The Diego Diaries: Mission Statement (dd8-463)
=0=Out there
The big ships moved into position over the migration, sliding to a halt at fixed points on the grid. Their powerful guns including null rays were able to touch any corner of the massive and still unknown mass before them. The light was brilliant as it merged together from flights of ships arranged so that they would benefit the others. The markers of the Knights could be seen everywhere in the flotilla slowly moving forward together from its cohesion and arrangement. The usual markers of what the need each ship they reached were already on the forward view ports for the rescuers to see. Soon as they moved along, the middle and rear sections if the giant group would slow with the forward until all came to a slow and careful halt where they were.
Ships and Seekers were buzzing over the group to attend to vessels already declared endangered. Soon medics and other technicians would be helping those who needed it and runabouts would be ferrying the sick, wounded and distraught to the massive ships waiting for them as cruisers stood guard here and there.
All over the migration, optics were trained upward to sights not seen by most of them since they fled their home world. It would be impossible to explain or express the feelings of those who saw the big ships holding in space to help them. The Autobot sigil was plain to see and they'd come with Prime. It was a miracle that they'd never hoped to happen to them.
All around them working their way forward, ships and Seekers engaged. It would be an agonizingly slow wait for too many of them but at the front among ships found to be able, the first few refugees were heading for the bridge to go to their new and hopefully to them, their forever homes.
The rest would be watching videos of the colony, Cybertron and the effort to make a safe haven for everyone. It would help almost all of them to know that home wouldn't be a dust ball with a tent. But it also created a longing in many that would take medical intervention to assuage.
=0=Xantium
"Yeah?" the big voice asked with a snicker. "You and what tank division, slagger?"
Raptor was sparring with Xantium before taking command as Prime and Company would be bridging to Songbird, a titan femme that wasn't especially rare in number but so in appearance. A number of them were in Soft Space but none of them were warriors but her.
Think Winnie.
"You better be nice to me, Zee. When everyone leaves you're stuck with me," Raptor said as he moved to the command chair.
Everyone else was gathered to go and after a number of snarky comments, they departed through Zee's space bridge. Raptor relaxed in the chair and spent a lot of the time reminiscing about mutual battles, the old mech from back in the orn and other humorous mementos of two lives lived large. It would be a nice relaxing oasis in the middle of the throbbing mess before them.
They walked across the deck toward a very tall figure, the pretender version of Songbird. She was white with light blue touches in the usual places. Much more lean appearing than the mechs, she was absolutely masterfully beautiful. Her face would be seen as what it was, lovely and intelligent even to human sensibilities. Her antennae were thinner and more delicate appearing, framing her face with a graceful elegance.
She stepped forward, then knelt on one knee. "Lord Optimus, we meet at last."
"Rise, Lady. I am honored to meet you finally," Optimus said as the big figure rose as lightly as a feather. "Your presence is a delight. I have not seen one of you, nor your sisters in eons of time."
She smiled. "I am so glad to be here. Not having a purpose nor place has been agonizing. We have worried so about our people and whether you still lived. You are The One Who comes," she said with a delicate but firm voice. Everything about her hinted at lace and steel.
"We are moving our command here," Prime said as he nodded to the others who bowed their helms slightly toward her. "We will need your expertise, Lady, to do this thing."
"You have it, Prime, from here until the end," she replied formally as she bowed her helm. "Allow me to assist you," she said as seven other titans in pretender gear walked from the elevator. After a moment of delighted greeting, Songbird did just that.
It could also be said that from the moment optics were laid upon her, Retriades of Cybertron was smitten.
=0=In the box
Lennox was briefing the group, especially the newbies about protocol in the box and the amenities provided by the bots. Everyone sat or stood where they were listening. It was almost comical the intensity of the new soldiers. They appeared to be alright.
"This box will withstand the impact of a Seeker in full flight. If we get knocked off the wall there's thrusters of some kind for small ships built in to keep us level and shocks of a kind I couldn't begin to explain to disperse the impact blow away from us. We have gravity plating and dampeners as well to keep us from becoming pudding on the walls.
"We'd see it come and hit us but it wouldn't be more than a bug on a windshield for us inside here. This is designed to withstand a close up nuclear blast and the tech for maintaining us, though miniaturized, is infallible. At least Wheeljack says so and so far he's never been wrong.
"We have restrooms, food for weeks and water that's made in a process I can't tell you about. It works the same for our atmosphere. No one comes on these missions in a less secure containment because death is almost instantaneous in vacuum. Let me amend that. You boil first, then die."
Everyone murmured a moment as Ron laughed. Witwicky was along for the ride as usual, still floating like a butterfly from his win for the School Board. "Thanks for the visual," he said as he smirked at Lennox.
"You're welcome, Mr. School Board," Lennox replied.
Laughter greeted that as Ron mock bowed, then Lennox continued.
"They're open about everything but the most strategic and high security information and decisions. This is a society that's more open than our own but it has its limits as well. Few of them, but limits anyway.
"There's two mechs designated to get us out of here if something happens. That one," he said pointing to a big mech sitting forward in the lounge laughing with several titans. "He's designated to pull the box out and run for it. Another one is a Seeker who'll come here and get us. We're always in the first wave that goes away even if no one else makes it out. Optimus has decreed this to be so."
"I'll have to thank him personally," Jackson Davis said as everyone snickered. "I heard that these can be rough."
Lennox nodded. "This is war on a scale we can't imagine nor defend again. Make sure you really watch and learn. This may seem a relaxed command structure but believe me, if I were a mech I'd be in this Prime's army. Prime leads from the front, the mechs love and respect him and this is one tightly wound and close-knit army." He glanced at the mechs. "Everyone here is a soldier and carries weapons on their bodies at all times. That's so with most of the colony. You're never in a room that doesn't have armed mechs or femmes.
"That group out there numbers about 8 million and they're in all kinds of conditions. Its Prime's job to find all his people no matter where they are. They're damned good at it. They're now doing a head count, checking for need and who has to see doctors, who's wounded and how badly, which kids need limbs and mental help … every kind of need that exists is out there and they have to take care of it.
"Those with injuries and problems will go to one of the six titans. I know two of them, Timbre and Flare, The other four, Clash, Perdolia, Fife and Songbird are in the unassigned group that lives in space around Cybertron. I heard that Fife and Songbird are going to be reassigned to Mars so you're going to see them in ship mode overhead.
"They tend to stay in lower orbits when on this kind of assignment because the sight of them overhead is comforting to The People. They're all warrior class but two of them, Fife and Perdolia are also medically capable. The other two are heavily armed transport for troops or cargo. All of them are veterans of wars going back more than 50 million years of Earth time."
He waited for that to sink in before continuing. "All of the refugees are watching videos of the colony to relieve their minds about where they're going. Most of them are unaware that the colony exists as it is and need to reassured that they're going to have a better life than the one they left. There's a bit of mental health trouble among some when they first come, the disconnect is so vast."
"Will they go through the Port for immigration and the like?" Andre Boudin asked. He was someone that had a great reputation from among the human community by the bots and a great deal of trust. He loved being here and he understood the bots and what they were trying to accomplish here almost better than any other.
"That's right. The area is cordoned off to allow them to get ready. This is going to be fast and furious so they're gathering information now," Lennox said. He paused as the designated mech arose, then walked toward them with a grin. "What's up, T-Bow?"
"You're going to Songbird. I think Prime just remembered that you're here," he said with a laugh.
They'd be taken to the bridge, then step through to the vastness of Songbird, a ship with a great capability for war and who was known as one of the fastest of the titan class ever built. It was busy where they stepped out heading for an elevator across the way.
Joining a line to take one, the humans inside the box watched as all around them elderly and children who were injured, some of them severely so were held in arms or on gurneys for the ride to emergency care. They stared around themselves, the humans and saw misery on a scale that wasn't new to them but underscored the universal menace of conflict. Even among this strange alien species, this level of harm was difficult to watch.
Ron stood by the window with Lennox staring at a child who stared dully back from the center of a heated blanket held by his grieving genitor. He stared at them without much recognition on his pain filled little face.
They moved forward, the line, crowding into the elevator together, human and bot, then the door closed. It was a silent ride upward until the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Standing there were orderlies waiting to help them. All of the patients stepped out and the door closed again taking them upward, then sideways once more.
Some of the soldiers stepped closer to Lennox. "What happened to them?" one asked.
"Could be anything. They could be running from 'Cons, or they were strafed by aliens." Lennox glanced at them. "We have a lot of 'Cons in the migration. This is going to get hot soon. You're going to learn what fighting at this level means. Then you'll count your blessings that we aren't alone against them."
It would be quiet a bit before the door opened, they stepped out and were carried to the front view port where they'd be slotted in the wall. Sitting around them in the lounges there were Wreckers and titans staring at them with amusement.
Lennox walked to the edge of the box, then grinned. "Hello, boys. We're back."
Laughter would be long and loud.
Soldiers.
=0=TBC 6-24-2022 7-23-2022
ESL:
assuage: (uh-swuh-age) to make better
