The Diego Diaries: Playah (dd6 215)

-0-At a house near their own house

"AMMA!"

"What, my little angel?"

"Why you dis? We doing it. Going there and doing it, We doing it for the shes?" Orion asked as he stared at the boxes of Christmas Surprise stuff that his ammas and appas had brought up from their storage room in the basement of their tower. "WE HELPEDED LOU!?" he asked as it all sunk in.

"Of course," Docker said with a smile. "How could we ever do it without you?"

"SKU-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

After pulling four little kids back from plunging head first into the decoration boxes, ammas and appas showed them the tree and their job. They were to hang the ornaments while the adults took pictures, then everyone would have a treat. After pulling out carefully wrapped ornaments, the little kids began to take them as carefully to the tree and hang them. All of them did but Prowler who walked back and forth with Hero, Orion and Praxus, smiling brilliantly as he dragged his panda bear behind him. He seemed content to be a companion rather than a decorator.

It would take a while, especially when Praxus, Hero and Orion would 'consult' about this and that decoration and where it should belong. When it was all done, they stepped back to look at it. Then Orion turned to Corr, Docker, Appa Ratchet, and Chan. "AMMAS AND APPAS! WE DOING!"

"You sure did, my babies," Corr said with a big smile. The Christmas tree was heavily decorated. That is, it was as far up as the little kids could reach. It would take Sunspot and the three big boys to come and rearrange the decorations so they went all the way to the top. Until then, the four lined up in front of the tree for more pictures, then joined their doting grandparents at the table for a treat.

-0-Ratchet and Lucien

They rode up the elevator together, then Ratchet stepped out, turning to Lucien as he did. "I need your opinions, impressions, etc, for what you heard. Understand, we took a chance including you so if you break this trust, then a gauntlet is waiting for you in the desert."

Lucien stared at Ratchet, then stepped off the elevator. He looked at Ratchet with a cool gaze. "When I give my word, I keep it. As for the information, its disquieting and worrisome. I'm not fully briefed on the military capabilities of the Prime but I'm assuming he can meet a force adequately."

"You forget … they're trying to link up with Razorclaw. He has over 250,000 troops himself," Ratchet said. "If this group gets with them then we have the game changed. Caminus is close to this meet up spot. The forces moving in appear to be large. We have a situation, Lucien. Given that you never fought a fight that didn't include a plate of snacks at a staff meeting, I want to know what you think about having a fighting Prime as opposed to the poseur Sentinel or Nominus. Say what you will about Zeta and I could go on forever, that slagger knew how to lead an army."

"Sentinel was a soldier. He knew how to fight," Lucien said.

"But he didn't know how to lead," Ratchet said. "Anyone can order an army into combat. Look at Earth. The last 50 years there show what a folly it is to follow a fool. We have a genuine bonafide war leader and genius of strategy. He's all around, Our Optimus. A genius at combat and a genius at politics and government. I just want you to know that because you're going with us when we stand out. I want you to see what its like to taste your own bile."

Lucien stared at him. "You can't order that of me. I'm a political attache for the department."

"And I'm going to need my attache, slagger. You think you can do a better job than Prime and me? I'm going to test that theory. You will come if I have to send the Mounties to get you," Ratchet said. "You better get at it. We won't stand out until its necessary. They don't appear to have bridges so its giving us time to figure out what's going on and who they are. When I call for you, you better come or I'll have your ball bearings in a jar on my desk." Ratchet stared at him evenly, holding his gaze, then turned to walk down the hallway toward a desk where someone was working. He paused there to begin to give standby orders.

Lucien stared at him, a churning in his gut an unusual feeling since he usually won encounters with words, not fists. He walked into his office to go back to the job. He wouldn't tell Laslo about this fragged turn of events unless he had to. Until then, he would do his job. Ratchet could do what he wanted regarding his condition. He had mentor rights as per The Code and there was nothing Lucien could do about it. If he didn't follow the rules or complained, it would be the death knell of The System of Exception and he knew it. It was either followed or it wasn't. His complaint would be the end of things for him in that regard.

The door to the office complex closed slowly behind him.

-0-In the sub floor Operational Center of The Fortress

Metroplex, Typhoon, Dangerous, Clipper, Caminus, and Fortress Maximus sat around a table nearby the operational complex of the sub floor command center, the emergency center if things were fragged above and the planning center for most of the commanders to work out missions. Metroplex and the others studied the big roll out map datapad that was getting direct feeds of the latest data from upstairs.

"The signals are going to be too close to Caminus for my comfort when they reach the projected convergence point," Metroplex was saying.

Nearby working on their part of the planning, Raptor and Hard Drive were discussing configurations with others who were there and some who were on monitors overhead. They had their data map and were going over it as well. It was calm and intense as the different groups around the room put together proposals for Prime to make decisions. It was like it was for generations of campaigns, though the snacks and surroundings were many planetary diameters better than usual.

"What do you think about moving Clipper and Dangerous to the Tau Ceti system?" Max asked Typhoon. "They can be on station and ready to deploy. What about staying in ship mode so you can fight?"

Clipper nodded. "That would be optimal," he said. "What about it, Ty? Do you want to go out there and have one of us here to manage the infants or do you want to stay here and do that yourself?"

Typhoon was lost in deliberation as he considered that. "You have a great ability, Danny, to take out big ships and no one fields Seekers like you, Clipper. I think Max is right. You deploy and I can be there in seconds."

They nodded, then continued. They would build a two pronged plan for dealing with the developing situation and for keeping Razorclaw in check. It would take all of the dreads and Supremes on world including Tennyson from the dimensional rift to make the show box office.

-0-In a house near a house a bit later

"AMMA! THAT'S REALLY BEAUTIFUL! Why are the decorations so low?" Sunspot asked as he stood in the living room of his grandparent's house.

"The babies took care of the first wave of decorating," Corr said as he took the book bags of four kids, three very tall and one very small. "Now you have to spread them out."

"POT! WE DOING!" Orion said with a big excited smile. "We camed here and doing for the shes." He looked up at Corr. "You my she," he said. He looked at Quasar, Genesis, Fireball, and Sunspot with a grin. "They my shes."

Fireball snickered, then picked Orion up to hug him. "You're so cute. Where's Halo?" he asked as he looked around.

"Atar got she," Orion said as he was put down on the floor again. "We going to this. You doing?" he asked glancing way up again.

"I think so. Why don't you watch?" Genesis said as he plucked the little kids up and put them on the table nearby. "Do you want them higher up, Amma?" he asked Corr.

"I think that would be wonderful," Corr said as the others nodded. "While you do that, we can get you a treat. You must be terribly hungry after all that education."

"We are, Amma," Quasar said. "I heard that Ammas and Appa might be deploying shortly."

"They might," Docker said. "We will be taking care of you children. All you have to do is go to school and be happy," she said as she put big pastries on a platter. "We can figure that out when it comes. Right now, our tree is sort of in need of some rearranging," she said with a smile.

"We're on it, Amma," Genesis said as he bent down to remove some of the ornaments. It would take a while but they would be placed higher up and spread out evenly. It would be beautiful.

-0-Seekers

They flew up in quantities, those fleet mechanisms with huge scanner capabilities. They would be accompanied by heavy gunners and three heavily armed battle shuttles. Several hard bitten mechs would command them and the crews were veteran Wrecker and former 'Con ship boarding experts. When they gathered on the tarmac of the airfield, they were given the go ahead and soon lifted off to be bridged toward the oncoming enigma. As they did, Clipper and Dangerous were given the go to head for Caminus twelve light years away in the Tau Ceti system.

-0-Out on the DMZ

Clipper and Dangerous materialized on the command deck of their ships. Chromia on Clipper along with Maelstrom and Arcee on Dangerous worked with the two to get them into flight mode and on their way. The ships disgorged their Seeker flights, all of them swarming out like hornets out of a fallen nest. When they were clear, the brilliant and unsettling sight of a battle station transforming to a ship filled the darkness with lights and movement. It would take a while and the number of moving parts almost made the vessels look like they were boiling.

-0-Ops Center, Autobot City

"What is the word on the dreadnoughts, Prowl?" Prime asked as he walked from the conference room toward the command table.

Prowl looked at the datapad with incoming intel. "They're transforming to ship mode and should bridge out in about half a joor." He sat back. "This could be a chance for Razorclaw to probe our defenses."

Prime nodded as he sat. "He could. He could also die today."

Prowl smirked slightly. "Sounds like a winner," he said. "They always throw a wrench into our holiday seasons."

"They do. We are going to throw it back. Hard." Prime sat forward to study the datapad. As he did, the last Seekers lifted off on the airfield outside to go to the Trigger to make their way toward Tau Ceti. A short time later, two gigantic dreadnought ships were gathering in their Seekers to bridge their way to the same place. They would do so without hiding themselves from anyone out there who might be looking.

Caminus and the Forgefire Parliament would be looking. Some time later, others would be as well.

-0-TBC 12-11-17 edited 1-10-18

NOTES:

LEONESS: I found the site down last night. I got nothing and just as weirdly, it came back on. Good to know you're getting alerts. :D

NASA is going to release new information about 'alien news', their words, and its going to be Thursday. I'm not sure if its about 'aliens', exoplanets like Earth that have our atmosphere and thereby, might have aliens, communications from aliens, etc. They just said Thursday they would report this 'exciting' news. Remember, these are uber nerds, so their ideas of 'EXCITING NEWS' might not be like everyone elses. :D

GUESTER: Now that Partition is shaping up to be a model citizen, is he going to own up about his part in the drug running? He supposedly carried the drugs in diplomatic pouches, or that's what you wrote when the drug guys came to Mars. I guess you have dropped that line a bit with all the other stuff happening. Too bad you don't have Prowl's processor, you could keep all the different story lines running smoothly...

ME: Redemption is not a linear line usually. He will and Burris is being pushed by Anders to do the same. They will. But it won't be as fast as you would think. There's a lot of shame about the past and it doesn't actually help things move along very quickly. Its on the thread list but it won't be an easy step for Partition. He's flying and he's changing but that's a shameful thing and he has to consider it. Having Lancer on his mind will help him make all the moves he needs to make but not as fast as maybe he should. :D

Mounties: Shorthand for the name of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP's. They wear red coats and black boots. Very sharp. We have Mounties on the boarder between Alaska and Canada. Good policing force over all.