The Diego Diaries: Summing It All Up (dd8 384)

=0=Out there

They drew them out, sending the captured Decepticons floating into space with cuffs and tags to allow them to be located in the mess by the clean up crew from the prison. The ship was down to the last 100 individuals when Springer and Company regrouped including a very amused and hyped Xantium.

"I think if we do a pincer movement, going down all three corridors to the bridge we can sweep up the riffraff. Xi, you take the middle corrido-"

He was gone in the blink of an optic.

Springer frowned while everyone grinned. "You six go there. You six come with me. Let's go." With a slow burn and a deeply pushed button over his command charisma, Springer loped down the corridor with everyone behind him. In seconds they loped back to where they were before to hide. Apparently, everyone in all three corridors was fleeing Xantium and heading their way at once. It would be a shit show of outstanding proportions when the baddies reached their hiding-less hiding place against the wall.

"What now?" Drift asked just as Xantium broke through the corridor wall to catch one of seven Decepticons by the neck.

As they watched in horrified fascination two of them raced toward the Autobot's 'hiding' spot to trip rather majestically over Sunstreaker's outstretched ped. It was instructive how fast and hard they hit the wall way down the corridor at the turn and fell to the floor like myna birds crashing into a skyscraper window. The others didn't see the Autobots in time but they felt their fists, peds, tazers and head butts.

It was incredible.

=0=On a ship in a box

"What the hell," Rossi said with his beautiful Italian accented English as they watched the carnage through the optics of a bot who was holding the corridor against the other two coming around and coming at them. "That had to hurt."

Lennox grinned. "I sorta admire how fast Sunny was with his foot. Those two never had a chance."

"Look at the one in Xi's servo," Epps said with a touch of awe.

That mech was being pummeled before Xi dropped him, then punched a hole in the corridor wall behind that unlucky mech. Reaching in to rip it farther apart, Xi squeezed in with a chuckle and giant grin to find more of the slaggers who were trying to hide. He would succeed in sending 37 more Decepticons down the hallway toward Springer and the Boyz.

"Oh my god," Epps said with a trace of awe. "Look at the herd coming down the corridor."

"Some of them are climbing through the walls. No one seems to know which way to go," Niall Graham said.

"I'd pretend I was a Decepticon if I were Springer right now and join the stampede. Maybe no one will notice them in the chaos," Lennox said with a laugh. "Poor damned mechs. I wonder if Springer is going to lose a servo in this one."

"I hope not. What would it be? His third or fourth?" Niall asked as the three visiting generals watched with amazement.

"Who counts after the second one?" Epps said as they watched half the Decepticons collide with the Autobots and the other half begin to climb over the whole bunch as Xantium made his way back out of the hole to join them.

"HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW, BOYS!?" Xantium was heard to say in the roar of the mess and the subtitles below the images. "*I! AM! XANTIUM SUPREME!*" With that, he jumped on the pile and everyone crashed to the ground in a writhing screaming mess.

"Fuck." -every human, visiting and local in the box.

=0=Elsewhere at the same time with Flint and the Boys

They faced off with each other, the Autobots and the Decepticons. The battle doors to the bridge kept the Decepticons facing the Autobots from entering for shelter. Those on the other side wouldn't open them, the slaggers. Fifteen Decepticons armed to the teeth faced Flint and his crew. Nowhere to be seen was Acroplex who had transferred over to Flint when it was decided a rampaging Xantium was enough for any one crew.

It was going to get crazy in seconds.

=0=Nearby on a listing cruiser

Metroplex followed Turbine and his crew through the darkened ship. Its systems had failed and they used magnetism to hold themselves onto the deck, pushing everything that floated around them out of the way as they crept along. The best part of the lack of gravity meant that sound was nil. They could mess up and still be alright.

They walked onward unaware in the massive jangle of electronic fields dying and blowing up that there was a crew of Decepticons heading their way to escape from the failing ship. They were using magnetism as well. It would be interesting in about half a breem when they rounded the same corner of the corridor they were both using.

=0=Floating in space awaiting pickup to go to a battleship lying dead in the water nearby

:So what do you think, Cambre?: Hercy asked conversationally as in the distance the last of their haul were being yanked aboard a prison ship.

:Its very amusing: Cambre said in the usual deep and highly elegant voice of a titan mechanism. He was a very good individual with many interests and a deep deep friendship with another titan created at the same time as he, Parabolus. They were soulmates, bachelor buddies and old friends of many a bitter moment who shared a beautiful book and art filled apartment in the city of Iacon in the special development for titanic frames. Never were two mechs so simpatico. :I do believe I will come on these missions. I will ask Parry to come as well. We don't get hurt like you do and its good practice in this format and size:

:I sure love having you: Hercy said as their shuttle slid to a halt before them. :What about taking that battleship apart? There's 672 mechs on board. Maybe you can persuade them to surrender. Or not:

Cambre grinned. :Either way, I am amused:

With deep appreciation from the mechs with him, Cambre slid into the shuttle to go to the next ship nearby. It would be as educational and amusing as the last one for him.

The gent.

=0=Springer

The melee was massive and wild as Xantium peeled layer after layer of mech off the pile, rattled them in his giant grasp, then threw them over his shoulder like last weeks newspaper. Down he worked as shots broke out, the effect of their ricochet landing a time or two on him and Drift. Howling with fury and pain, the pile seethed as he worked it over.

:I'M SHOT!: -DRIFT!

:HOW BAD!?: -SPRINGER!

:IT SLAGGING HURTS!: -DRIFT!

:WHAT THE FRAG!?: -SPRINGER!

It would be instructive how many mechs flew upside down through the air as Springer worked his way toward Drift and some of them were his own.

=0=Flint and the Boys

It was silent as both sides stared with fury at the other. Flint who was in command and was noted as a negotiator and all around tactical genius like his brother, Alor, gauged the situation. He had a 3 or 4% chance of making this right. :We're both stuck here. How about we turn our venom on the real fraggers here, the mechs who won't let you inside:

The fifteen Decepticons were nearly moved when one of them raised his gun to shoot Flint in the face. He lowered it immediately as all of them stepped back to press themselves against the corridor and the big steel doors.

Facing them with two of the biggest guns anyone had ever seen short of a ship array, Acroplex had materialized out of the dark of the corridor, leaned over the mechs in his team, then shoved his guns into the Decepticon's faces. He leaned further in with an expression of fury. :*I! AM! ACROPLEX!*:

Every gun in the hands of a Decepticon and a few on their armor hit the ground at the same time.

After sending fifteen cuffed and blinking Decepticons out into the vacuum to be picked up, the team walked back to the doors and that problem.

Flint glanced up at Acroplex who looked his usual mild self as he considered the doors as well. :Your frame is gold, Ace. Remember that always:

Acroplex grinned. :I saw Xi do that one time and I know its Metroplex's battle cry. I am going to use it. It works:

Everyone agreed it did.

Acroplex aka Ace because of all his frame no one shot straighter, faster and better than him was learning the craft of bad ass dude at warp speed, the mild mannered father of one dazzling son and a writer of poetry and prose. A highly read and appreciated writer of both.

=0=Hercy and Cambre

They arrived at the listing battleship noting that there was a lot of mechs inside and some of them had organized to leave. They jumped out with or without propulsion and drifted here and there. Word had reached all the ships that titan frames and Xantium were here to help take down the threat. Those who didn't want thrashed took their chances with space rather than face the big frames in a dark hallway somewhere.

The rest decided to play the odds.

Slim to none.

:Hercy to Command:

:Command here:

:How many are still aboard the battleship at our location? A large number are abandoning ship and need pickup:

:Stand by:

A moment passed then the voice was back.

:152 have abandoned ship. That leaves 520 relatively. There's a lot of interference to make that a firm number, Commander:

:Thanks. Hercy out: He glanced at the others who were grinning at him with all manner of gun and implement of mayhem hanging on them like Christmas Surprise baubles. "Time to roll out."

Ace grinned. "That has a nice and familiar sound to it."

"It does," Hercy said with chuckle. He stepped out to float to the hull as everyone behind him followed.

=0=Springer

He made it to Drift who had crawled toward a wall holding his chassis. A slick of energon followed him. He leaned against the bulkhead and watched as Xantium finished off the pile of mechs who were being unpiled in front of him to be piled up in worse shape behind him. He felt abstractly happy to be an Autobot at that moment. Then Springer's face appeared before him before the lights went out.

When he on-lined his optics again he was staring upward into the anxious face of Springer and the slightly bemused one of Ratchet. "Hi," he said. "Is this the novel where we're lovers, Ma, or am I in the Pit?"

Ratchet laughed. "He's rallying. It must be my most excellent bedside manner or my dazzling beauty."

Springer considered a moment that it could be both, then glanced at Drift who was staring upward at him from a berth filled with machinery attached to this and that. "How ya doing, sport?"

"Ask Ma. I don't have a clue," Drift managed.

"Well, I wouldn't go drinking anytime soon. You're a bit of a sieve at the moment."

"Oh," Drift said as his hand wandered down his chassis to a place where a device was planted. It never made it there because restraints prevented it. "What happened? How long was I out or was I? Where am I?"

Ratchet grinned. "How many handsome fraggers do you see?"

Drift glanced at both, then smirked slightly at Ratchet. "One. I'll let you two fight it out for who is who."

Springer frowned. "You've been off line for three orns."

=0=TBC 3-8-2022

Do I have to say this? You are loved. Remember that. :D:D:D

ESL:

lope, loping: a gangly run usually the style of people who want to get somewhere fast, can't run for shit and/or don't care how they look. Imagine long strides and arms akimbo. Usually running toward or away from something in a huff (hurry). Like me from ropes in gym class. :D:D:D

In a vacuum there's nothing to carry sound the way there is with atmosphere and 'things'. Molecules, etc help propel sound. Probes can pick up sounds that things make in space but most of it is big empty spaces devoid of hope and the possibility of us ever seeing it. Lucky, space.