The Diego Diaries: Scrutiny (dd8 491)

=0=Later that night at the Club, Central Labor Hall, Autobot City, Mars

They gathered in a meeting room off the main ones to discuss 'a matter of the deepest import'. Venture and Fenix waited until everyone sat, then sat themselves. The door closed tightly behind them.

"Thank you for coming, gentlemen," Fenix said grimly. "We have to take an oath from all of you before continuing. If you can't give one then no harm, no foul."

The three mechs staring at the two nodded, then gave their oaths.

"What is the matter, Fenix? Venture?" Barron asked.

"We have a problem, Barron," Venture began. He explained the situation to the three, then all pondered it for a moment.

"I think this is a good way to go," Barron said as Topix and Calisman nodded. "We can do this discreetly and when something appears we can inform Prime and Prowl."

"This must be informal," Fenix said. "We don't want to get anyone in trouble or hurt. Its a collation of information to see if a bad picture is forming here."

Calisman agreed. "No one here is a soldier or policeman but for me. I wouldn't underestimate the resolve of these individuals to make trouble or hurt someone if they thought anything they were creating was spotted or found out." He sat back, a big mech who was a private investigator on Cybertron who worked clandestinely in the policing forces for the Network and Revolutionary Council. He later worked for Prime. "Information mustn't be solicited to draw attention to you. It can be gleaned through listening and casual conversation."

Barron glanced at Topix who oddly enough was a journalist who had leads into every place known here and throughout the empire. He'd been a dissident reporter and fact chaser who'd broken open a lot of the rot that began the revolution. He was fearless and very, very smart. "What say you, my friend?"

Topix sat back in his chair. "I'm in," he replied grimly.

=0=On a ship in a shoot out

"I wish they'd just give up," Springer said as other ships came along side the big vessel to discharge soldiers and Seekers. They clambered aboard, blew holes in the side, then entered. The problem with the action at the moment were the families, elderly and children hiding all over the ship.

Drift who was across the corridor from him as they waited for a Seeker to break the lock on the flight deck doors nodded. "You and me both."

A boom cut conversation short and before the smoke cleared mechs were pouring into the ship heading for the group shooting at them through the haze. It would be a shitshow.

=0=At the Port of Mars, Autobot City, Mars

They came and came, long lines winding toward the buildings where the first steps toward freedom would be had. The lines were mostly orderly and the few who acted up had reasons. Some of them were mental through the process and others were impaired in other ways.

Ratchet walked along the pathway that cut through the middle of the crowds heading for the medic station that operated here. It was a good one with very good field mechs and three emergency doctors who did fast work and sent patients onward.

Entering the building he noted orderlies and other workers doing their jobs swiftly and well as others from hospitals and care homes waited to transport everyone. Stepping to one side, he made a short call. :Ratchet to Ravel and Tie Down:

:Sonny: came the reply from both of them.

:How are you doing? Where are you?: Ratchet asked as he watched three elderly walk with a worker to a room to get readied to go to Central Point for convolescent care.

:We're doing great, son. We're at home. Tell is sleeping like an angel and the kids are doing fine. They spent the night last night at the army daycare at The Fortress until we could get caught up, then we have them now: Tie said.

:They can go there for the duration if this lasts. Having Tell is enough: Ratchet said.

:What was that? I didn't hear you, son: Ravel said.

:Me either. Who is this talking to us? Do you know him, Ravie?: Tie said with a grin over the line.

Ratchet snickered. :I'll paddle you later. Right now, I'm heading back out. How is Budge and Mystic? I haven't been in to see them for a bit:

:They're doing wonderfully. They expect to have an independent apartment in the Housing Center sooner than later at this pace. I can't wait for them to be able to venture out. Appa and Budge want to make things again: Tie said.

:I'm so glad. Take it easy or I'm going to be mad at both of you: Ratchet said.

:That would be a first, Sonny: Ravel said.

Ratchet laughed, then stepped out to continue onward into the station. :I have to go. Love ya:

:Love ya back: both of them sent to him.

He grinned as he hustled onward to see how things were going. They were going well.

=0=On a hangar deck

Songbird stepped out onto the hangar deck of Camber. The flood of refugees that were part of the big vessel trudged from the shuttles that brought them to lines on the deck. The worst had been sorted from the mainly angry or frightened majority. They were sorted, given tags, marched into ships and brought to the big titan through the swarm of the operation.

Raptor and his crew finally arrived, stepped onto the deck, then walked to the group of refugees who were watching him silently. He paused before them. "Who speaks for everyone? Is there anyone?"

No one spoke for a moment, then a small sub adult femme stepped out of the crowd. "What happens to us now?" she asked before her family pulled her back into the crowd.

"What happens now is what should've happened without incident. You're going to a colony where its safe, everyone lives like a king or queen and there's plenty and opportunity for all," Raptor said as Sun and Jack nodded.

Ambler who was standing beside Songbird was with them and the others as Raptor laid down the law.

"If you find that hard to bear then we can always put you malcontents back on a ship and send you to the 'Cons. I'm sure they have opportunities for you to slave for them. Might do you some good to see how the other half lived," Raptor replied.

No one spoke and some looked really scared.

The little femme stepped out again walking up to pause in front of Raptor. "Where are the others? What happens to them?"

"You didn't live on Cybertron did you," Sun said as he stared down at the bold little femme.

"No," she replied.

"Then you don't have a clue what you're defending," Sun replied.

She stared at him, then looked at the others. "Why can't you let us go?"

"Because the only place you can find a settlement is back that way," Jack said as he nodded toward the migration. "We've bottled up a lot of bad actors where we are and they have the only other places. We have the best and really only location to settle. What do you want us to do? Send you back?"

She stared at him, then the floor. "There's no way to fix this. We didn't want to leave our homes. I don't know anywhere else."

"Then you didn't watch the videos that were sent to you," Raptor said. "Your ship got them. All of them did. You didn't see what you're going toward or you'd feel better about it."

"I didn't see them," she said.

"Your system is a sorry thing," Songbird said. "It makes slaves out of free mechs and femmes. There's no reason anyone can give that makes this a good thing. Why should anyone in your group feel automatically better than anyone else? You got run out of your homes. These mechs and femmes are trying to welcome you and give you a better and more Cybertronian home to live in. You don't seem to get it."

"We don't want to argue with you, Songbird," a mech said as he pulled the little femme back into the crowd.

"You have no arguments that will stand the test of logic and reason. You only have entitlement and bigotry. The Functionalist Council … do you remember them?" she asked.

Most of the crowd nodded.

"They were The System before you. They murdered billions. They came to this colony and were arrested. When they left their old settlement they murdered five hundred thousand of their group. They did it because they were inconvenient and of no use according to their thinking. How different are they than you?"

"They're as different as night and day, Lady," an older mech said.

"How so?" Songbird asked. "They wrote chapter and verse the legislation that created The System. You didn't change a syllable. You took it and condemned generation after generation of our people to slavery and inevitable civil war."

No one said a word, then the little femme stepped out again. "What did they do?" she asked.

"They murdered half a million of our people because they didn't believe they were worth anything," Raptor said. "That group invented your group."

"I would hardly compare them to us," someone said in the crowd.

"Why? You made the war INEVITABLE! How did you think we could continue to live like that, with you getting EVERYTHING and our people STARVING!?" Raptor asked.

They stared at him without a word but for a small child whimpering at the bad energy surrounding him.

Then the femme stepped closer. "Why wuold anyone do that to those mechs and femmes? We don't do that."

Raptor stared at her, a femme of some beauty with a guileless aura. "Your system, the one you love so much did that. Because you want the same system to exist you destroy the dreams and hopes of everyone else. No one gets to do what they want, to live decently or have dreams but your group. Yes, femme. You do that."

It was leaden in the room a moment before a mech picked her up and stepped back. "Tell us what happens and lets get this over with."

Raptor stared at him a moment in silence. "I wish you could go to Cybertron to help bury the dead. Because of you and your cowardly system there's dead every direction you look. Millions and millions of them, maybe as many as a billion."

They stared at him, some with appalled expressions.

"We have so many dead that we're running out of room to bury them," Raptor continued. "That wasn't because they did anything to deserve it. They died because of a failure to love." He stepped closer to the group. "Give me your slagging oaths. Now."

They did.

=0=In line on Mars

The lines edged ever closer as they were taken in, checked over, their history searched for warrants with oaths granted. They were given titles of citizenship again before they were escorted off to their new homes and lives.

She watched lines all around her, the same weariness apparent on everyone. There were all manner of castes here, some with familiar sigils and others that weren't. All of them looked like she felt.

Exhausted and uncertain.

The little femme had found Cybertron on Mars and for her it was a scary and unknown country. That, however, was the way most felt on the first step toward the way back to home.

=0=TBC 8-4-2022