The Diego Diaries: Steiner (dd6 539)
=0=The next morning
They walked from the station to the street, then paused to take in the town. It was after the children were carried off to school so traffic was lighter. The usual delivery trucks, mechs driving to work or other places and the odd human could be seen. Steiner watched them go past. "Those are the humans?"
"They are," Lissie said as she took his hand again. "Come on. The meeting is in The Fortress. The best part is the good of the order at the end. Prime loves it because we try to make him laugh. It isn't hard. He's an even better audience than you are."
Steiner grinned as he walked with Lissie, their height difference though not out of place comical in the extreme. Lissie was a petite femme with deceptive strength and speed. Steiner was a big mech, more than 26 feet tall and very powerful. He was coal black with only the glint of silver embellishing his finials that he had removed from the aft end of those who chose unwisely. He didn't survive as long as he did by being anyone's fool. They crossed the street at the junction.
"I saw Club Cybertron and the Temple dome. This place has a party house for both ends of the spectrum," he said with a grin as they entered the courtyard to go inside.
Lissie laughed. "I'll let you guess which one I frequent more."
Sitting at the table, the elder mechs glanced at Lissie. "Lissie! Who's the mech courting you?" Ramcharger said as an older mech turned from his board game to look.
Alejate froze as he saw the big mech, then stood. "STEINER! YOU MADE IT! YOU CAME BACK TO US!"
"Alejate!?" Steiner said with surprise. "WHAT THE FRAG! YOU MADE IT! IS THAT YOUR LITTLE SON?! IS THAT RAMCHARGER!?"
The resemblance between the two little elders was uncanny. Alejate rose and hobbled to Steiner to stare upward. "That's my boy, Ramcharger. ITS BEEN A WHILE! WAIT UNTIL THE BOND HEARS THAT YOU CAME BACK!"
"We're going to have to tie one on, Alie," Steiner said as he gently hugged the little codger.
"SLAG RIGHT! WE CAN DRINK THESE YOUNG BUCKS UNDER THE TABLE AND TELL THEM OF THE OLD TIMES!" Alejate said with rising emotion. "RIGHT, LISSIE!?"
"That's right, Alie. You and Elba," Lissie said, then turned to Steiner. "Chromo, Cezr and Wirelite live here as well."
"They do? They all made it?" Steiner asked with delighted surprise.
"WE DID! WE HAD TO SO NO ONE WOULD FORGET!" Alejate said. He was fairly trembling with emotion.
Steiner hugged him again, then set him down. Glancing at an emotional Ramcharger, he grinned. "We're going to have dinner together soon, all of us. You can come and hear what heroes your genitors are, infant."
Ramcharger put his arm around his father's little shoulders. "I KNOW! MY ADA AND ATAR WERE HEROES! I TELL EVERYONE! THEY DON'T MAKE THEM LIKE THIS ANYMORE!"
"You have that right," Steiner said. They exchanged transponder and locale numbers, then Steiner and Lissie walked onward to the meeting.
Alejate watched him go with emotional optics. "I love that mech. That femme and mech are stand up. They did things that would make you cry they were so scary to free all of us. Don't forget that, Sonny. Ever."
Ramcharger squeezed his father's shoulders. "Never, Atar."
=0=Meeting
They entered to the delight of most of them and the smirking snark of the former Decepticons. Everyone knew Steiner either by reputation or actual experience, some on both sides of the line. Pulling up a seat to sit beside his sister, he relaxed in a chair as the donut dish was pushed to him.
Lissie stood. "I'll get something to drink, Steiner. Try a donut. I think you will like it."
Ironhide who was sitting in a chair across from him grinned. "How are ya today, Uncle Steiner? Auntie Lissie?"
"Good to go," he said as he held up a 'chocolate covered donut'. He bit into it, then savored it. "Wow. I haven't had good cooking since forever. This is great."
"I'll tell Rampage," Ironhide replied with a grin.
Steiner grinned back. "Lis told me. I still can't believe it."
"It takes a while," Prowl said as he walked in and slid data pad agendas to the punters. They took one, perused it, groaned, then settled back to shoot the shit until Granny called things to order.
"Open your hold and fork him over," Ratchet said as he leaned against Ironhide with a grin. "You know ya wanna."
"No, I don't, slagger," Prowl said with a big sniffing look of disdain.
"Either hand him over or I'll tell everyone what you call Prime when you're drunk," Ratchet said.
Optimus who was walking to his chair grinned at a glaring Prowl. "Yes. Tell us all."
Prowl glanced at Prime with a look of betrayal, then opened his hold reluctantly. A bundle of soft blankets slid out and was gently placed on the table.
Ratchet pulled him over, then grinned. "Hello, Gorgeous," he said channeling Barbara Streisand from the Academy Awards.
"He is, but consider his genitors. How could it be other?" Prowl said with a slight smirk.
"Yes," Ratchet said picking the baby up to hold. "With me and Ironhide he could only be a knockout."
Prowl frowned. "That one is mine. So are yours. All of them. They're all mine."
Ratchet glanced at Steiner who was terribly amused by Prowl's incongruous informality. "Don't worry about him, Steiner. He's going to Processor Health for a tune up. We just let him think he runs the show."
"Is that it?" Steiner asked with a big grin.
"Yes." -Everyone in the room including Prowl's own genitors.
The frown he gave them got snaps taken as he glanced around with rising indignity. "So that's how its going to be. Slag Prowl? We'll see about that," he said as he unsubbed his work data pad. "Let me see … the duty schedules for the outlying bases ..."
Raptor grabbed it out of Prowl's servos.
Prowl froze in place, glanced around swiftly, then sat up tensely. "You have my data pad. My work data pad. The one I spent joors and joors working on, organizing and doing all the slag I do. My data pad."
"This one?" Raptor asked as he slid it across the table toward Venture.
Prowl stared at it with shock, then watched his father slide it toward Starscream. A siren literally went off in his processor as he jumped up, then stood on his chair to climb onto the table. Walking down the broad surface of the huge piece of furniture, he yanked it out of the servos of Alor. Walking back, he stepped down and sat with a huge sense of betrayal on his face. "MY data pad is touched by NO ONE. That THING is my WORK DATA PAD! ITS SLAGGING CLASSIFIED!"
Everyone stared at Prowl for a moment without expression watching him squirm, then Prime leaned toward him. "Do I get to touch it?"
Bedlam.
Prowl sat back with a disgusted smirk on his face as he stared at Ratchet. "You are the root of all evil. You have this holy personage here," he said nodding toward a laughing Prime, "corrupted to the dark side. We must go on the town together. Soon."
"NOT WITHOUT ME!" -everyone there.
Prowl stared at them, then sniffed with disgust. "You'll be on duty at Fort Recluse."
"AWWW!"
"PROWL HAS A SAD!"
"I'M ALREADY THERE! YOU CAN'T SCARE ME!"
Everyone turned toward Rawlee, a tall Seeker who was given command of Fort Recluse to run it as a major aviation center for the deep space flights and those who were intervention specialists against intruders. He grinned. "I am."
HUGE laughter and abuse ensued. It died down as everyone stared at Prowl who sat in his chair with his arms folded over his chest. He frowned at them. "WHAT!?"
Ratchet laughed, then leaned forward. "Slagger. Find a night on your *data pad* there and send a message to everyone. Literally," Ratchet said as he glanced down the table.
"Yeah," Payload said with a grin. "I haven't been arrested in a while."
"You get arrested on your benders? With Prowl?" Steiner asked with delight.
Prowl who was smirking with his own greatness until the 'With Prowl?' part frowned at Steiner. "You seem to find that odd or something, Commander. Maybe you can go back outside, come in again and start over."
"BWAHAHAHA!"
"PROWL HAS A SAD!" -consensus opinion among the punters.
Prowl glared at Ratchet. "Wherever you go, chaos follows."
"ISN'T THAT GREAT!?" Ratchet replied with a brilliant smile.
Before it got out of hand again, Prime rapped his knuckles on the table lightly. The humans who were listening and watching with their own delight including a rep or reps from every habitat on world didn't say anything. They enjoyed the banter as they waited to find out who the new guy was. "Attend, children."
"At last we know the answer to the age old question of 'who's your daddy?'," Ratchet said before he was made to walk outside and come back in to start over.
Moments later …
"This is Commander Steiner of Iacon who is my brother," Lissie said to giant applause as she introduced the big mech. "He is my hero and he was with us when we overthrew the Quintessans. He was a demolition expert and a stealth operative. He is like the rest of us exempt and a member of the Immortals. There are five of us at this table now. It must be a record," she said as she sat happily.
"That's you and Delphi, Hardie. Then Hercy, Lissie and Steiner," Wheeljack said. "Impressive."
:I agree. Would you like to be a part of the Platoon show and tell us about who and what the Immortals are and did?: Leonora Huttle said as she sat in a chair next to Olivia Bowers on the table top. They were waiting to speak with Turbine about a Temple thing after the show and were put on the table top to wait and enjoy the fun by him. Turbine was nothing if not about a good sharing.
"What's Platoon?" Steiner asked.
"I'll tell you later, Stein," Hardie said with a grin. "I will ask around and get back to you, Leonora," Hardie said.
:Thank you, General: Leonora said.
"Ahem."
Everyone glanced at Prime, then grinned.
"Are we going to discuss item three?" Ironhide asked as he remembered the last time Prime tried to get them back on track.
"We can," Prime said as he sat back with a grin. "I like that item as well."
Huge laughter, then Prowl cracked the whip. "General Steiner, could you please fill the children here in on the situation as you found it on your travels."
"Yeah, fill us in, Dad," Springer said with a grin.
Steiner smirked at him, then turned to Prime. "We have been mapping the dispersal area most considered likely by The People during the Great Exodus. We've been all over the Empire from the Rifts to the Rim to the area in between. Coming this way, we caught your signal and decided to come in. That's how we got the little migration.
"We saw a battle group flying swiftly toward a series of stars and free floating planets, exo planets that were some distance away. They had to have known we were there but they kept going. Its our experience that given the Decepticons have tightened their grip and are policing their held territory that were will be more and more freebooters who are squeezed out of their usual territories. They can keep going and be long gone from Cybertron and the Empire or they can come this way."
"What sorts of groups have you seen, Uncle Steiner?" Ironhide asked.
"Big and small, mixed military and civilian, some with other aliens among them," Steiner said. "They aren't big, most of them but a smart ruthless individual could probably cobble together a good force to go marauding together. Given that we probably saw Shrike limping away from the slagging you gave him and that he never forgets or forgives … I suspect he will be back again.
"As for the refugees out there and their sometimes pretty good colonies … we have made good estimations that there are about 200,000,000 million or so of our people scattered around the outlying Empire. Give or take a few million."
"Oh frag," Blackjack said.
Steiner grinned. "It's okay, 'Jack. We made maps."
HUGE laughter.
=0=TBC 12-7-18 To my Andrew who was a true blue friend. edited 12-22-18