The Diego Diaries: Things (dd6 622)
=0=Near N.E.S.T. HQ
They gathered together to talk, waiting only for Wheeljack and three smart kids to arrive. They finally did, then Flip outlined the problem.
"They have our tech. It resonates with our sensors, thus we can find it even if someone else has or modifies it. It happened that way with the Functionalist thing and with the ships that had traded for our tech. No matter how anyone might modify it themselves, there's enough of our own built in that it alerts. We could tell that from the alien armada that opposed us getting our people.
"We sense that there are alert systems built in that could and probably do two things. First, it alerts the ringers. Then it pulses their control on Earth that the jig is up. The idea here is to get the tech without triggering anyone, then using it to our advantage. Or so I presume you wish to do, Optimus," Flip asked as he glanced up to Prime.
Prime nodded. "That would be optimal. If we can gain control, we can intercept their messages outgoing to assess the damage done and control what their base gets on Earth. I am assuming they managed to ghost their messages out?"
Flip nodded. "They did. That means if nothing else that they have our tech. No Earth tech can touch us. Nothing they have even reaches the same category. They can't ghost us. Starscream proved their limitations overall with the Intel-Martin case."
Prime considered the situation. "Then we need to take the tech over without letting them know we have. Can we do that?" he asked Percy and Wheeljack.
"May I see the data, Flip?" Percy asked as he took the sensor. Turning to Wheeljack and the kids, they began an intense off line conversation as they studied the problem before them.
It was silent a moment, then Wheeljack turned to Prime. "If we can determine the extent of their on world reach, if we can determine the amount, types and kinds of tech and how they've deployed it we might be able to dampen the stuff, then swap out command and control at this end. All we need to do is get control without alerting them at this end, Prime."
"Then do what you need. Swiftly. We have a killer in the colony and this treachery cannot stand," Prime said grimly.
The youngsters followed Wheeljack and Percy into the forensic truck while Flip huddled with his brothers. Then he looked up at Prime. "Do you want us to go inside and pretend to do things?"
Prime considered that, then nodded. "I do. When its time to move, then you will be in place."
Flip grinned and so did his brothers as he nodded to Prime, then as a group they walked back to N.E.S.T.
Ratchet smirked. "They're playing the soldiers, the little slaggers."
"I know," Prime said with a ghost of a grin.
=0=Inside
They walked back in, then gathered in the rec room near the soldiers. Looking at each other with grim expressions, nodding now and again, they chatted off line and laughed raucously as they watched the soldiers out of the corner of their optics. It was amusing as hell how they tried not to look concerned, all of the soldiers present.
Lennox who was sipping a beer nearby rose to walk to them. He leaned in. "What's the word?" he whispered.
Everyone of the little mechs stared at him, then each other. That's when Mushy told him. "Why, Lennox, the bird is the word."
HUGE raucous laughter greeted that. None of it came from the humans.
=0=On the street a half joor later
They gathered again, everyone but the mini-cons to discuss a possible way to take the tech and make it their own. It was a tricky solution.
"We have to pulse the tech, making it look like a power outage, then scan it quickly, get it back on line with us in control, then step away. We're not going to take it out and blow our chance to find these slaggers both here and on Earth," Wheeljack said.
"How will you do that and not make it look like we found it?" Prowl asked.
"We need to pulse an EMP blast to this end of town. It will stop anything electronic in its tracks. Funny thing, though. Wrapping things in aluminum foil will block the waves," Wheeljack said with a chuckle. "We can say that a small reactor failed and pulsed outward. It's going to shut down the Hangar District and maybe throw off a few devices but the big stuff is protected against it. The Habitats will go down but will come back on nearly immediately because their back ups are underground just for this very reason. They would normally be protected but we can turn off that portion of their tech.
"We can make everyone come out of the N.E.S.T. HQ and evac the area around as we check. This will give us a chance to scan the tech, make a work around, then bring it all up with the system restore for the area. It's going to frag up shipping and airports a bit and maybe even reach the Resort and Monastery. We can broadcast it on The Hourly News and its going to be the cover. It will also show up in good stead because the mini-cons were looking for a glitch in the system."
"When can you do this? Is there anyway to alert anyone that might not need this to happen or are we fragged?" Prowl asked.
"It would do well that they don't get alerted. Loose lips sink ships," Wheeljack said. Everyone stared at him, then he chuckled. "You need to get out more."
"Make it so, Wheeljack. Do we need to bring a reactor into this or do you have EMP devices?" Prime asked.
Wheeljack nodded. "We have them," he said, then sent his kids to bring the equipment to their location.
Prime turned to Ratchet. "Could you call Lennox and get him into a safe place to talk?"
Ratchet nodded, then made the call. :Ratchet to Lennox. You there, infant?"
:Lennox here, Ratchet. What the frag is going on?: he asked.
:I'm here to deliver the goods: Ratchet said using the code they all followed, those of the highest rank when they wanted to speak freely of eavesdroppers.
Lennox stared at the men sitting around staring at him, then walked to the Ops Center and found a quiet corner. Glancing around to see that he was alone, he leaned into the wall and spoke into his phone. "What's going on, Ratchet? Are we done? Did you find anything?"
:We did, infant. We're going to shoot an EMP blast at the habitat to shut down the tech and we want you all out. Gear up and come out. Now:
"On it. Lennox out," he said as he hurried into the rec room. "Everyone gear up. We're bugging out. Leave the pets. They're going to be fine in the safety chambers. Hurry up."
"What's going on?" Niall asked as everyone began to pull out helmets and run for the door nearby to the motor pool. Included among them were family members.
"I'll tell you in a minute," Lennox said as they hurried out.
The room equalized, then they burned out, heading in their motor vehicles for the street outside. Driving forward, they reached Ratchet and everyone at the forensics vehicle. Rolling up, Lennox stepped out and walked to Prime and Ratchet. :What's going on? We left our pets in there:
"They'll be alright," Perceptor said as he watched Wheeljack and the kids set up an EMP device. It was a black box with a console and monitor attached along with a dish that had a focal device mounted in front that would direct the beam. "We wouldn't harm any poor animals."
Everyone grinned at Percy who turned back to the task at hand.
Then Lennox glanced back up to the two bots watching the building down the street. :What about Flip and his brothers?:
"We're recalling them now," Sky said as he stood on the sidewalk watching as the hatch opened and six mini-cons walked out.
When they were far enough away, Wheeljack nodded to Percy and a tech. "Offline your comm channels," Sky suggested and they did, some of them helping others to do so.
Wheeljack and the tech tapped away, then 'Jack pressed send. A huge burst of energy flared out in waves and the sound of an EMP, a dull then fading tone could be heard. It felt like life and color was sucked out of things, then it passed.
The mini-cons then ran back toward the habitat, entering to disappear inside. The soldiers watched them and so did the few civilian family members who were there.
Graham turned to Wheeljack. :What's going on, Wheeljack?: he asked as the others turned toward the scientist.
Wheeljack glanced at Prime then told them. "We have a glitch in the system and its electronic. We had to pulse it to kill it. If we left it alone or tried to trace it with other means then we would've run the risk of habitat failure. You'd wake up in the middle of the night dead."
It was silent a moment, then Lennox glanced at Prime who nodded ever so slightly. He looked at the others who looked shocked. :Then this fixes it?:
"It will. Just give us a chance to trade out some blasted tech, reboot the system, then add the new fail safes," Ratchet said with a smile as he lied. "We're good at this, infants. Why don't you go somewhere for a bit and we'll call you when its done. Those little slaggers have to tear out some walls or something."
Prowl who watched Ratchet lie like a sociopath glanced at the humans. "I think that would be wise," he said.
The humans nodded, then walked back to the vehicles. They climbed in as Lennox spoke to Prime. :We're going to be good to go, right?: he asked.
Prime nodded. "You will be."
:Okay. Just buzz us when we can come back. The command center in Virginia and Diego are going to be wondering what happened: Lennox said as he walked to a vehicle.
"I will have Ratchet give them the heads up," Prime said.
The humans pulled out buzzing away as the bots watched. Prime looked at the bots. "Do what you have to do. I want this to be turned to our favor without anyone having a clue. Right now, I am going to have a message placed on The Hourly News about this."
"Given they have to be watching as well on Earth, no one will be wondering what happened," Ratchet said. "I would think we caught them here. I don't think they'd have this tech at the consulate would they? They're posted there a good chunk of their time on duty."
"I would like you to go to all the habitats and make a show of checking for this 'glitch', gentlemen. Find out if they have back ups at the Consulate or not," Prime said.
Everyone agreed, then everyone relaxed as they waited for Flip of Village 4-C and his five brothers to work out what they were going to do about the tech in question as Perceptor and Wheeljack joined them inside.
=0=The Hourly News as seen on Forward Base #3, Charon, Moon of Pluto, Earth and everywhere in the empire
"We've just received a message from the Department of Public Works," Mercon, a day shift presenter for IntraCom said as he got a note handed to him from someone off camera. "Apparently, there was found a serious electronic problem in the electrical system that feeds district 4, sections 49-72 this morning during a routine maintenance defrag of the grid. Teams have been working all orn going from sector to sector checking the installations and buildings in each place to find it.
"It was established to be in the routing systems between the Big Frame Hanger #2 and the N.E.S.T and Hu-An habitats. A team went to each place to trace it down. When they found it they had to shut down the system using an EMP pulse to clear the problem for reboot. All electrical power in the district was down for a period of two breems.
"Colonial Power and Lights have a team on site going through the system to replace burned out devices and sectors in the grid to bring things back on line. The N.E.S.T and Hangar Center was evacuated due to the danger of the system crashing and the possibility of widespread electrical arcing on site. To ensure that everyone was safe they were asked to leave and did so.
"The problem has been identified and a redesign is being made to prevent it happening again. Apparently, the junctions that supply power for those sectors of the main grid were inadequate for the load given the expansion of the Hu-An Habitat recently. Boosters are being placed now and the system will be back on line in about a joor or two.
"Everyone who has no urgent reason to be there is asked to stay away to allow electricians and Public Maintenance to work out the problem. When things are restored we will bring you that information.
"In other news ..."
=0=Forward Base #3, Charon, a moon of Pluto
The four humans watched the screen as the scene showed a number of trucks parked in the hangar district, the N.E.S.T. HQ and a big building near the Big Frame Hangar that housed the electrical routing and junction equipment. It looked like any scene of repair on Earth if small cars were doing the work.
The two ringers would watch and at no point in doing so would they have a clue that they were made.
=0=TBC 3-27-19 edited 4-6-19
ESL If someone is 'made', they are discovered
An old doo wop song was a nonsensical thing where a verse went, "bird, bird, bird is the word". :D
EMPS (electrical magnetic pulse) are radioactive waves that nuclear explosions release and they destroy electronic devices. Starscream gave an EMP blast in The Return of the Fallen and destroyed everyone's phones.
notes!
What Lies Beyond chapter 620 . Mar 25
Holy crap, I'm finally caught up on this monster work. I'm both relieved at that, since it's taken several months and I wasn't sure I'd make it before Part 7 went up, and disappointed because I've burned through what was already stockpiled, lol. There's so much going on here that I'm not sure what I should comment on first (like the apparition and who-or what-I think she might be, among other things), so I'm going to ask about something that popped into my head while reading "Chronicles of Orion" but definitely applies here:
So, there was a running gag going a long while back with the fact that Ratchet and Ironhide have sparklings that, aside from their faces, bear resemblance to important staff members...Are they ever going to have one that resembles Optimus, and go through with the "doppelganger Christmas Surprise card" and related pranks that were suggested?
ME: HI! WELCOME! I have that on the list, the Christmas Card suggestion. :D Its not a done deal that Ratchet is done with their football team. Discounting the big kids, they're still down a few and Ratchet was the one who wanted to show the kids on the card as their poltergeist doppelgangers. :D Count on it. :D:D:D (When? That remains to be seen.) :D HUGS!
Guest chapter 619 . Mar 24
Well, the plot thickens. Is the ghost the spirit of Mars or Earth? Since the planets have souls too. Or one of the other advanced species you have mentioned here and there?\
ME: I would tell you about that but there's a bit of a twist to it so I'm going to hold onto that one a bit longer. Planets, suns, everything has consciousness and even quantum physicists are getting that message. HUGS!
It doesn't look good for the bots that they can't solve the murders. If memory serves, Harris had a meet up with Razorclaw, who has bridge tech. Is he supplying the humans with tech? He also had in his prison the bad guy (was it Emirate somebody?), who had all kinds of interesting tech which now belongs to Razorclaw. The scene in Italy sort of pointed for somebody from somewhere else... Unless it was just Silas who had been rescued!
ME: There are a lot of sources for the potential thing here. Razorclaw has their tech and he's got that of the defectors as well. Emirate is still there. Italy is a player. There is going to be a long and winding thread about all of them. This part of it relates but is slightly different than those you mentioned. :D:D:D
Will be interesting to see how you develop this. Egoistically I wish you could write faster, takes too long to find out what is happening…
ME: BWAHAHAHA! I hear ya. :D HUGS!
optimus prime101 chapter 618 . Mar 22
Hey, you need to watch this video and read what it says down below the video.
comicbook movies /2019 /03/ 16/ transformers -the -last -knight -sequel/
They are making 2 sequels one to bumblebee movie and the other 2 the last knight but some people say the got it wrong that they are only doing bumblebee movie but one director says one thing and the 3 directors in the videos says they are working on 2 sequels so you don't know which one to go by they still need to finish what happens after transformers the last knight they just can't leave it at a cliff hanger and not finish it it's not far.
ME: I have heard this, too. I think several movies are coming but what they are is still being developed. I can't wait to see one on Cybertron. :D HUGS!
Leoness chapter 618 . Mar 22
Aw, Springer has a sad.
ME: He is such a baby. :D He and Drift don't like to be apart and Springer doesn't want to miss out on the gossip, the big femme. LOL! HUGS! :D