The Diego Diaries: Sorting (dd8 515)
=0=Magistrate's Court that morning
"Please bring in the first defendants, Silver," Tullus said as he sat back to listen to arguments.
Silver nodded to the bailiff. Everyone watched as he opened the door and a line of shiny mechs and two femmes entered the room. They walked where directed and stood on the line on the floor before the judge. They looked no more relaxed and resigned than they did when they were arrested on ship.
Tullus glanced up from his computer console, then sat back. "Please read the charges, Silver."
Silver did. "Disorderly conduct, resisting the task force in the migration, interfering with the duty of officials for the Prime, compelling the existence of special treatment as devised by the System of Exception."
"My, my. You lot have been busy. What do you plead? Calumet?"
A big mech shrugged. "I don't recognize this court."
Tullus who'd seen it all twice vented a soft sigh. "What about the rest of you."
A femme spoke. "We don't recognize this court or its authority."
Tullus stared at them, then the defense attorney of the orn. He shrugged helplessly.
"Well, femme, that's alright. The court recognizes you. I will enter not guilty pleas and remand you to the jail pending trial." Tullus glanced at the bailiff. "Take them away."
They stared at him, then the bailiff.
Calumet turned back toward Tullus. "You have no authority to hold us. We're leaving now."
As he turned to go it was clear to Ratchet that there was little muscle in the room at the moment. He stood, glancing at Tullus, Silver, then the bailiff. "Stop."
Everyone paused to look at Ratchet.
"You don't have the right to just decide that you can leave. You broke the rules of Cybertron, those written by your slagging caste. Go with the bailiff."
Calumet stepped closer. "I choose not to."
Ratchet subbed his big, big gun and pointed it right at Calumet's face. Everyone in the room froze including a number of high castes who were rising in the audience to leave with him. "I said, step back into line, then go with the bailiff."
By that moment the door opened and armed mechs stepped through, those who were part of the jail security.
The bailiff who was a big Seeker named Agit stepped closer to Calumet. "You can walk out on your own peds or I'll carry your carcass. What's it going to be, slagger?"
No one said a word as Calumet did the math. Without a word he glanced at the bailiff and began to walk to the door nearby. The others hesitated, then walked with him.
As they disappeared into the jail house entrance door some of those in the audience rose with the others and a big older mech stepped closer. "They don't have to go back to jail."
Ratchet subbed his gun, then turned to the older mech. "Of course they do. This is not your time. Either you step up and get with the program or go to jail with him."
"This is preposterous," the mech sputtered.
"How about I call my old bond and his family to come and listen to your complaint. They're all Praxian Military Elites. I'm sure they'd love to listen to your slag," Ratchet said.
The group stared at him well aware of the futility of Caste Court. Without a word they sat and stared stonily at Tullus.
Either their views were legit or they weren't. Either their compliance with their caste rules was legit and complete or it wasn't. At the moment there was no sense beating their heads against the brick wall of the Praxian Elite Code of Honor.
A mob of different prisoners were brought in and judged. Most of them were contrite, first offenders, of many former castes and new to the colony. They got a stern warning and were let go. Then a line of former high castes followed.
Ratchet studied them noting their sense of power and privilege, their education, attitude and history was emoting out of their angry selves. They were seething even though a couple also showed fear and worry. This was the immovable object around which their history flowed and it was as fascinating as it was repelling to watch for him, the poster child of a merit based individual.
"What do you plea?" Tullus asked as he consulted his data pad. "Margolin?"
A femme shrugged. "It doesn't matter. You're going to do us the way you want. You won't get my cooperation."
"That's why you're here. Your utterly ungrateful lack of cooperation," Tullus snapped. "Would you prefer that we send you back to the 'Cons so you can differentiate between your selfish self regard and the lack of gratitude that we're taking you in anyway."
They glared stone faced at him.
"What is your plea, femme?" Tullus asked again in his coldest no nonsense voice.
"I have no plea," she said.
"What about the rest of you?" Tullus asked.
The audience was seething with anger although Ratchet could see some fear and unease among the older ones. This was a new thing and it was a bad thing in their processors. The Prime could put them in jail a long time.
"We have no plea," a mech said. "We do not recognize this court and this Prime."
"That's okay," Tullus said as he glanced at Silver. "Put them down for not guilty." He glanced back at the mech. "The Prime and the colony, all 420,000,000 plus individuals recognizes you in every way possible. Go with the bailiff."
They stared at him, then the guards around them. Walking stiffly, they headed toward the door to disappear back into the jail.
Tullus was seething as well as he stared at the audience. "I want to make something clear to those of you in this audience who believe the slag that we've heard so far. Caste Court has removed the arguments about acknowledging the right of Prime and the laws enforced here through trials of those just like you, entitled, arrogant and behind the times. If you disagree with them, you're saying that the System of Exception is over."
Some shifted slightly but most were still.
"During a Primal Hearing with Special Circumstances, the Pantheon including Primus Himself weighed in. He said that if this stuff continued He would return and personally intervene Himself. Check with the Temple or Monastery if you don't believe me." He glanced at the bailiff. "Next group."
A number of very big youngling mechs walked in, all of them burning on a short fuse. They walked in sullenly to the line, then slouched there in a row.
Ratchet figured that if there was a fight that it would happen with this group. He put in a call, then braced himself.
"What is your plea? Geode first," Tullus said.
"I have no plea. I don't recognize you or the rest of you clowns. I don't recognize Prime either. That slagger can frag himself for all I care. He isn't worth a shanix to me," Geode said. He stared at Tullus as if daring him.
The others grinned as they glanced at each other. The temperature of those in the audience was blazing with a mixture of agreement, fury and fear.
"Is that so?" Tullus asked. He glanced at his computer screen. "You do know what the charges are? All of you?"
"We don't care," another youth said. "We don't recognize you, slagger. You don't have a hold on us."
A door closing caught everyone's attention. Sun, Jack and Hard Drive were there listening to the commentary. "You might not him but I do believe you have to with me."
The room almost as one turned to look at the speaker, then rose to their peds automatically. They hadn't forgotten their place either it would seem to Ratchet.
Hardie walked down the aisle past the audience, then rounded on the kids who were silent. He glanced at Tullus. "Do you wish my counsel, Tully, or are you doing your usual magnificent job?"
Tullus grinned at a mech he knew well from his soldiering days. "Your counsel is welcome anytime, General." He looked at the kids who were silenced by Hardie's tats. "This is General Hard Drive of Praxus, the Chieftain of the Praxian Military Elite Caste." Tullus grinned. "Hardie, these are the miscreants who's breathtaking lack of gratitude made a spectacle of themselves in the migration."
Hardie stared at them appraisingly, an unnerving prospect for even the bold. "Indeed. I'm rather tired of that myself, Tully. They make our former caste look bad, very bad indeed." He stepped closer to all of them. "I suppose I could ask you to not do that but something tells me its a waste of breath."
"I tell you now, however, to cooperate with this mech who is my friend and companion of many a terrible campaign. Anything you do to offend him offends me. Am I understood?" Hardie asked quietly.
They stared at them, one glanced to their silent companions in the audience, then Hardie again. They all nodded.
"Very well. Stand on the line. Give your plea, then do what you're told. I would hate to have to step in," Hardie said. "Comply."
The mechs who were staring at him with tense expressions glanced at Tullus. One by one, they gave a not guilty plea. When they pled, they were led back to the jail. The door closed behind him.
Hardie walked to Ratchet, then sat down behind him. He glanced at his brothers nearby. "Join us, brothers. This will be concluded with dignity and compliance shortly and we can go back to Cybertron to fix what this group are partly responsible for creating there."
Sun and Jack swaggered over with big grins, then sat on the benches by the wall next to Hard Drive.
It was silent again.
Tullus who nodded to the two mechs he loved glanced at the audience. "It would do you well to pull this caste crowbar out of your afts. There's nearly half a billion mechs and femmes here that wouldn't go back into their chains without a fight. There aren't enough of you to pull off even a small skirmish. Get it right. Bailiff? The next group."
They would come, see Hardie, Jack and Sun, then comply. The audience who was there to take them home, apparently, fogged out swiftly when things were concluded.
=0=Ops Center, command table
"I have to tell you that the three of them were breathtaking. I have to hook Sun and Jack up. They need to reproduce," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile.
Prowl smirked at the big medic. "They have companions already. Keep up, clown."
Ratchet stared at him, then grinned. "I know that. I'm talking about stellar individuals, not drinking buddies."
"You didn't know." -Prowl
"Frag you, Granny. The sheer tonnage of what I know would capsize your canoe." -Ratchet, lying
Optimus grinned. "We have a problem. Right?"
Prowl and Ratchet nodded. "We do." -both of them.
=0=TBC 9-4-2022 HAPPY LABOR DAY!
