The Diego Diaries: "Oh-oh" (dd6 102)
This is dedicated to the readers and their notes over the last few. LOL! I love and hug you all. :D:D:D
-0-There
:OH, FRAG! SEND REINFORCEMENTS!:
-0-Salton Sea
Ironhide sprinted for the elevator followed by Raptor. They disappeared below and in almost seconds it would seem, three cruisers and a battleship flew out from the staging area base at this point in space they shared as guard for the Prime toward the altercation far away. As they did, the alignment of the ships in place shifted and the hole was plugged once more. The Beta flight was already there and ready to go on command.
-0-There
They came out of the darkness, fighters shooting energy beams at the group on the ground. A shuttle was hit and burst into flames as the bots scattered to return fire. They came in waves, appearing out of thin air, strafing everything they could see, then flying up to disappear again. Guns on some of the shuttles opened fire filling the sky everywhere with death. There were hits as invisible ships unable to swerve under the massed attack burst into flames and crashed on the ground. The fire became intense enough that the attack ceased.
Scattered about, lying here and there, the teams slowly rose, their guns and optics fixed on the sky. Springer looked around, noted that everyone appeared to be alive. :Springer to Base. We just got slagged. No one is dead but we lost another shuttle. Sorry, Dad:
:Hold on, slaggers. We're coming. What are we facing?: Raptor's voice said comfortingly out of the ether.
:Cloaked ships … fighters. They're coming in waves. They have energy weapons. Fraggers! Get here fast. They're coming in again!: Springer motioned his mechs to take cover and they did, grouping up to lay down fire in thick succession.
Fighters appeared, were hit, then flew off or exploded, hitting the ground in pieces to careen here and there. It was intense, frightful, then over as they flew past and disappeared. Springer looked around, then down toward Drift. He had a steel bar in his thigh from a fighter disintegration. "Frag! Don't move. MEDIC!" he called out.
A hard bitten field medic named Foley ran through the darkness to slide to a halt beside Drift. "Well, this just isn't your mission is it," he said as he prepared to pull the rod and field patch the wound.
"If I could truly see you, Foley, I'd punch your face," Drift said with a slight smirk. Then he bellowed.
Sitting back with a slightly bent and charred steel rod in his servo, Foley grinned. "Do you want a souvenir or do I throw this on the pyre that this mission has become?"
"Fragger. Fix me. I have a score to settle," Drift said with a grin.
"If you can see to find it, slagger," Foley said as he began to patch the hole and plug a few things. "There. No dancing or fragging for a while."
Drift glanced at a frowning, slightly anxious Springer. "There goes the weekend."
Springer grinned, then he turned to shoot as more fighters came flying in. They shot the place up, then left. One more shuttle was 'blowed' up and charred. It was getting out of servo.
:Raptor to Springer. What's going on? Talk to me, infant:
:Hurry up, Appa. Get the lead out: Springer said. :We have wounded. Some of them even have more and newer wounds: He frowned at Drift who was leaning against a rock with his gun out. That was how serious it was that he was armed with a gun.
:How's Drift's optic?: Ironhide asked.
:Just about as good as the new hole in his leg: -Springer
:It only hurts when I move: -Drift, clarifying
:Frag: -Ironhide and Raptor
-0-In space
Their sensor officer noted the intruders before they were in visual range. "Sir, there's a huge ship nearby and its feeding fighters against the ground team."
Raptor who was sitting on the command chair of the battleship while Ironhide stood beside him incandescent with rage turned toward him. "What sort? Do we know?"
"It's spotty but it fits the general design of the mother ships that utilize the acid monsters," he replied. A schematic appeared on the forward monitor along with poor quality images from the first encounter with a mother ship of a species that called itself Hish or Yautje. Whether they were the same or not was still a mystery to the bots. Either way, they were fraggers.
"Oh frag," Raptor said. "Feed me the info and open a channel to Prime." One was opened as the sparse data of the Hish and/or Yautje was run onto his console. "Prime, this is Raptor. A Hish mother ship is the culprit. We need fighters. Not Seekers. Heavy vessel fighters with speed and maneuverability. Launch them and have them barrel it here. We're going after the mother ship but my intuition tells me they're going to defend it like a hive of bees. This is going to hurt:
:Prime to Raptor. Understood:
Almost immediately, the sensor net on Raptor's ship showed a flurry of blinking lights from three of the bigger ships in the base group. Each was a 2-3 mech fighter, a pilot and 1-2 shooter configuration. They were incredibly fast, agile and would be right behind the group Raptor was commanding in short order.
"Open a general channel, infant," he said to the comm station. "Use their language files for the send if you have them."
"We do. I can translate now," the kid said as his fingers flew.
"Enemy ship, this is General Raptor of Praxus, the emissary of the Prime who has come to bring the pain. We have an overwhelming force heading your way. Cease harassing the ground team or I'll blow you to the Pit. Answer me, slaggers."
It was silent a moment, then a guttural sound filled the air. It was captured, translated and played again. "I am Slayer. You may come, metallic, but I will kill you. I command this ship and these warriors. You will be sent to whatever hell you came from if you fight me."
Raptor considered that, then grinned. "Well, *Slayer* … I was never one to run from a fight. Come out and meet me, fraggers. That is, unless your ugly afts are too cowardly to do that. From what I hear, you don't do too well fighting us toe-to-toe. Come on out and bring your ugly afts. We'll see whose the fragger here."
The bots sat a moment waiting for something to happen, then a ripple in space told them that a huge cloaked ship was heading their way. Raptor watched it, considered the fighters coming, then called for reinforcements. "I need battle shuttles, Prime. I want to surround this behemoth and melt them down to silly putty. Gotta have them fast."
:Prime to Raptor. Understood:
Seven Wrecker battle shuttles and three general army leaped forward. They were streaking toward the target as Raptor lay down his order of battle.
-0-Down there
The wave flew off and they were down another shuttle. Springer looked around. "This is fragged."
Foley who was reloading grinned at Springer, someone he knew and liked from the orns of Impactor and the heyday of real Wrecker hooliganism. "Do ya think?" he asked with no small amount of amusement.
Then the radio traffic began to filter through their audials as the buzz of combat subsided for a moment. They listened, then Springer began to gather up the team. Three of the five shuttles were toast, so they began to gather into the two that were left. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe along with Bulkhead, Lon, Bezel, and Blurr took over gunnery positions and fire control in theirs as others filled the space and tended the wounded. When everyone was loaded up, they lifted off and began to flee toward the far side of the planetary fragment, regrouping before drawing attention. It would appear that Raptor was drawing them away from their position. They would have to make a break for it when the enemy was distracted.
They circled the fragment, then set their sights on joining the approaching fleet by navigating through a debris field until they were a good third of the way back to their side. Then it would be open space, a daunting prospect at best. As they began to fly away, the Hish sent four fighters to shoot them to slag.
-0-Raptor and Co.
Raptor calmly designed and assigned the battle plan to the groups coming and the groups here. He was relaxed as always when there was a battle but his grandson wasn't. Ironhide, though poised to fight, was tense and troubled. Ratchet still felt fine but they had little in mind yet about getting him back. Knowing his wily old mech, he knew that Ratchet was giving them a run for their money. That they might be hurting him drove him to the edge. So far, no pain or dismay signals. Just a steady tension.
"Grandson."
Ironhide looked down at his grandfather, the beloved companion of many a fort building, of the wildest rides at Six Lasers over Cybertron, of food fights at the beach house, and serious conversations about what it meant to be a good mech. "Appa?"
"I would like you to direct the fighters," Raptor said. He stared upward at the solemn face of his most beloved grandson and co-conspirator. "If you can."
Ironhide nodded. "I can, Appa." He walked to Tactical and relieved the operator. Sitting, he plugged in and began to do what he did best, bring chaos to the fools stupid enough to push their luck this far.
-0-On the Salton Sea
It was incredibly tense as the main battle datapad fed to the forward screens the rapidly closing and ever changing battle groups. They monitored displacement to find the Hish ship. They had good tech, very much enhanced since the last time they clashed but the displacement of the mother ship due to its size was an old trick for a good sensor officer to spot. From the data from Springer, their weapons were better too, of a type like their own. Apparently, they still had contacts with Cybertronians, the treacherous slaggers.
Ultra Magnus would be pissed.
Prime brooded on the command chair as everyone else worked on their part of the problem. Prowl was calm as ever. Harris noted that. He noted all of it. This was the most riveting thing he had ever seen. There were a lot of aliens in space and apparently, none of the bastards appeared to be friendly. Fuckers everywhere he looked, it would seem. The soldiers were tense but intensely professional, making the odd comment now and again as things played out. Right now, two huge forces were flying straight toward each other to fight. It was incomprehensible to him how anyone could choose to do that.
Willingly.
-0-Springer and Co.
They wove through the debris which opened then closed ahead and behind them. Pulsing their way through the loosely packed rubble, they were nearly at the edge of free space. Hercy who was sitting next to their pilot, a kid named Toki, glanced back. "Free space is here. Be on the alert, gunners. The rest of you pray." He glanced at the kid who looked surprised, then resolved. "Fly, infant, like you never flew before." Hercy glanced back. "We have four bogies on our tail."
They flashed forward side-by-side, two overloaded shuttles with 12 big guns pointing outward.
-0-Raptor and Co.
"Did you figure out how to locate the fighters cloaked yet?" Raptor asked as he glanced back to Sensors.
"Not yet, General," a regular army soldier replied. "Working on it."
"Good," Raptor said. "No hurry."
A ripple of laughter greeted that as Raptor grinned himself. He always led with a light touch and the friendships and loyalty he commanded was legendary. The group was spread out with slots for the fighters to assume once they were close enough to join them. A fog of them were speeding along behind, nearly in contact as Raptor slowed for them to catch up. Guns were prepared, forward, overhead and behind, ready for the initial flyby and flyover by the cloud of fighters that they sensed were coming.
"Steady on, infants," he said calmly. "All is well. We're going to do this. Just do your job," he said as the first wave of fraggers came in hot.
-0-Near one of the engine rooms of Raptor's ship
A whirl appeared in an empty corridor. Black figures spewed out of it, then it was gone. They stood in the corridor figuring out the lay of the land, then they turned as one to run forward.
Acid monsters had just landed in battle.
-0-TBC 8-20-17 edited 8-23-17