The Diego Diaries: Follow Up (dd8 122)
=0=There
They streaked out of the bridge toward the two solar systems to do a flyby so fast it'd be hard to follow even on Cybertronian sensors. The group flashed past the first system, then turned toward the other that had a weak distress signal leak. Heading toward it but not too close, they flew swiftly, then they were gone from sight almost immediately.
=0=Ops Center, watching with tense concentration
They saw the arrival of their team on the map, the first flyby which was just now delivering information via the four communications expediters, then they disappeared off the screen.
It was silent a moment, then Rainmaker leaned back in his chair. "Frag. Two sons missing now."
Prowl glanced at him. "Rainmaker, we're going to-"
"I don't doubt it, Prowl. My sons are good mechs and they know how to protect themselves and defend others. What's fragging me off is the suddenness of their disappearance. Do you think we're facing a spacial anomaly that yanks them somewhere else? I don't know. I've never seen this before," the Elder said as he mused upon it.
Wheeljack and Perceptor studied the data coming in, then turned to the group. "We have a standard pair of stars nicely apart who have reasonable planets. We have only the most brief data on the second. The first is class 1 in development, nothing exceptional. The other is similar to this one, good planets, gas giants … good stuff. It could be that the signal is coming from there but its inconclusive."
"How close were they to that system before they disappeared?" Jetta asked.
Perceptor considered the data, then glanced at him. "They were just starting the scan when it happened."
"Then we have our starting point of inquiry," Prowl said grimly as Prime nodded.
"The problem is … the anomaly there will not let us look at it," Prime said grimly.
=0=There
They came to their senses in orbit of a small planet, a very beautiful one with a large densely packed settlement of some sophistication. Glancing at his team, counting them, Saber signaled them to follow. Down he went toward a big settlement with city-like features and a crowded landing field filled with their ships.
Landing with a thud, they heard shouting and other noises nearby. Glancing at the others, they ran with guns pulled toward it. They disappeared into the city in seconds.
=0=There
It was a full blown melee with fists and clubs. The locals were good, skilled at fighting and using blunt force weapons. The Autobots took to it swinging right and left as Ratchet stood to one side having a running commentary with Auntie Lissie while The Boys™ worked their magic with the locals.
As the fighting began to turn toward the Autobot's favor in spite of numbers, a shot rang out. Everyone froze, then glanced down the street.
A good dozen Seekers were standing there with Saber in front. His gun trailed smoke from the rounds he put into the air. "WHAT THE FRAG IS GOING ON!?" he said as the others beside him kept their guns pointed at the crowd.
By then, Reset and his group had come outside to see what was going on. They stared with fury at the melee and the Seekers down the road. "STOP THIS RIGHT NOW! HOW DARE YOU COME HERE AND DO THIS!?"
"Yeah," Ratchet said. "How dare we come to your signal to save you from this and get slagged. You have no sense of decency, slaggers," he said to the Autobots who grinned at him from various states of disarray.
"FRAG YOU, LOW CASTE!" the second kid who was clobbered by Raptor shouted as he swayed in fury and the beating Sideswipe had given him. "FRAG ALL OF YOU!"
"ENOUGH!" Reset shouted.
Saber walked closer, slapped servos with Warlord, then turned to Ratchet. "What's the deal here? Who is this?" he asked nodding toward Reset and his group.
"Why … don't you know?" Ratchet asked with a smile. "That's the fabled Reset. He's notable for his ingratitude, his inability to give a frag about anything but himself, his ingrown social group, an appreciation of puppies, long moonlit walks on the beach and he's letting us stay in a converted toilet. Isn't he just the finest kind of host?"
"A toilet?" Saber asked with growing surprise. "What the frag? What's going on here? We came to find you and we ended up here. We don't know how but we did."
"Welcome to the club, brother. We're all stuck here. You come too close and you end up here." Warlord turned to face the leadership. "Isn't that great?" he asked with sarcasm.
Sideswipe punched his servos together. "I think its great. Don't you?" he asked the others.
They all murmured and nodded. It was great for them, too.
Ratchet turned to Reset. "I'm the Prime of Cybertron's Secretary of State, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Negotiator. Why don't you pull that stick out of your aft and tell us what you know. Maybe, JUST maybe we'll take you with us when we go."
"I wouldn't go that far," Roadbuster said.
"You wouldn't, Roadie. That's why you're perfect," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile.
He actually grinned.
Saber glanced at his brother. "So what everyone's saying is … we're fragged?"
Warlord nodded. "It would appear so but all isn't lost. I've never lived in a toilet before. Go somewhere. Learn the local customs."
Rough laughter greeted that among the Autobots and Seekers though the others didn't find it funny.
"Well, slag finds its level," one of the locals said before Sunstreaker's fist dropped him.
"How dare you do that!" a member of Reset's party said in fury.
"YEAH! HOW DARE I! HOW DARE I? I do believe I did," Sunstreaker said as he kicked the fallen slagger in the side.
A huge roar sped through the local mob as everyone got set to do the dance again.
"ENOUGH!" Reset said. He looked at the Autobots and Seekers. "You have your place. Go there and stay. If you come out of it we'll shoot you."
"Uh, slagger?" Roadie began as he half raised his arm. "We shoot back. Just so ya know."
Snickers rounded the group as they glared at each other.
Raptor turned to Reset. "You'll find that you bit off more than you can chew. Just so you know … the System of Exception is dead as per Primal Decree. It has no force of law here or anywhere else that Cybertronians live. And because Cybertron and the Empire are on modified martial law by Primal Decree until the 'Cons are finished, you can't order slag."
"Sentinel would NEVER make such a decree about the System," someone in the mob said.
Raptor turned to him. "Sentinel is in the Matrix."
A hushed surprise greeted that.
"He was recalled by the Pantheon," Raptor continued.
"Liar," someone said. "Why would They do that?"
"Oh, just a little something about "until all are ONE!" Ratchet said as he lit up his foghorn voice on the last word to get his point across. One could almost feel the paint peel off their finishes as it rang out loud and clear, like a meteor smashing into the ground at your feet.
The sound of laughing drew everyone's agonized attention.
Hercy grinned at Ratchet. "I love it when you do that. Dibs if Ironhide ever gets boring."
"Future bond list, Hercy," Ratchet said with a dazzler. "Future bond list."
A number of the mechs asked to be put on it as the locals and their leadership watched with confusion and molten fury.
"Are you done?" Reset asked with a glacial tone.
"Actually, not yet," Ratchet said. "If we go anywhere its because we decide to. If anyone of you fraggers bother us, our ships or anyone else we actually find here that we like, you will REGRET IT!" he said with his signature tone.
It was silent for an agonizing moment but for Hercy laughing uproariously. Then he grinned at Raptor. "How about we take a stroll? I feel like going to the toilet."
HUGE laughter greeted that as Raptor glanced at his uncles. They were grinning at Ratchet. "How about it? Feel like dropping a load?" he asked.
"Born ready," Jack said as Sun laughed loudly. He glanced at Reset. "Frag you by the way and your donkey." With that, he began to walk with Hercy away from the colony city and toward a dirt road that led away.
The others followed, some walking backward with guns drawn as remotely, Seekers mined the shuttles.
Warlord turned to Reset. "I've mined the ships. Touch them and they blow up." With that, he transformed, burst into flames, then led the Seekers off in a riot of noise and fanfare.
The locals watched them, then Reset looked at his mechs. "Let's go inside. We have to discuss what we're going to do about this." He glanced at the mob. "Go home or whatever you were doing. No more interactions until we have a plan."
The mob watched them go back inside, then slowly dispersed with ill temperament.
=0=Down the dirt road
"I love organic worlds with trees. I love trees," Lon said as he walked with Bezel and Sideswipe.
"Good thing. We're going to be here a while, something tells me," Sideswipe said.
"Optimus Prime will come for us," Smokey the Much, Much Younger said as he studiously avoided Not Rod™ who was studiously ignoring him back. Both were still hostages/detention inmates of Raptor. Thus, they were along.
"And he'll get snagged," Kup said. "We have to figure this out. We need someone like Percy or 'Jack."
"You have me," Ratchet said with a grin. "You'll always have me."
"Yeah," Sunstreaker said with a grin. "Lucky us."
A good solid punch took care of that impertinence.
"What do you suppose this is, Ratchet?" Steiner asked as he walked behind the youngsters grinning at their youth.
"Well, it isn't being generated by the local idiots. Therefore, its either a local phenomenon, either on world or in space or someone left a machine here that's doing this. Perhaps it snags things for this world or protects it somehow. It could be the way its been populated by plants and things, though I can't imagine how non sentient things could come here that way," Ratchet mused. "I'm sort of leaning toward natural phenomena myself."
"Figure it out," Hercy said with a grin. "I'm going to check out the toilet."
Huge laughter greeted that as they came out of the forest into a clearing. Beyond them was a building that was falling in, one marked Sanitation Plant #1. There was no roof and the area had scattered debris, like it'd been scavenged before being abandoned.
A crate was being utilized by the humans who were hanging out there waiting for them to come back. They gathered to note the mechs walking in.
Lennox walked toward them. He wasn't wearing gear. "You came, too? We're all stuck then."
"Why aren't you in gear, slagger?" Ratchet asked as he scanned everyone and the area around them.
"Its good for us," Olivia said.
"What about slag we don't know yet? What about spores and slag?" Ratchet said as he noted the place was a paradise for humans.
"We trust you guys," Olivia said.
"Your first mistake," Kup said. He glanced at Ratchet. "We ran the scan you and Perceptor made for this. It works. They ain't dead."
Huge laughter greeted that, then everyone turned to the huge building. It had no roof, had huge tanks inside that looked rusty and was a dirt floored wreck.
"Frag," Ratchet said. "If I'd grown up in something this nice I might have become a nice person."
HUGE, huge laughter and agreement greeted that.
=0=Ops Center, Mars
Drift and Springer sat in the Strategic Command Center below the main floor with everyone else trying to figure out what they could do. It was decided to send a probe with super fast data return. By the time they got it lined up, they were gathered around the huge monitor at the end of the room. The visuals of the probe were being returned in real time.
It burst out of a bridge, flashed past the first solar system, then the second for about a moment before the feed went dead.
Prime glanced at Wheeljack and Perceptor who were feverishly working on the data it sent nearby. "Soon, gentlemen."
=0=There
They watched as something streaked through the sky, then crashed loudly nearby. Pulling guns, most of the mechs reconned to the sight where a blackened long tube shaped device was half buried in the ground. They gathered around it as Ratchet scanned, then knelt to look at it. He grinned. "Ah, a little basket of fail from Dad," he said.
He pushed the device just a little so that everyone could see the half burned face of the Autobot sigil.
=0=TBC 03-24-2021