why not something longer? Everything's out in the open now, so you don't have to worry about things being classified. Someone's going to write the story of the first alien people to settle on earth. You could tell NEST's side of it before somebody like Galloway decides to cash in. I mean, it's almost guaranteed to become a movie."

Carly was intrigued in spite of herself. And being an author sounded a lot better than being unemployed. "I guess I could have a go. I could interview anyone who'd want to. I should probably ask Prime and Col. Lennox' permission first."

"I don't think they'd mind. I mean, someone's going to do it, right? Better that it's you, when you're right here and they can work with you to make sure you've got all the facts straight."

"Right."

"Did you get your dress OK?" Sam asked her.

"Yes, I did; no, you can't see it," she told him.

"You'll be gorgeous in it."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're gorgeous in anything."

Carly laughed. "You don't have to flatter me, you know."

"Yes, I do. Because you are."

"Tell me that when I'm out to here and can't see my feet."

"I will," he said. And she knew that he would; that was part, but not all, of the reason that Carly Spencer loved Sam Witwicky.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Charlotte Mearing and Seymour Simmons left the busy commons for the more businesslike atmosphere of ops. It was a quiet day. Mirage was near Flagstaff, checking the energon detectors along I-40, but everyone else was on base, mostly preparing for Sam and Carly's wedding the next day.

Lennox asked, "Director, do you have a moment?"

"Of course. My office?"

"Thank you, sir."

Once the door was closed, Mearing asked, "What do you need, Colonel?"

"What do you know about Sector 13?"

"Until you ran across them, I had no idea that the agency existed. The Sectors operate completely independently of one another."

"Are there...we can surmise at least another 11 Sectors out there?"

"At least ten. I know for a fact that Sector 3 no longer exists. That's all I can tell you about it."

"Director, I sincerely hope there's better oversight for the others, or the next time something turns up hidden under a dam, it's liable to take everything west of the Mississippi with it when it goes down. Sir, we both know there's going to be a next time, there always is. When one of these crises is in the wind, it would most likely save lives if I heard about it before my people have to nail the lid back on hell. If we're going to be the go-to guys for everything weird that happens, that changes our mission statement. I need to know what to train for, what weapons to ready, what support we need. S13 could not have contained Sufri without NEST's assistance, but if Hook hadn't been a victim, we might never have gotten involved until it got too far out of hand to maintain secrecy. This is a matter of national security. What if there's something out there a little smarter than Sufri? What if some foreign power or extremist group cuts a deal with it? Then instead of a mass murderer on the loose, we'd have a WMD out there, with our own culture of secrecy working against resolving the situation."

"I agree with your concerns, Colonel, and I'll bring them to the President's attention."

"That's all I can ask, sir."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Barricade asked Wheeljack, "Are you sure about that thing? Because even when I was with the 'Cons we heard all about you and your inventions!"

Ratchet did not tell him that there was a very good reason why Wheeljack's lab adjoined the medbay.

Wheeljack said, "I was designing weapons then. Is it so surprising that things meant to explode occasionally do?"

"This thing looks like the humans built it." He cast a skeptical optic on a modified ultralight airplane that was sitting on a bench in the middle of the inventor's lab. It looked ridiculously tiny, flimsy, nothing any sane mech would trust a sparkling's life to.

"They did, originally," Wheeljack said. "The objective is to get her back in the air as quickly as possible, so I began with this vehicle and modified it for safety. For one thing, I replaced the engine with a Cybertronian power plant to reduce the possibility of engine failure to almost nil. Then I replaced the pilot's seat with this assembly. Skysong can magna-lock to it however she is most comfortable, and the padding and safety cage will protect her wings in case she has a hard landing. The rest of the structural supports have been replaced with our alloys. It's very safe."

Barricade cautiously spun the propeller with one claw. "This fan is the only thing that holds it up?"

"It's a very sound aerodynamic design, Barricade."

"How does she control it? She knows how to fly by flapping her wings, and using her thruster as a booster."

Ratchet said, "I extracted the module of youngling programming that transitions them to fixed-wing frames when they outgrow their sparkling frames, and deleted everything but the code she will need to comprehend fixed-wing flight, and a simplified vocabulary in both English and Cybertronian. She hasn't matured enough to simply download the flight protocols, but she can be taught to pilot. I wanted the control system for the plane itself to be as transparent to her as possible. Here's the control module, and we replaced all the levers and pedals with these servomotor assemblies. She hardlines to this port, and with a little practice, it should be nearly as natural to her as flying under her own power."

Wheeljack said, "The next one will be much more like a small flying drone, with actual sensor input from the wings and other control surfaces so that she'll get an almost natural feedback. But that's going to take more time to design and build, and she needs to learn the basics first anyway."

"Who's gonna teach her?"

"Since we have no Aerialbots, we've enlisted Dr. Parker, who is licensed to fly ultralight planes. Hers will be delivered here one day next week."

Barricade had just proved to all of them yet again how good a parent he was, but he knew as well as they did that he had no other choice, for Skysong's sake, than to accept this ridiculous, flimsy, human-made machine. Right now it presented the only available way out of her dilemma.

A squabble over a ball broke out in medbay, and he left to sort it out. Inventor and healer looked at each other, knowing that that was all the "go ahead" they would get.

Ratchet helped Wheeljack cover the very small plane, then they locked up the lab. "Have you had your energon yet?"

Wheeljack shook his helm. "In fact, I think I skipped refueling this morning as well."

"Come on, we're going to find you redlined with your helm on your bench again," Ratchet said. He grasped Wheeljack's arm as if to prevent him from escaping, and bore him off to the nearest dispenser.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Carly and Sam decided to get married outside in the evening. It would have cooled down by then, and no decorations they would put up inside could compare to the glory of a desert sunset. There was also the consideration that the base used the chapel at Nellis AFB. Since there was no chapel here, an indoor wedding would have had to be held in the commons. It would have been interesting to try to decorate the area while everyone had to live and work in there.

Carly had delegated the wedding music to Diarwen, only requesting "Canon in D" for her walk down the aisle, rather than the more traditional wedding march from Lohengrin, and stating her preference for classical music in general. Diarwen had played enough weddings to be familiar with the classical repertoire most used in Christian ceremonies, and Pachelbel's "Canon" was among her favorites.

She played near the small table which would serve as the altar. This was, Diarwen was thankful, going to be a nondenominational ceremony, since Carly had been raised C of E, and Sam was a nominal Sunday-school Protestant who hadn't practiced since junior high school and did not claim a particular faith.

At least it was not a Catholic ceremony. Diarwen was ashamed that, even after the people who had wronged her were generations dead, she still harbored a certain prejudice against Catholics. She frequently had to remind herself that Pagans claimed to honor all paths to the Divine, but that was easier to give lip service than to live by.

It was time to get rid of excess baggage, time to leave the past in the past, but Diarwen wasn't sure how to do that. Some battlefields were harder to leave than others. Sometimes the war went on, for those who had served, long after the fighting ended. How did one begin to forgive genocide? Some things could not be forgiven, maybe only accepted, but she was holding people responsible who had not been involved. That had to stop.

She shook herself and called to Epps, who was removing a large stone from what would be the back of the aisle after they set up the folding chairs, "Can you hear all right in the back?"

"Play as loud as you'll be playing tomorrow," Epps replied, and Diarwen obliged. He thumbsed-up.

Diarwen put away her harp to help him with the chairs, and they walked back to the Quonset huts together for the evening meal.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Late that evening, Diarwen went for a walk out under the stars. Weddings had always reminded her of her own marriage, and her loss, but now she remembered Orthelion with more nostalgia than aching grief. She missed him, she always would. She remembered his dark hair, the legacy of a human ancestor, and his sky-blue eyes. She remembered his smile and his laugh.

A year ago, those memories would still have made her cry, if she dwelt on them. But now, she only hoped that, wherever he was, he was happy.

Had he chosen yet to be reborn?

Had he found his soulmate?

She sat on a rock and looked up at the stars. She traced the swath of the Milky Way, looked for the constellations that she had learned as a child. The night sky had made minor but visible changes over her long years. The stars were still there, however, and it remained possible to trace those old patterns.

But nobody else looked for the Harp any more, or the Unicorn, or the Cauldron. Now, stargazers sought Ursa Major, or Scorpio, or Leo.

Change was the only constant.

Diarwen stood and went back to the Quonset huts.

She was about to go in the back door of the smaller building where her quarters were located, when she heard the quiet rumble of an engine, and looked up to see Prime sitting at the end of the runway in his alt form.

From the quiet state of his aura, she guessed that he might be meditating, and didn't want to disturb him. But he was aware of her, and unlatched his passenger door, a silent invitation. With a smile, she left the circle of light by the door and crossed a strip of sand to join him.

"Good evening, Optimus."

"Good evening," he replied.

"What brings you out this fine evening?"

"The last of the stack of data pads on my desk," he replied. "It has been a long time since my work has been caught up. Such a rare occurrence deserves celebration. I thought to go for a drive. Would you like to come with me?"

"I should love to. I went for a walk earlier, but I have no wish to go to my room so early."

He drove toward Tranquility. If anyone had asked what he was doing, he would have told them he was patrolling the base fence and checking on the energon detectors which dotted its length. But that required very little attention, unless the routines he had set to monitor flagged a problem. He paid much more attention to his surroundings, on the alert for anything that "just didn't look right." That was nothing he could explain, but he knew he would not have to explain it to Diarwen, or to Lennox or Ironhide, for that matter. In fact, he had recently learned Lennox's English phrase for the unshakeable feeling that something undefined is wrong: "That just don't look right."

The perimeter road turned off about five miles from Tranquility. This "road" was nothing but a dirt track worn by the passage of many tires over the past few years. Once they reached the badlands, there were places where boulders had been chucked off the track, and a few places where a judicious blast or two from Ironhide's cannons had cleared the trail adequately for Autobots and Army hummers. But here, the landscape was flat sand broken only by the perimeter fence and a few tumbleweeds.

The fence's uselessness as a barrier was proven by the occasional set of ped prints which did not stop at, and were not diverted by, it. It served only to mark the property line, and provided a good place for the Army to post No Trespassing signs.

One of the detectors needed a recharge. Optimus plugged a hardline to it and waited while it recharged, a process of a few minutes—too fast and he would burn it out.

Diarwen said, "I have never lived in the desert before. It never fails to amaze me how much life is here when, at first glance, it seems so barren."

Optimus detached his hardline and used its slightly prehensile properties to tap the battery cover back in place before retracting it. "There is a metaphor in that, I believe."

"Yes," she replied.

"Diarwen, is something troubling you?"

She shook her head, and looked up at him—even kneeling in the sand to work on the detector, he towered over her. "Not, troubling, precisely..." She paused, organizing her thoughts. "I find myself at the end of a time of mourning that I thought would never run its course. After all this time..."

Gently he said, "You are not the first to have told me that, over the vorns. I have had many people come to me asking if it was all right to stop mourning, as if in the face of such losses they had no right to do anything other than live the rest of their lives in memory of those no longer here. All we are told is that everyone grieves at their own pace. My traditions offer no instructions for what to do after that, other than for memorial rituals and so forth. Getting on with life is presented as a matter of course, but I don't believe it is ever that simple."

"Perhaps it is not meant to be," she replied, after a thoughtful silence.

"Do you want to go back to base? Mirage has already checked the rest of these today."

"Not unless you do. It is too lovely a night to be indoors," she replied.

"Would you like to go to the lake? Or into Las Vegas?"

"Oh, the lake, please. Noise and crowds do not appeal to me this evening," she smiled.

A seemingly aimless drive across the desert led to a road, and they followed it, completely alone, until it petered out near a dry stream bed. Optimus let her out and transformed after five hundred meters, when the stream bed narrowed and twisted around boulders. Diarwen took her usual position, holding tight to his shoulder strut as he made his way down the wash. Eventually, after wandering a bit, it led to the lake shore. A white band of mineral deposits glimmered under the stars, testimony to the low water level.

While climate change was leading to higher sea levels, changing patterns of rainfall led to less water in Lake Mead, threatening both the electricity and the water it supplied to Las Vegas. It was lack of water, though, not lack of power, that might eventually make the city a ghost town.

She had seen great cities rise and fall before. It was as natural a life cycle as any other.

This huge lake, however, was not natural. It seemed as if it might have been here for millennia, but it had yet to celebrate its first century. Merely the blink of an eye. This was the power that humanity wielded—that of engineering and technology. Foreign to her, yet able to change the very face of the land in greater ways than Sidhe magic had ever dared. It scared her, but it excited her also—concurrent with the possibility for catastrophe if they continued to ignore the effects that their actions had on the world around them was the opportunity to achieve the fantastic if they ever learned to act with wisdom and forethought.

A brightly-lit houseboat full of people having a party floated by, far enough away for the two of them to go unnoticed in the dark. The boat tied up on the far shore of the inlet, its music drifting softly across the water on the cool evening breeze.

"Diarwen, how are you feeling?"

"Much better. Even Dr. Parker admits that I am recovering."

"I am glad to hear that," Optimus said. He was sitting on the bank of the wash, where a ten-foot cliff made him a convenient seat.

He leaned over to offer Diarwen a lift to the top, and once she stepped off his servo, she checked the sand for anything wiggly before she sat down. The wiggly things in this area could very well be scorpions.

Optimus saw what she was doing, and explained, "I've already scanned the area with proximity sensors. I don't want something to make itself at home behind an armor plate, so that I carry it home with me."

"Ah! Useful talent, that. You detect things as relatively tiny as scorpions?"

"I can, when not doing anything else requiring the processor resources," he replied. "It is wise to either do that, or engage water seals to keep such things out. I got into the habit of using proximity sensors long ago, thanks to the threat of Decepticon micro-drones. No larger than your scorpions, if carried back to base they could reveal its location or perform simple missions of sabotage, or even assassination, given a bit of luck."

"All in all, I think I would prefer scorpions," she said. "I hadn't thought of Cybertronians smaller than Brains and Wheelie."

"Well, micro-drones are not mecha. Of truly sentient, self-aware mecha, symbionts are often smaller than an average sparkling, though they are highly dependent on their carriers and spend at least a part of each orn docked, much as Gaia does. Minibots can be human-sized, Pretenders for example. But there have been fully framed and sparked Cybertronians who were much smaller than Brains or Wheelie. They were rare, and nearly always purpose-built mecha, but they existed."

"And others the size of cities."

"Yes. Omega Supreme and Metroplex on our side, and Trypticon for the Decepticons, were the largest Cybertronians that I personally have seen. Long ago there were sparked colony stations, perhaps an Earth mile in length."

"Do you think any of them could still be out there?"

"I won't say it is impossible. Cybertron no longer had records of them when I was working as a clerk. Ours is a very long history, however, and if records were lost it would not have been the first time. I think every young clerk made that search, or a similar one. We all dreamed of making a discovery such as a lost cityformer."

"Would that not be amazing? In time, perhaps, we can look. There are others of your people still out there, are there not?"

"Yes. We are missing clanmates whom I know still live, Drift, Hound, Perceptor, a few younglings a little older than Bumblebee, a femme healer named Moonracer. Many of us have caught distant echoes of them in the clan bonds, and believe them to be together and making their way here. Clan bonds are not like those joining cohort. At this distance, all I do know is that they are alive. But Drift is a capable leader, and Hound a strong second."

"May Epona grant them safe journey."

"Indeed. In addition to that group, there were many scattered bands of neutrals who fled Cybertron and its constant warring long ago. Some of them most likely have survived, if they could avoid predation by the Decepticons. Whether or not they choose to heed my call to gather here, however, remains to be seen. Many of them held the Autobots as responsible for the ruin of Cybertron as they did the Decepticons. They may prefer to make their own way, at least until we have proven that the war has ended."

"Time will attend to that." Diarwen drew her BDU shirt closer around her. The desert was cool at night, especially after the heat of the day.

Optimus curled his servo around her, offering some shelter from the cool breeze off the lake. Without conscious thought, she leaned back into his palm, as the outer layers of their auras began to mesh.

Diarwen felt tears come to her eyes. It would be so easy to reach out to him—but she was unsure how such would be received. She blinked the tears away. Fool to want what she could not have. Better to summon up what grace she had and accept this quiet evening, these stolen moments, this friendship. Let her fool heart ache.

She might have been surprised to find that Optimus' feelings were much the same.

They stayed there for another hour, or so, absorbing the peace, letting the pain ebb.

On their return, Diarwen climbed to the ground near her building's back door. Optimus paid no attention to Ratchet and Mirage catching some cool night air at the back of the main hangar, nor did he see the scowl that drew the old healer's brow plates together for a moment before he went back to his medbay.

Mirage crossed the sand to his leader. "Bella notte, no?"

"It is that."

"It is not my concern, Optimus, but be aware...others, whose concern it also is not, may not be looking kindly upon your friendship with that organic."

Optimus looked at him. The spy was not one to put his wheel into something that didn't concern him without good reason. And he missed very little. "I'll keep that in mind, Mirage."

"The war ends, the same old politics begins, only now based on species rather than caste." Mirage ex-vented. "Those whose actions, and sacrifices, have saved us all deserve more respect."

"It is not just a question of species. Some misleading information about Diarwen is in circulation, and she doesn't want to complicate the situation. She hopes that it will resolve itself, given time. Unless there is a real threat, do nothing. But if you believe a real threat does exist, please inform me immediately."

Mirage nodded. "Certainly, Prime."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

The next day was busy. Only Sam and Bee took the whole day off, for the ultimate preparations and the inevitable last-minute run into Las Vegas.

Everyone else was still involved with the daily tasks of running the base, complicated through the extra work generated by the director's presence. All of the promotions, and other items of lesser importance but greater urgency, which required her presence, were hastily completed.

By itself, that caused a lot of scrambling. The wedding, though, was the continuous topic of conversation everywhere, which only seemed to be encouraged by preparations for the reception in the commons.

The sparklings were too little to understand the human custom of marriage, but they comprehended "a party for Sam and Carly."

Chip and Wheeljack were putting the final touches on the control unit for Skysong's ultralight. Wheeljack had made a ramp to his bench top, and put a human-sized table up there to give Chip a convenient place to work.

Wheeljack had been astounded that the human understood the device as well as he did, but one look at the unit, another at the specs, and the newest civilian contractor knew what he was doing. "Que, may I use some of this code for my chair? What you did here streamlines this whole decision tree. I think it'll fix some of the response time issues I've been trying to work around."

"Certainly, I don't mind at all, but don't you use different coding languages?"

"Well, yes, but it'll port over. Let me show you what I mean." He dragged his laptop around so Que could see its comparatively tiny screen.

Immersed in their comparison of the two control systems, none of them paid any attention to a tiny seekerling crawling along the bench. A stealthy servo purloined the last bit of energon remaining from Que's working breakfast.

That was good, but it wasn't enough. Skysong was still hungry.

Chip had something on his little table—it was dark brown rather than pink, and the thing it came in was not an energon cube, but if he drank it, it must be good! She crept another few feet forward.

Wheeljack saw her reaching forward, but he thought she was after the laptop. He scooted it out of reach further down the table, and Chip followed, leaving his cup completely unguarded. Wheeljack patted her on the helm, very gently, and made sure she wasn't too close to the edge, before he turned his attention back to the laptop screen.

Skysong made her move, her talons closed around her prize and she knocked it back in one triumphant gulp.

The video of this event from Med-Sci would haunt her sparkling and youngling years. The cams were set to follow fast movement, as that often heralded a problem, so with her grab at the cup, they had focused on her.

The little face froze, and then curled itself into a grimace of gargoyle proportions. She gurgled, which somehow managed to become a screech, then ejected an entire enormous mouthful of still-scalding coffee in Chip's direction. He let out a startled screech of his own, and jumped, which sent the motion-controlled chair that he had forgotten to power off into a wild spin. Que caught him, chair and all, as he started to tip over the edge of the bench.

Skysong bubbled the last of the nasty stuff out of her intake pipe, then said, in a little-old-femme tone which was the delight of the common room for several days, "Oh, that terrible."

Que unsubspaced a blanket-sized polishing cloth. Chip mopped coffee off himself, the table, and the sparkling.

Ratchet hustled in. "What the f-"

"Language!" Que scolded.

Ratchet surveyed the dripping computer tech. "What happened?"

Chip said innocently, "Skysong doesn't like coffee."

"She drank your coffee?"

"She put it in her mouth, but it didn't stay there long. It won't hurt her, will it?"

"Did you have cream or sugar in it? Real cream. That powdered-aluminum stuff doesn't count."

"No, just black coffee."

"She should be all right then, if she expelled most of it—and it seems that she did. If her feeding protocols have reactivated spontaneously, that's a good sign. That's a wonderful sign." Since she had awakened unable to fly, he'd had to use a medical override to make her consume her energon.

Que said, "Yes, it is! I had some energon left in my cube, and that's gone too!" The inventor got another cube and opened it for her. "Let's get that nasty taste out of your oral receptors, sweetspark."

She drank happily. Still mopping up coffee, Chip grinned ear to ear. Suicidal people didn't worry about eating, in his opinion.

When she finished the energon, he gave the top of her helm a good, thorough, and completely unnecessary polishing. She giggled and reached up. By now she knew where she was allowed to put her peds on the wheelchair, so all she needed was for him to give her a little boost, and she was up in his lap.

Ratchet said, "I don't know what you did, Chip—but keep doing it."

"She's a smart little kid. You can't leave her in that berth while she's awake. She'll get bored and then she'll get depressed. We've got to keep her occupied with things that really interest her. Jeez, it isn't like you can forget anything—think back to when you were a bored kid, what did you like to do?"

Ratchet remembered his stint in the hospital, and the medics who had kept him entertained. "I was a little older than Skysong when I was hurt. I had school work, and then the medics let me help them at the desk. She isn't ready for anything like that."

"No, but she likes being around where people are working. What about toys, or markers, or something?" As Chip cleaned up the mess, he made a mental list of sources for big sheets of drawing paper and the largest markers he could think of—things suitable for her clawed servos. Big pieces of sidewalk chalk, maybe? Things from the electronics supply shop that would interest a very young sparkling—she loved Que's lab—they could help her make things that lit up and made noise. Maybe he could teach her one of the very simplified programming languages that had been invented for young children. Chip thought sparklings might just be able to handle that a little earlier in their development than human children—they could try it and see if she enjoyed it, anyway.

He'd begin to spend the first hour of his shift creating toys for her, if Que approved. Somehow, he didn't think that would be a problem.

Que said, "She finished this whole cube too, Ratchet."

"She'll probably go down for recharge pretty soon, then."

"I think she has already," Que said, bemused. Ratchet put her back in her berth for her nap, while Chip left to get a dry shirt.

End Chapter 11