The Diego Diaries: Moving On (dd6 132)

-0-Morning in Hell

They pulled the gravity carts behind themselves as they trudged with Loo and Cinder. Loo was the mech in charge and Cinder was the muscle and roving optic looking for danger before it could strike. Even behind bars, there was danger in a prison of this volatility. It was incredibly noisy as they made their way, dropping off food containers for this and that cell block. The mechs inside were rising to another boring orn and when they spotted the new delivery boys they came closer to see what was happening to the dull routine that was now different.

A momentary glance at the jackets the four wore was like lighting a pile of napalm. The burn lasted longer than they did in the optical range of the mechs who blew up on the delivery team.

Freezing their expressions into the blandest possible configuration, the four did the job, then trudged onward to the next cell block. The range of swearing, the intensity of the rage and hatred was almost unbearable and because it happened in one place, those coming up drawn by the sound waited with anticipation to figure out what was happening. It was one long shit fest for the first food run for the new 'team'. They would have five more delivery runs to make before they moved onward to hauling garbage and recyclables to the environmental plant near the hospital.

-0-In the Valles

They landed their runabout in the landing lot at this, the farthest campground to date in the Valles Marineris. There were half a dozen ships that came together with friends to rock climb, hang out, drink beer, have shooting contests and tell lies. There would be no children this time. This was too dangerous a landscape for kids. The sloping sides of the deep chasm rose upward for miles where they were and the plateaus scattered through this part of the deeply carved gorge would be fun for clambering around upon by the adults, most of whom were immensely expert at it.

A hatch opened as Hot Rod jumped out followed by Smokey, First Aid and Bumblebee. The other ships disgorged a number of friends, all of them part of the social circle of the twins and Bluestreak. Those three climbed out of theirs, themselves and began to pull gear as others did the same. Blurr, Bulkhead and his bond, Tyro, Jazz and Mirage who were still on call just in case, Bezel and Lon along with a number of others were there as well. Gear was pulled, slag was traded, then they all gathered up their stuff to walk up the steep path to their campsites.

The Colonial Public Works Division had a subdivision in their department that handled all of the portion of life on Mars that dealt with land and its maintenance. Analogous to the Department of the Interior in the American government with their subdivisions like the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management or BLM, there were mechs and femmes that were trained to handle all manner of environments and thus, the growing parks and wild sites open to the public were their purview.

The new improvements at some of them were also part of that. There was a solar hook up this far out that would allow devices and other 'luxuries' to be used by experienced and inexperienced campers alike, with live in managers at the stations that maintained each area.

Among the campers trudging up the steep but carefully groomed slope, Partition along with his brothers Inweld and Morius were making their way. The night before, they met up at The Gear Box with Ratchet to 'gear up'.

"What do we need?" Partition asked as the three youngsters glanced around themselves at a bewildering array of great stuff, all of it geared to them and this environment.

Ratchet grinned. "Well, I wouldn't recommend a big old frying pan yet. That's advanced camping but I would recommend a solar oven to heat up the grub. Right now, you need a tent and stuff for recharge." He led the way to a place in the store with the tents in a beautiful display that would be the envy of Earth. They were in various colors and all manner of sizes. "Do you want to share a tent or go it alone?"

The three looked at each other, then Ratchet. "We never did this before. What do you think?" Morius asked.

Ratchet grinned. "Go together. One big tent. Choose a color." It took a moment for them to settle on red, then they followed Ratchet to get other stuff. Sleeping bags that fit for their body types and had room inside for them were next. They would be warm and their cushiony bottoms that inflated would keep them from accommodating the odd rock or sharp object in their recharge.

Fun things like games for outdoor hoo-haw, a small solar stove for heating up prepared food and the food itself took a moment or two. They asked about the selections and how to cook them. When they were fully kitted out including backpacks that would hold all their gear, they walked to the counter, checked it through inventory control, then walked out buoyed to be 'campers'.

Ratchet paused on the sidewalk, then pulled out a sleeping bag from Inweld's backpack. It was small and square shaped deflated. He showed them the inflation switch, then grinned again. "Watch this." He touched it and it fairly leaped out of his servo to land fully inflated on the ground.

They laughed loudly, then grinned at Ratchet. "That's great. Now how do you deflate it?"

Ratchet pressed the button again and it deflated flat and square in his servo. He tucked it into the backpack again. "When you camp with us, and you will, I imagine, there's one hard and fast rule about it."

The three youngsters looked at Ratchet with serious expressions as they nodded. "Okay," Inweld said.

Ratchet grinned. "You have to let Prime inflate all the tents and sleeping bags, the big girl."

They laughed for some time before heading to their different destinations … Inweld and Morius to their genitor's house and Partition to Ratchet's.

The next morning in the Valles ...

They reached the flat campsite that could contain everyone, then tossed down their gear. "Time to set up camp," Sunstreaker said with a smirk at his brother. He sat down on a rock. "Your turn this time, Blue. Prime isn't here to do the heavy lifting."

Bluestreak smirked at him as he pulled their tent from the gear bag. "Like this is hard?" he said as he pressed the button on the device. It flew from his grip as it swiftly inflated, landing near Bee and Aid. Huge laughter greeted that as everyone hustled to do the same. Not having Prime around to steal the fun was a good thing. As they plopped tents around and threw their gear inside, a shuttle landed nearby.

Peering over the cliff, Bulkhead grinned. He turned to Partition. "Hey, Rookie. How about helping those old mechs bring the beer up here?"

Partition walked to the cliff side, then peered down below. Hercy, Lissie, Kup and a gnarly old mech named Debris (truly) climbed out of the runabout and began to lift out gear and boxes of food and beer. Partition glanced at his brothers. "Come on. Let's help them get their stuff up here. I'll introduce you to them. They're amazing," he said as he hurried to the path to descend. His brothers hurried after him as the mech watched them go.

Bulkhead grinned. "Nice kids. Who knew?"

"Ada did," Sunstreaker said as Sideswipe and Bluestreak nodded. "Voodoo."

Riotous laughter greeted that as the kids reached the shuttle, Partition made the introductions and they began to help bring 'the vittles' up the trail to the others. Dinner would be great, the beer would be cold and the stories and slag would flow. Both Inweld and Morius would understand the lure of army life. It would take a bit longer for them to join the Home Guard, too, but in the end they would.

-0-On the job

Ironhide walked from his office with two of his sons in his carry hold. It was the weekend and the family was juggling a number of infants. The twinnies and Kaon would be with Amma Miler and Appa Venture. One more baby or three wasn't a big deal when you already had a toddler running around needing entertaining. A ride on the little trucks would be had by all later that afternoon. Prima would get the chance to 'drive' for the first time ever.

Ironhide had Prowler and Praxus in his carry hold and they played sweetly inside that warm softly lit enclosure, nestled in blankets with their favorite toys and dollies. Those two were peas in a pod, temperamentally similar and could entertain themselves with nothing but their fingers for joors at a time. Orion was with Appa Raptor and Amma Turbine. Raptor would have him when Turbine taught his classes, then they would 'do the town' together, the three of them.

Hero was with the femmes on their first orn of weekend, Martian First Saturday. They would hit the town, too, doing things that would appeal to both tall and small alike. Given that she got her first embellishment without her old Ada to watch last time, there were orders to call Ratchet out of anything he was doing for the next.

There was some crazy craze going on among the younger femmes in the colony on social media based on youtube video surfing. For some strange reason, the younger femmes were 'doing their nails' and applying temporary henna tats all over their servos. Most were prepared for it to be a temporary fad but among some of the more creative and artistic femmes, the results were very striking and it was growing as a trend. There was even talk about putting 'nail tutorials' by Cybertronian 'girls' on youtube just like the human kids did.

Cross pollination of ideas (and fads) was a thing, apparently.

Sunspot and Spot as well as Co-D who was spending the weekend along with Reflector and Bos were hanging out with Appa Blackjack, Amma Alor and Scout the Younger as Scout the Elder and Amma Trooper showed them the new Performing Arts Center. It was highly amusing to hang out with an excited set of grandparents. No one would get such a great tour of the buildings and entire facility from head to toe than the dazzled little kids.

Six titanic kids and their three dread brethren were spending the orn until dinner time walking around Trypticon with their elders, Storm Rising and Dangerous. Storm Rising was a titan who was a science specialist for their frame. He had pretender gear now and was here from his own site on Cybertron to inspect the big silent Decepticon titan as per protocols.

Storm Rising or Stormy as he was logically called had a sole purpose on world. He was the resource technician, diagnostic medic and interface for the entire titan community who lived and worked there. His job was to travel to each and ascertain their efficiency and health all the while his own format was making medical equipment, medicine and other health necessities outside of The Villages, the mini- and micro-mini enclave where most of them lived traditionally.

They would be at it all orn before the kids would take Stormy and Dangerous to Terra for ice cream. Stormy, too, would declare ice cream the 'nectar of the gods' and return to Cybertron with the recipe for himself and the others.

Score another one for Rampage.

-0-At the main stage in the Big Hall of Cybertron, the home of the symphony and biggest stage in the facility

They stood on the stage looking out at a sea of empty seats, all of them curved around the stage. That, itself, was enormous with curtains that retracted along with lighting and other highly technical equipment overhead that disappeared into the darkness.

Scout grinned at Sunspot and the little mechs. "What do you think, infants? Do you think you could be an actor, musician or singer?"

The infants smiled at their grandpa, then Bos turned to Sunspot. "You sing great, Sunspot. Show Appa."

Sunspot smiled at Bos, then looked up at his grandfather. "I have singing lessons at the Seeker Cultural Center. I go there for lessons every decaorn. Do you want to hear me sing?"

Scout grinned at the earnest little kid looking up at him. "I surely do, infant. Show us how great you sing."

Sunspot looked at them, then began to sing a lullaby that he had learned in his own language. He sang it from his spark, his voice lilting like bird song, then it ended sweetly. Scout hugged him and everyone applauded. Sunspot smiled at everyone, then hugged Spot. "I learned that from Uncle Rainmaker."

"Well, Uncle Rainmaker knows his music. So do all of you, I hear," Trooper said with a grin. "You have a future in the business."

They would continue to see the space, then go to the dining room to eat with their family. It would be highly entertaining and delicious.

-0-In stir

They sat on a rock sipping their break drink. In a few more moments the four of them would return to the job at hand. They were carrying garbage from the delivery site where everyone in maintenance brought it to be fed into the incinerator inside the environmental plant nearby. Some of it was for recycle and some for burning in the enclosed incinerators that burned everything so thoroughly and well that there wasn't even a smoke byproduct left.

That sort of felt like the four of them at this moment.

-0-TBC 9-19-17 edited 9-21-17 edited 12-28-18

NOTE:

There was a mention about a problem with Delphi's (I think it was Delphi) caste earlier in this thread that I checked out and given that Hard Drive is caste exempt and Delphi is nearly his age, I had this huge thing to lay out that went back to the beginning with Quintessan slavery and all that which I haven't added yet. Thank you for mentioning it though. I want to do that and explain a bit about Hardie and Hercy, Delphi who has a strange background that caused the twist and all that. I have it in the timeline and its coming up during the holidays. That's the first time the conflict showed up but there's a long story about it that's going to bring the Quintessans in, even if in the far past. Mostly. ;)

ESL:

vittles: a very, very old timey word for food that's cooked to eat