The Diego Diaries: Avalone and Other Stuff (dd8 284)
Sorry about last night. An old friend decided I would buy her dinner. LOL! Hugs! Here we go!
=0=Out there
The floor began to vibrate like a string. It was a soft murmur of a vibration, then blazed into fury as the tractor beams having matched up their strength threw smaller ones here and there to even out the lift. All over the vast ship yellow light hit the superstructure and the ship proper at the most critical points. Slowly, slowly, it began to lift up from the hole it had created when trillions of tons of dead weight screamed in toward the ground to half bury itself into the hard and rocky soil, scattering before it all the parts that had broken off upon impact into a wide field.
Holding in space nearby, a square ugly ship waited. It was a 'magnet', a ship whose entire lower portions were specialized for such things as this. It was a gigantic electronic magnet who would fly into the spot once vacated and draw up every single part of Avalone's body down to the smallest iron filings. They would be taken aboard and numbered, then matched to the mapped records from Medical and Science Forensics. It would be then that the great ship would either have them replaced or new parts fabricated to do so.
Right now, the incredible spectacle of a metrotitan being lifted by four ships with a total seventeen small and great tractor beams fastened to it could be seen by the fleet waiting in a protective circle above the area. It was an extraordinary light show from the ships doing the lifting. There were very few lights noticeable on Avalone. The command deck was lit by generators and other places where mechs were standing by or working as they left, ready to meet any problem that might arise.
As the ship lifted an almost incalculable amount of metal upward, thousands of tons of rock and dirt began to slide off his chassis to fall thunderously to the ground below. Billows of dust rose up like smoke from a fire shrouding the ascent of the ship as it moved. A part or two fell to the ground to await rescue from the magnetic ship, mostly bulkheads and panels that afforded Avalone an outer skin.
Slowly, steadily, the ship rose up held in place by the beams of light, the physics of which humans would likely never learn to this degree in a thousand years. It shuddered, then they held as the crews on board Avalone hurried to a spot where there might be trouble. Gauging the girders that were welded to hold him together, they signaled to continue to the 'wrecker' ships that would tow him to safety.
Ratchet sat on the command seat on the lit up flight deck tuned into Avalone's marginal sentience, listening to his systems converse with him and each other. He adjusted this and that, tweaked this and that, listening and watching data as the ship made it to free space over the enormous hole that was his home for 300 Earth years.
It would surprise humans, or not, that the ship had been derelict in this place before the United States was a country, before Napoleon tried to conquer the world, just as flint lock guns were invented, Easter Island was 'discovered' and Bonnie Prince Charlie was going down to defeat. It would have lain in silence, forgotten to time but for the accidental discovery of the vessel by alien traders who mentioned it to the staff of their space station on the Silk Road. It was a miracle that in space with all its vastness that a thing such as this could happen, this serendipitous confluence of events.
By the time they halted rising upward, a massive Trigger was flaring nearby. It would be a slow and delicate task to get everyone through the funnel into the endless vastness of space inside the bridge but they would. When they did they would come out in seconds inside the solar system and before them in all its glory was the magnificence of Saturn and the glittering lighted beauty of The Shipyard of Saturn, Primal Station One.
The bridge would stay open for the magnet ship to do its duty, then it would fly into the bridge with the ships who were the guards for the mission. As the bridge collapsed, two groups would arrive to inspect the situation.
One of them would be a joint force from the two Decepticon bases nearby. They would land and look around, noting the hole with its disturbed dirt and rocks, then wonder nervously why they never saw it or what had obviously been in it all this time. They would note that it had the shape of a titan but how could a titan be here if they had inspected every square inch of the sector a hundred times? They would leave perplexed and a bit unnerved. Something had been there, something huge. What it was would be a mystery for now.
The other group would be trans dimensional beings of a biological and mechanical configuration. They would arrive, land, watch the Decepticons dig around, then leave. They themselves would then walk to the hole, stare at it in anger, then retrieve their tech which allowed the ship to be cloaked from view. They would fly back to their own dimension and deliver the bad news to their command. No one there would be happy.
=0=In an Administration Module at Earth2
It was tense in the room, dark and congealed as Nast spoke. He sat down on a chair then clasped his hands. "Since we're playing confession here, I tell you I hate God. She was blameless. She wasn't in the game. What happened to her was satanic and evil. Every time I think about her getting blown to bits I could kill something."
"You killed a lot of things, Nast," Springer said. "Now maybe you know how other people feel."
Nast glanced at Springer sharply. "That's hilarious coming from you."
"I'm a soldier, that's true. But we don't make it a point to kill people for sport or money. War is never right to me," Drift said. "But even if its cold comfort to anyone involved, the Autobots have rules of engagement. I tell you as a former Decepticon, your group was closer to them than to the Autobots. Anything went with us. I have a lot of regrets but none with the Autobots. You played a dirty game and she was the price you paid."
Nast sat back staring at Drift.
"We all did," William Daniels said. He glanced at his grandson. "You were caught up in dirty business, Jason. You could have had a different life if we had done the right thing. People elected me to do the best for them and I didn't. Katie was the best thing in my life and I neglected her for my ego and for fortune. I enjoyed standing in the way of things that could help people because I COULD! I could just DO IT! What the hell was I thinking? Look at the suffering I created."
He glanced at Springer. "I hated the system you have here when I came. You let anyone have anything even if they don't work. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Then it slowly came to me how happy and productive this place is. People do what they want even if its nothing and it works. I don't know how it does, its so strange but I can't argue that it does.
"When Prime played Harris and he did, it was amazing. I know the game and how it works. It was brilliant. I laughed and laughed. Then I realized that the human community was so happy to know that this new opportunity at the mall was going to be theirs and … I don't know. It made me feel … low about what I was before coming here. We could have had unity and happiness if we wanted it then but we didn't."
Springer considered that. "What is the most important thing to you, Mr. Daniels?"
William Daniels glanced at Springer, then sadness crossed his still handsome face. "My Katie. My son and grandson. They're the only things that have any meaning for me anymore."
"What about you, Nast?" Springer asked.
Nast stared at him. "You want a confession? Some kind of acknowledgment?"
"No. I'd settle for your honest truth," Springer replied.
It was silent a moment, then Drift vented a sigh.
"I never had a clue about what real love and responsibility was even when it was right in front of me," Drift said as Nast stared darkly at Springer. "We lived in a metal shipping crate at the edge of the landfill in the worst area of Kaon called the Wastelands. I never told anyone where we lived and never brought anyone home because I was ashamed.
"It never occurred to me that my parents might be, too, but they never gave up. They went to jobs they hated, worked themselves to death and tried to take care of my brother and me the best they could. They could have dumped us in the Youth Center but they didn't. They could have broken up but they never did. They were the very definition of love and dedication but I was too bitter to appreciate it then.
"They wanted the moon and stars for us but it never came. When my brother was working and taking care of them when they began to fall apart near the end of the Revolution, I was breaking into houses to steal things from the parasite class that made their lives so hard. I gave them money and no one asked where it came from the need was so great.
"I got them on a ship when the end came and told them I'd find them. I was so filled with rage and hatred that all I wanted to do was burn and kill anything that looked like oppression. I should have gone with them but I didn't. Now I don't know where they are or if they're still alive.
"I hold my son and tell him of them. Its all I got. In the end nothing matters to me but them. The people you love is the only thing that matters. I could lose everything today but as long as I got Springer and my son, I'm the luckiest mech in the universe." He leaned slightly forward. "I understand your anger. I gave up on religion when I saw how my family suffered. In the end when you need it the most, religion never seems to do any good. The good and the bad died side-by-side in the war.
"But I have hope. My family is somewhere and they'll come. So will Springer's. Then they can hold our boy and spoil him. They can live in comfort. We have hope. I know you don't feel it, any of you because the ones you loved the most are gone. But there's the others in your life and they matter. The only thing that matters are the people you love. Nothing else comes close." He sat back in silence.
"My mother was the nicest woman I knew. She was there for me. We would play cribbage for hours and just talk about anything. My father was never there." James glanced at his father who was staring at him with grief on his face. "My mom was everything. I can't get past her lying on the floor dead for three days and none of us, NONE of us called her."
"I was in Diego," Jase said.
"YOU HAD A PHONE!" James said to his son. "None of us are off the hook on this one."
"A phone call killed my wife. She picked up the phone and it blew up. I can't get the image out of my head," Nast said.
"I've been in war since I was a kid. I joined after high school. I've seen combat and terrible things happened to me. It separates the stuff that doesn't matter from that which does. Its the world to me that my wife and daughter are here. It helped but counseling helped more," Lennox said. "On world, we go see the bots. They have a counselor that helps all of us. I don't have nightmares anymore and the guilt and regret are manageable. You need to do that so you can live right now and not every moment with these times that are over and can't be retrieved."
"I thought seeing a counselor got you booted from the army, Lennox," Nast said.
"I thought so, too, but most of the people here, the bots, go to them or have. I also don't give a damn about it. There's no stigma to it among the bots. Just another way they're smarter than us," Lennox replied. "I don't regret so much anymore. I know what matters. My squad, my child and my wife. My parents and hers live here. You can have the world but in the end if you don't get your priorities right you die alone."
"My wife did," Nast said softly.
William Daniels nodded. "So did mine," he said as he began to weep again.
=0=TBC 10-24-2021
