The Diego Diaries: Coming Back To Reality-ville (dd6 411)
-0-Ops Center, The Fortress, Autobot City, Primal Colony of Mars, Cybertron and the Empire, Postal Code 1
Paragon and Prime stood over the huge datapad on the command table that held the entirety of his empire to any degree of refinement needed. They were pouring over the news that more new refugees than those already accounted for would be coming among other things of vital interest. Paragon explained, pointing to the datapad to illustrate the latest data, messages and intel. "Here's where they will come, a slight deviation of the route because of cometary activity. He's sending them in 100,000 member convoys, heading toward us in the usual manner with armed escort. I've arranged for them to be picked up here by our own details newly assigned to allow Dai's teams to return to base. Here's why."
Paragon touched the map and it changed to show the bigger overall picture including that space held by Dai Atlas, the Knights, Circle, and Resistance forces that were being heavily supplied and supported by Mars. "Here's a new area they've managed to reach and initial intel shows a heavily settled area of anywhere from 2,000,000 of our people to 50,000,000." He let that sink in.
"How does he calculate it?" Prime asked after a moment of absorption.
"He sent scouts out to talk to the different settled areas. They're glad to see us. Between hostile aliens letting them know of their presence, if not their appearance … then the reorganization of the Decepticons that are based out there, they're pretty scared. We have messages sent out and we're getting them back. We ask for details and so far, he can solidly claim 2,000,000 and roughly 15,000,000 more that he's checking out for confirmation."
They both considered the number, then Prime glanced at Paragon. "Please call for Jetta to come."
He did.
-0-Out there
He paused an Oreo before his mouth, then looked down. Standing in front of him in full view of the cameras, Leonora Huttle smiled upward. The camera crews were alternating filming and sleeping, eating what they had brought in this, the last day of the little scout gathering so nothing would be missed. "What, Leonora Huttle?" he asked.
"Is that an Oreo?" she asked.
"Yes," Ironhide said as he held it out. "Want a bite?"
She laughed and so did unseen camera people as the little camp slumbered on in the dim light of early morning. "No thanks," she said. "How do you like the camping trip?"
Ironhide grinned. "I like it fine. The infants are cute. All of this was cute and fun. The kids liked each other so its a success in my book." He popped the cookie in his mouth with satisfaction.
He was sitting on the ground with a bag of Oreos in front of him. Prowl and Drift sat on a pile of fallen logs nearby which was still rather too small for them as Springer knelt next to them. They were passing around bags of Fig Newton and Oreo cookies along with a box or two of fudge. They weren't making any pretense about it. They were emptying the bags and boxes one cookie and fudge after the other. Ironhide had stuck them in his carry hold and would sneak them one at a time until Springer caught him. A huge conversation blazed off line caught by Leonora and her translator programming. It was proprietary to the Autobots but they let her use it under supervision.
Like now.
With them.
It went something like this …
:What are you eating, Ironhide?: -Springer aka SPR
:What?: -Ironhide aka IH
All optics turned to him, their brightness startling in the semi darkness nearing midnight on an overcast night in the boonies. :What are you eating? Open your hold: -SPR
:Frag you: -IH
:Are you hoarding something, Ironhide?: -Prowl aka PR suspicioning
:What makes you think that, slagger?: -IH bluffing
:THE COOKIE CRUMBS ON YOUR SERVOS!: -PR calling IH's bluff and then some
:Give. Hand them over: -SPR
Drift who was watching as a 'neutral observer' smirked at all of them. He wasn't going to take a side until Springer glared at him and made him. :A LITTLE HELP!:
Drift glanced at Ironhide, then grinned. :Sharing is good for the spark:
:Frag the spark. Get your own cookies: -IH
When they began to move on him, he threw in the towel. They were standing in a forest of tiny makeshift branch covered tent-lets and there were infants underfoot. He knew the slaggers wouldn't stop if they had to turn him upside down and shake them out. Frowning like a baby, he brought several bags of Oreos and Fig Newtons and two of his boxes of candy. Frag them if they'd get the rocky road fudge. :Here, fraggers. Choke on them:
They wouldn't. They would eat them with great gusto and smirk at Ironhide all the time they did. He would smirk on the inside because they didn't get his rocky road fudge.
HA-HA! …
"How is it going with you, Prowl?" Leonora asked.
He looked at her with a Fig Newton in hand, then shrugged. "I like this activity for the kids. Our kids need good things to happen to them. Some of them are scarred from war. They need to be happy and children again. My little mechs would've loved this."
"What about the babies, Ironhide? Is there ever going to be an Autobot Scouts for babies?" she asked knowing full well the story behind why everyone was here.
"NO!" -four mechs who startled three femmes recharging nearby. They glanced up, frowned a bit as everyone looked at the little tent-lets and when no one stirred, the three stretched back down to relax into a mild self induced recharge. It was the kind of thing bots could do to allow systems to work out without going into full recharge which was harder to pop back from at a moments notice. Soldiers used it all the time in warfare. It was enough but not too much.
"That was close. I see that Holi is here and so is Maxi and Lee-Lee. Whose idea was it to bring femmes? I ask because you four are the head honchos of scouting on Mars," she asked to twist the knife just a smidge.
They frowned at her, then Prowl answered. "They asked to come. Frankly, I think they can handle it by themselves next time. Ceelie couldn't come. Her brother separated. Just so you know, I now have another infant for my collection."
Snickers galore greeted that along with questions about Ceelie's brother who was an aide in Intermediate School and a great football coach for the Micro-Mini and Mini-Con Infant Football League. Win-win in their book. The chat would continue until at 0600 everyone began to wake up for breakfast, break up and policing of the site, then the five mile hike back to base camp.
-0-Ops Center
Jetta stared at the map, then Prime. "Oh."
"We have to plan for many, Jetta. What is our situation as it stands?" Optimus asked with a grave expression.
"We have the Crater District. It has more than half of its space available. There has been a steady trickle in as apposed to a flood since we changed up our practices. We've been housing everyone well and there has been a lot of talents, man power and the like gathered with each new group that comes. We're halfway through the other housing project in the other crater west of Aerie Hill, Crater 2. We have a lot of expansion room, Optimus. Even putting Unidad Terra 1 in the southwestern corner west of the other habitats didn't short us for space in the security radius for the colony.
"We can work hard on the new development in the new crater, then scope out two other sites where we were going to begin laying infrastructure against future development. What we're looking at here, then, is a need to expedite our building and housing possibilities without compromising quality. We have to keep the same standards as before but work faster. That might mean expanding some of the Industrial Park City industries such as steel, fixtures, plumbing, electrical and the like. We can do it. We just need to sit down and draw up a plan. We can do that at your scheduling convenience."
"How about meeting tomorrow? We can cancel the committee meet up and concentrate on this. Once we have a plan, then I will feel better," Optimus said.
"A good offense is a good defense then," Jetta said with a slight grin.
"You read my mind," Prime said. "We can have Magnus, the planning commission, you, Mack and Hardie because I'm turning this over to him. You can direct on the ground and Hard Drive will manage the overall operation."
"Good," Jetta said. "That frees me up to do the nuts and bolts. Fort Max and Huffer can design the city and tweak the plans already in place. Right now, we have 2.4 million spaces available for the steady stream in. If there's a flood, the other development won't hold it. We can expedite it with extra quality assurance teams looking things over and get it up in …" He thought it over, then shook his helm. "I can't put a date on it but know we understand the urgency. I'll have groundbreaking for the other two developments start right away. We have the manpower but we need to beef up the industrial output. We can devise the two developments with design tweaks and expansion of the existing plans to cover a good 15 million new colonists."
Prime nodded. "That would ease my mind. This must be a priority. I have no information on how it is on the other side. We were told that a reorganization of the Decepticons is underway and that has led to a destabilization of the local group aliens who live there and everyone is on edge. How is the space station going? We are close to the area that Dai Atlas has explored. It can be utilized as a battle platform if it comes to that."
"The station is being finished inside. It has weapons, though not to the extent that the war worlds had. That was insane," Jetta said with a grin. "Let's say, though, that I wouldn't want to attack this station."
Prime nodded, then changed the diagram to the area Dai Atlas and the network was searching and exploring. It was only half filled in. As the data came, it was added and the picture was made of what was going on. "We might need another station here," he said pointing to a sector that was the only really good pathway through the area of debris, comets, planets, the rift eruptions, and unknown but reasonably stable alien empires. It was a mess. "One that is designed for battle and to defend the area including those aliens caught in the middle."
"We can discuss that tomorrow. I'll get some data together. If we double what we have now in industrial output, we can do all of this easily. We can bang out stuff like nobody else," Jetta said.
"Then get on it, Jetta. I grant permission to do what it takes to expand the Industrial Park Cities to handle the demand. Take what you need and who you need to make this happen. Cull the military construction division to help you if need be."
"Max can help me. He's amazing with industrial planning," Jetta said with a nod. They chatted a moment, then Jetta walked out to make it happen. Paragon and Prime would discuss the problems before them as they waited for Prowl to come back and organize it into something less tenuous.
Yes, Prowler was essential equipment.
-0-At the Autobot City Municipal and Interplanetary Airport Inbound Terminal 1, Immigration and Naturalization, Visitors, all traffic between Earth and the Primal Empire
They came off the ship, 712 individuals who were hyped to be here. They had a mountain of baggage that was going to be taken in its palatalized form to Unidad along with about 333 different kinds of birds, cats, dogs, lizards, snakes, iguanas, hedge hogs, and an ant farm for a little girl. They gathered in three groups with leaders who were military and two who were waiting for them from Unidad, Carly Brooks-Spencer and Ratchet of Iacon. The group saw him, then stopped where instructed. It got silent immediately. Everyone was wearing gear, had their helmets in their suit pockets and looked stoked. Cameras were taking images, kids were looking around, there was a baby in a specialized carrier, and they were almost breathless with excitement.
Carly glanced up at Ratchet, then walked toward the groups. "Welcome to Mars. I'm Carly Brooks-Spencer of the United Kingdom. I'm the Chief Operational Officer of Unidad Terra 1 with day-to-day responsibility for the facility. This," she said turning toward Ratchet, "is Commander Ratchet of Iacon, Chief Medical Officer of this planet, Cybertron and the Primal Empire as well as all armed forces and civilians. He is also Ambassador Without Portfolio and Ambassador Plenipotentiary for the Prime of Cybertron. He is here to welcome you and to assist with the orientation that you'll be undertaking to learn how to live and work here safely.
"The single most important thing you can learn here is to obey the safety requirements and understand the finality of your choices if you don't. I have lived here over a year and some of the human population has from the beginning. No one has died from mistakes like that yet and we want to keep it that way. We're going to Unidad by bus and will arrive in a short time. You will put on your face masks as a precautionary thing once we get you through Customs and Immigration."
Those here to help walked among the humans organizing them for the bots waiting to see their papers and register them as 'non-Cybertronian, permitted workers' in their database. It would take a bit of time but they had that. Today would be an orientation about everything. Ratchet would spend the next ten to twenty days or so working with each group that came in while they settled and worked out the bugs. These first two groups would be department heads, leaders in their particular sector and those who would run such things as the groceries, bakeries, schools, the library, and other amenities.
By the time the rest of the inhabitants began to come until they reached their goal of 10,000 worker bees, a process that could take up to a year, the place would be running itself. For now, however, everyone still had their training wheels on. They chatted in line, took pictures, some had selfies with the bot team at the desk, then moved onward to the doors of the jetways where the buses were waiting. It would take a while but eventually they would load up and go. Ratchet would transform and lead the way. It would be a strikingly amazing trip through the cities and a jarringly bumpy ride over the dirt road to the glittering massively awesome habitat that grew bigger with every mile.
Soon, they would be inside and the real work would begin.
-0-TBC 7-12-18 edited 7-17-18
NOTES:
Lackwit chapter 410 . 15h ago
I love the femmes here! Btw, might want to add a segment in a later chapter as to why Ceelie (so?) I.e. Prowl's assistant, couldn't make it.
ME: I love writing about the femmes. They're so confident and fun. Ceelie is mentioned here. :D
Silverhornd chapter 409 . Jul 11
Wait, someone needs to tell the girls on Mars about the girls scouts and what about the 4H club. I just think it will be cute for the femmes and the others to find out about both. Just think the Cybertron kids learning how to take care of a calf or a lamb and then winning a blue ribbon at the fair.
ME: I am working out that sort of thing, a rodeo and a fair. LOL! I love having grown up in the country. :D
Guest chapter 408 . Jul 10
The kids get me every time. It's always so emotional. I love the scouts. :-)
Fancy spinner
ME: FANCY! I love them, too. Kids are so great. More to come, sweetness. :D