The Diego Diaries: Onward (dd8 325)

=0=Evening coming on

The colony was a darkened expanse of lights here and there sprawling across the plain. Some cities were darkened and some were lit as much as ever. Aerie Hill which was on another generator line along with the human habitats were bright as ever. The airfields all over the colony were lit with generators and were busy with activities. The Commercial Hangar District next to the Autobot City Military Airfield was lit as well with a beehive of workers removing and/or replacing damaged pallets of goods and small machinery.

All over the colony cosmetic repairs were being done on buildings and monuments that were damaged by fighting, a thing that would take less time and produce soothing continuity for everyone concerned. The less there were reminders of some of their worst moments in life, the better.

Ratchet walked into the Intake Center of the Port of Autobot City, Refugee Immigration and Naturalization. There were new refugees there having come just a short time before as their repatriation started again. They were the usual hopeful, relieved, exhausted, stoked group from Omega Base. He scanned them discreetly and found all of them fit and ready to go about their lives. Having them treated in the camps beyond the colony or Cybertron was the whole difference getting them back and settled.

He walked into the Aid Station in building ten, pausing in the doorway. Several children were sitting on an exam table while their anxious parents stood nearby watching the medics work on them. He walked to the exam bed to watch the data. "Well, aren't you cute little things?" he said to the three silent subdued kids.

They stared at him, then their genitors. One of them walked to the table to stare at him, then the monitor. "What does this mean?"

"It means that your little kids have weakened immune systems and they need to have support until they strengthen. They can catch things that none of us can because they were in the Diaspora and had a hard time. I'm right about that part, right?" Ratchet replied.

The genitor took his daughter's tiny servo. "We did. It was very bad until the Network came and helped take us away. They didn't get the best start but we had a lot of care at Omega Base. They're going to be alright?"

Ratchet nodded. "They're going to be champs. Its going to take time so I'm having them and you directed into the Special Education portion of our school system. Homeschooling teachers will be assessing and getting them going at your apartments. You do know that all kids go and its compulsory?"

The genitor nodded, then grinned. "They love to read. They're pretty good. We did our best."

"That's obvious," Ratchet said as he picked up a tiny mech. "What a champion you are. What a cute little mech. Are you amazing?"

The little mech stared at the stranger with the nicest aura. He smiled in that big way that little babies have when all things are good in all ways.

Ratchet kissed him, then set him gently down. "Champions. All of you."

The little kids glanced at their beaming genitor, then Ratchet. They smiled as one. It would be a good afternoon for Ratchet wandering through the refugees who were now coming once more, checking everyone, playing with babies and children and feeling better himself as he did.

=0=Ironhide and Familia plus two little kids™

They stood at the debris field that was the Train Hub Station for the colony. It was here that the train yard held all of the passenger cars, freight stock, specialty cars and engines that were part of the huge fleet that had transformed life in the colony.

The trains were sleek and comfortable, the ones that carried passengers. They ran over one rail held up by a system of magnets and anti-gravity devices that sped them along at amazing speeds. They circled around the colony, stopped in every city, those that were on that route and were utilized by everyone everywhere including humans. Some of them went all around the planet paralleling the TransWorld Highway and its now many places to stop, stay and look around.

The train stations that were built for people and bots to go to for service were on the edge of established towns and penciled in for future to be included with the biggest Metro station in any of the new cities. They were beautiful, super clean and had food courts to make travel a great experience. All that they planned was to make life beautiful for their battered population.

The passenger trains ran overland parallel with freight. Metro lines were all underground and the freight lines below ground that often paralleled with the Metros were dedicated now to various occupations. Some were high security for the prisons, jails and The Fortress. Others were given over to high security freight taken from here to there, mostly to the armories.

Now they looked at a bleak landscape where a cruiser had fallen on the Train Hub Station, itself a near work of art given the fascination that Fort Max and Jetta had for the little Lionel trains humans loved so much. It was the biggest train station on world and now it was a site of carnage. Fortunately, most of the rolling stock was out on the lines but a lot of reserve trains were here.

"This frags me off so much," Ironhide muttered.

Blackjack nodded. "I love trains. I used to hop them and ride around Praxus until the ball and chain found out."

"I don't suppose you want me to tell your ada you said so," Raptor said with a smirk. "You should have gotten me, slagger. I'd of gone with you."

"I love trains," Ironhide said.

"I, Orion love frains!"

Everyone glanced at the little slagger with a giant grin.

"TRRRR-ains," Blackjack suggested.

Orion glanced at him, then smiled his biggest smile. "TRRRR-ains."

"There you go," Raptor said with a smirk. "Little mech slays."

"FRAINS! I LOVE FRAINS, APPA!" Orion said to his great grandpa.

Snickers greeted that, then everyone glanced at Praxus who was sitting on Raptor's arm chewing on a cookie. He grinned back.

"Trains, Praxus," Blackjack said.

He grinned. "Trains, Appa."

"Little mech has no glitch. Two of them do. All of them are perfect to me," Blackjack said with emphasis. He glanced at Orion who was gumming a cookie himself. "Are you perfect, Orion?"

Orion stared at his grandpa mulling over a word he'd heard but didn't know. "Prefek?" he asked curiously.

"Close enough," Raptor said as they glanced back to watch a sky crane pull a mangled engine upward to haul to the Park Cities nearby. It was a wondrous effort to watch. They would until it was time for dinner.

=0=The Hourly News: SPECIAL EDITION: ATTACK!

Lim-Lee smiled at the camera. "Welcome back. We're here with Colonial and Empire Chief Engineer Jetta of Iacon and Colonial and Empire Chief Architect Fortress Maximus. Given the situation, we're going to be talking about the train hub which was destroyed by the destruction of a cruiser falling onto it. What is the situation with the station now and what are the plans to repair or even upgrade it, gentlemen?"

Jetta glanced at Max. "We're removing damaged and destroyed trains, cars and other items so that we can get to the station itself. There were energon tanks in the tank farm that services the complex that blew up and burned for half an orn. Rather than suppress the fire we let it burn itself out because the tank farm is designed to be separate from the rest of the operation. It was safer to do so."

"At this point we're going to dig out the site and re-evaluate the footprint of the station. We've got some new ideas that we're going to incorporate into the design that will allow more commercial spaces there. Its a huge central location for the colony and we've decided to put in a commercial airfield there to complete the possibilities. Buses, cabs, trains, the Metro and finally flights will be possible there. We also have plans to put a hotel onsite," Fort Max said. "We want to normalize as much as we can to Cybertron our infrastructure and this is one way to do it. Its the only positive thing to come out of this event."

"The building, then, is dead and gone?" Lim-Lee asked.

"Its completely gone," Jetta said. "The train and transportation grid is the highest priority we have right now for getting back into business. Our people depend upon alternate transportation from the highways and we want that back on order again. It helps out for the traffic flow immensely. Children have been taught to take trains to school and the elderly use them almost to exclusion of other forms of transportation."

"We also have problems now getting commerce going given that the freight trains carried so much material and finished goods all over the colony. The heaviest things we make were moved by train or sky cranes. Its going to be problematic to make all of the deliveries scheduled until things come back online," Max said. "Now we have to use magnet ships and other vessels to do the same job."

"What's the timeline on the station if you can make a guess and if its not going to be soon, what's the fall back plan?" Lim-Lee asked.

"We're still digging out. The track system is repaired and ready to go. The station will go fast because we're prefabbing the structure itself. What's going to be problematic is getting into the hole, getting the tank farm online again and putting together rolling stock to replace what's gone. We're held back now because the footprint of the building is shattered into thousands of pieces of brittle glass, steel and burned you-name-it. Some of it fused to the ground so we're going to be at it for a while," Jetta said.

"Alright," Lim-Lee said. "We need to take a break to let announcements roll but when we get back the lines will be open for questions of our guests, Colonial and Empire Chief Engineer Jetta of Iacon and Colonial and Empire Chief Architect Fortress Maximus."

=0=Here and there

Prowl walked from the apartment to the Ops Center, a short but very familiar journey. The progress on their old home was taking time given that the structure was still variably unstable from the 18th floor upward. Long cracks had been found in the tower running from the 12th floor up to the broken top. The work was more than initially expected and would have to be restored from the ground one floor at a time upward before work could happen on the missing top four floors.

He didn't give much time to think about it, the house that was his first as a free adult and the home that he made for his family. It was the place where Optimus and the children built a train set and the place his ada and the Squad often came to chat, add to the story and kick back. There were literally rooms filled with antiques and wonderful things the kids had made. There were volumes of their lives, his kids, volumes that held pictures and videos along with reams of story in his best calligraphy destined to be theirs when they were emancipated adults.

All of it was gone.

Tagg and Kes's house was gone.

All gone forever.

He didn't dwell as he walked to the table and sat, ready to work until shift was over, then retire to the apartment nearby with his family.

It was a life.

=0=Around

Bob lay by the window with Dawg. Both of them were basking in the fading light of day. No one was home and they were waiting, both of them for Them What Feed Them and Play™ to come home. It would be peaceful in their house way up in the sky of Tyger Pax.

=0=Elsewhere

Lying in a pile by the windows, a number of dogs, a big bunny, two cats, three ferrets, two big colorful birds on perches, a small miniature horse and Spot relaxed. They were buddies, all of them. They went to school with their child, all of them subliminally dedicated to protecting and helping their charge. All over the schools of the district were animals that served the best interests of the kids, helping some recover and feel safe after lives of terror and privation.

Nearby working together, some in special classes of only a few and some in regular classrooms like that of Sunspot, the perfect bounty of an ancient people worked their way through their studies as all around them the colony that they called home began to right itself from the disaster.

Sitting in his office with a low grade fury and a determined processor, Optimus Prime worked through his duties while plans to catch Paladin and make him pay slowly but surely formed in his mind.

=0=TBC 12-15-2021

I had a glitch and thought this was lost. What a crappy feeling, slaving away and seeing it disappear. :D

It was found. ALL HAIL SOMETHING! Hugs!

PS, my nephew upon whom Orion's glitch is based used to call trucks 'frucks' and every worker on roads or wherever were his 'mans' and every bit of equipment were his 'frucks'. LOL! He was such a cute little kid. Hence, frains.