The Diego Diaries: Getting Into the Groove (dd8 10)
=0=Later that night
Sunspot had hopped off to bed after going over his homework with Ironhide which he did every night when the world wasn't fragged. Spot hopped along behind.
"Spot needs to go to the Vet Center for a tune up. I got a mail on it," Ratchet said.
"Anything important?" Ironhide asked.
"No. The horses are going to do the same thing," Ratchet said. "Consider it their annual physical." He sat down on a chair with his share of the snack he'd put together for the both of them. "What's on the boob tube?"
"News … something called lacrosse on the ESPN channel," Ironhide said as he flipped channels.
"Lacrosse. Sounds sexy." Ratchet grinned. "Might be fun."
It would be.
=0=Out and about
"Then I think we're set then," 2-Lip said to Tyke who was sitting on the couch of his apartment. They'd just gotten permission to bond but were not telling anyone yet. Right now, they were working out his apartment to change it from a bachelor hangout to a home.
2-Lip was attending University to pursue a 'degree in the arts'. Which one it was hadn't asserted itself yet. As of now, she was pursuing her interest in interior decoration as she made a list with HER MECH! about what would constitute a home for a big mech and a tiny femme who had a HUGE family who ADORED her almost as much as Tyke.
"We can go and check things out. I've asked a friend to take notes for me tomorrow in class. We can find that new couch and have lunch somewhere. IT'LL BE FUN!" she said to him with a GIANT smile.
He grinned. "Whatever you want," he said as he basked in her GREATNESS!
They both had it bad.
=0=Elsewhere
They rode along the highway, a gang of horseback patrolmen heading for the Habitat Districts that ran along the TransWorld Highway at the Junction back to Basilica Highway and The City. It was cold and clear but all of them were comfortable as they chatted things up. Riding with them were Coros, Sil and Faun. They were queued up to be on the 'ride along' to learn how things went with the Mounted Patrol.
Lon and Bezel along with Hercy, Kup, Sandstorm and Splice were with them. The rest of their crew including Springer and The Boss were still back at City 3 in Crater District 2 to wind up a scene where brawlers had left damage to the bar. They would cut cross country and catch up shortly.
"Mr. Hercy?"
"What, infant?"
"What do you do when there's kids in a brawl? You know. Little ones. Do you have those kind, too?" Faun asked. He was riding a nice mare alongside Bezel and Lon.
"We make them the priority. You always look at the situation, then figure out how to make it less rather than more. The idea is not to make it worse. As for kids … they come first as well as any other bystander. Children will be protected with everything we got," Hercy replied. "You never go to a scene to make it worse. You need to learn how to make it easier and not so dangerous."
"How?" Sil asked as she rode on a smaller mare with a sweet nature and a lot of speed.
"Well," Hercy said with a slight grin as he glanced at the tiny femme who was turning into a good horseman. "You have to have a lot of character and charisma. That's why I'm so good at this."
Snickers rounded the group as the children nodded, unaware that their hero was joking with them. They continued on with the big mechs, learning, asking questions and taking in the job. It would be a great happy evening for everyone.
=0=Out there
They flew through the night, two groups with a mutual truce. Both needed the other to get across the hostile territory through which they flew but when the first moment came they would part without a backward glance. They were a big group of Decepticons. Some of them had families and others were just fleeing the far reaches of the Empire.
They heard a lot of tales, most of them preposterous sounding but it was enough for those who had children and families to make a decision to go. Fighting their way across the farthest reaches of Decepticon dominion, skirting the main body of Decepticon might which was considerable, they flew onward having picked up a large number of Seekers who were looking for the chance to flee the orders of Megatron.
Ships carried their elders, children, sick and young. Their genitors and the youngsters who were tough beyond their years flew in defensive waves around them. They heard the fleeing Decepticons and made overtures from their hiding spaces. Both sides reached accord and a truce, then began to meet up as waves of Seekers joined the battle group as they came closer toward their hiding spots.
As they did more Decepticons joined them as well. The first group was hard bitten but ready for a different life. The Decepticons had returned to their most brutal incarnation and no one among them especially wanted that anymore. They would be ready to see what was going on with Cybertron and with the rumors of Prime's City On The Hill. No one believed it existed but most of them would agree that it sounded better than the places they were leaving.
Some of those who joined were less sanguine about fitting in, looking for a better life or behaving. They were true Decepticons, some of them very bad ones and they were looking for a way to slip out that might be large and well armed enough to discourage much pursuit. As they flew onward together, the word was out. A big group was leaving Decepticon space and looking for Optimus Prime.
There would be no turning back once they did.
=0=Luna Base
They sat around the lounge in the control center of Luna Base, the moon base of Earth that was a ready-go installation for defending that planet as well as a deep space satellite station and military site. Cloudburst was listening to intel coming in from what would be the far side of the Sun that held this system together. It was the usual chatter of patrols and the 'weather'. That is, it was the rundown of the entire sector beyond them in meticulous detail that would be broken down and sent to the various departments that handled the information including Sciences, Special Operations and General Systems Analysis.
"When do you suppose they're going to come here?" a youngster was asking his partner, a veteran Seeker who was managing Tactical while the kid ran Secondary Sensors.
"In a couple of orns," the big Seeker said. "They figure the prison nearby will be the best site for the trial. The prisoners can stay there when its not going on and its not as restrictive as the prison, though I don't mind them being there myself."
Cloudburst considered the change of venue from the Courthouse on Mars to the Prison here on the moon. It only had a few prisoners, mostly those who were marginal for release into a lesser sentencing situation than actual prison. The building had a big common room that would be good for a trial and the security was topnotch. They would be able to bridge in and out as well. It would be the base's job to provide security which would mean a bit of excitement perhaps.
Maybe the Pantheon would show up. He hoped so. He'd missed the first two Special Circumstances trials and hopefully, he could wrangle a seat for this one. Command had its perks, he thought as the clock ticked onward.
=0=Morning
They rose everywhere and the usual mayhem resulted. Kids were fed, gathered and bused off to their locations with hugs and kisses. When the last buses left along with a little femme in a cab, Ironhide trudged onward to the job.
Ratchet watched him go, then walked to the medical building next door to work. It felt like eons since he had as he entered the building and disappeared from sight.
=0=Ops Center
Prowl stared at the datapad considering what it would mean to the hoped for calm he'd wished for. It was fragged, probably. He walked from the center into the corridor to the office where Prime was working on a number of highly classified issues. He rapped on the doorjamb.
Optimus glanced upward.
"We have faint intel from sensors and a few comments from alien transports that a huge Decepticon battle group left the Empire a few orns ago and was gathering ships as it did. It also has a huge contingent, their words, of Seekers flying escort," Prowl said.
Prime sat back considering the message. "Which direction did they come from?"
Prowl walked in, handed him the datapad, then sat. It was silent a moment. "I wonder how much hell this is going to cause? We can assume that the Seekers are fleeing the kill order. Its not too much to assume given their organization that they're aware the Elder and Starscream are here and calling everyone in."
Prime nodded. "I agree. We need to let them know and plan a short situational break down for this afternoon. I have a number of calls to make to Earth but we can schedule around them. We have to be prepared for anything. That part of the Empire is filled with dangerous groups and some of them are probably renegade in their actions."
Prowl nodded. "I've plotted a probable course for them to travel and turned a couple of our deep space dishes that way. I will have them nailed down before they even try to get close. The sooner we have their exact location the better."
Optimus nodded in agreement. "The sooner the better."
=0=Ironhide
He sat at his desk firing off signatures under the stern optics of his 'work wife', the redoubtable Holi. When he was finished, she took them and walked out with a grin. He watched her go, then opened his carry hold sliding out Halo onto the desk top. He grinned. "Been a while. We need to go count bombs. Can you count bombs?"
Halo smiled up at him, a sight that made his spark flutter. "Atar?"
"What, Princess?"
"We goin' dere?" she asked earnestly.
"We goin' dere," Ironhide said. "When we get done we can go to The Confectionaire for something. It won't be coffee ice cream. That slag I wouldn't feed a Decepticon. Maybe something better."
She nodded and as she did her 'hair' sparkled. "Okey-dokey."
Ironhide laughed, then stood. He picked her up gently, resettled her tiny knit cap, then walked out to go downward to the vast storerooms that housed the arsenal of the Prime of Cybertron.
=0=Cybertron
Hardie walked off the shuttle toward the group gathered around a big gaping hole in the very body of Primus. He paused beside them, then glanced down into it. Lights were flaring where welding was being done and all looked good. "What's the timeline to seal this?"
"Another orn," Raptor said. "Its nearly complete."
"That's good news," Hardie said as Sun, Steiner, Jack and Modi who was Raptor's chief of staff turned to him. "We have word that a big battle group has left the Empire and is picking up smaller ones. Its being guarded by a big group of Seekers and fleeing at speed. We have a meet up on Mars this afternoon. Prowl will text you and you need to come."
"Sounds fun," Sun said with a grin. "You can't keep us away."
Hardie grinned. "No, some are too simple to know when to run."
Huge laughter greeted that truism.
=0=In an armory
She walked along beside him, a tiny figure in a yellow onesie and kitty cat hat. She pointed to things and made guesses on how many while Ironhide pretended to write it all down on his datapad. "That bees fiffy."
"Fiffy? You sure?" Ironhide asked with a big grin.
She paused, then pointed her fat baby digit at the bombs on stacks while she tried to count them. "One, four, two, free, nine ,ten." She looked upward at her big old dad with hopeful optics. "I counted dem."
"You did. Is it still fiffy?" Ironhide asked.
She nodded, then began to walk on counting the munitions. Ironhide followed with a big grin on his face.
=0=TBC 11-11-2020 11-20-2020