The Diego Diaries: Getting On With It (dd8 41)

=0=Around the place

The Decepticons in prison watched as new ships arrived down the way past the lock up where the most dangerous and mentally impaired prisoners were held in the highest security they could see for themselves. Ship after ship landed on the makeshift landing strip near a newly created minimalist prison just recently built. It was disheartening to watch, the endless stream of ships bringing small and large cargoes of Decepticon mechs and the odd femme who were herded into pens and down fenced alleyways like animals.

Motormaster watched with Drag Strip, both of whom were uncharacteristically silent as they stared. It was amazing the depth and breadth of Prime's arsenal even to them. Even though they railed constantly against the system, both of them were highly aware that this system was more than they could ever defeat. Even though that was true, they wouldn't be cowed by it. Sometimes anarchy and mayhem were their own rewards.

It was a matter of pride to both of them even if not for the others. They weren't totally unable to compute though their personality types weren't meant for deep reflection. They could, however, count. It was clear even to them that Prime had the most toys thus far.

Drag Strip turned back to the barracks, then entered. The door closing was a hollow sound as Motormaster watched on. The area and ship lights were about all he could see of the ongoing operation. He wasn't the only one out watching how things were going. All around the prison inmates had been gathering in their cell blocks, some looking for those they knew if they had a view and others grim with disappointment or grave with an ever growing realization that this could be their only home forever given the irrefutable evidence of their optics.

It was mixed, the energy at the prison as ships rose up to leave to make room for those coming to land. That the rumor mill had said the main prison was being moved away from the colony at some point didn't help with the general overall mood. Things were as dull and depressing here as they ever would be anywhere. Tonight would be no exception.

=0=Nearby

Larken, formerly of Galaxy Corporation stood at the bars of his cell with a gathering of his family and both bonds, the only concession that Prime had granted to him since his sentencing. They would reside in the same cell block together, though they would work at different aspects of the menial labor all prisons demanded. That would include scut work in other places on occasion. Larken himself carted garbage to the recycle and incineration station every orn.

Sometimes he had to dig up dirt that had been stained with vomit or energon from the occasional wild aft fight that happened now and again. Other times, he would have to dig up worse than that when someone decided to drop their debris chute contents to spite someone else.

He was shell shocked the first month from the reality of his sentence, to do the shit details of this and other places for whatever time Prime allowed. Given that his attorneys had spoken to Prime and his mindset was hardcore, it could be a very, very, very long sentence indeed. He did the work assigned, though it was weird, harder than he was used to and it made him feel small and humiliated.

The prisoners had only just lately taken to ignoring him though they made his life a living hell before they were bored of it. None of them seemed to know who he was given that the prison number painted across his back and front, as all prisoners bore, was his 'name' now. Gee-Gee and her prison barbarians stripped him of his name and after a while given how the inmates would part someone out for just about any reason, he was glad that she did.

If the inmates knew he was that Larken of that company, it would be worse than anything he'd ever experienced what would follow. It never occurred to him, yet, that he was the architect of his own misery, that everything he'd done without a thought had built a dagger to his throat and that no one else was responsible for his present miserable condition but him. He was the only one who'd lived the life responsible with all its many grievous debacles for others that had landed him and his family here.

His sons had not taken things well. They'd pleaded guilty in the hopes of a lighter sentence and that included both of his bonds. Those two were equally traumatized because they'd been highly social creatures from wealthy families who had never paid a penalty for anything either. They benefited from the criminality of their bond and even helped him with his many and sundry criminal acts. For this, they were digging trenches during the orn and whining to Larken at night.

It was a somber group that watched the ships come and go, ostensibly bringing more slaggers to the prison. It was hoped for deeply among them that no one would recognize any of them and get the word out. It was bad enough doing what they did without any more abuse than they had when they first came. Since it died down and they were just another featureless, hapless part of the landscape, it had become a bit more tolerable.

"More criminals and Decepticons," a bond whispered.

Larken nodded. "I hope none of them know who we are."

Everyone with him fervently hoped so as well.

=0=Out there

They fought hand-to-hand on some ships and took mass surrender on others. By the time they were three quarters of the way through and ships were being towed toward bridges or the nearest star, most of the more dangerous slaggers were accounted for. What they were mostly meeting up with now were Decepticons who had wanted to surrender for refugee status.

"We want to get out of here. Megatron wants to kill our families. Some of us know mechs who already had that happen," a big Decepticon said as he held a shy little femme. Other members of the family crowded around including other families as well. "What happens now? We're serious about this."

"You're going to be taken to Mars, our biggest colony world where you'll be interviewed, warrants checked against crimes, then held in custody until we get things organized for you to be granted refugee status. We get a lot of slaggers who lie," Kup said as Hercy nodded.

"We'll be taken good care of you and your families," Auntie Lissie said. "Its a formality to weed out the liars from everyone else. A Decepticon association will take sponsorship of you and help you and yours to assimilate. Given that all of you have to give your oath to the Matrix, it'd be good to listen and learn. The Matrix will take what It needs to achieve balance if you break the oath. It already has to someone already. We needed a shovel to gather his ashes after he burned to death from the inside out. I don't have to tell you what that means so I?"

No one said a word. Even those who weren't religious knew what that meant.

=0=Ops Center, Fort Borderlands

Optimus Prime watched as the last group of ships were cornered and terms were negotiated by Ratchet, the Chief Negotiator for the Cybertronian government now and through the mists of time. Ships were being moved away from them, all of them towed due to the extensive damage all received from the energy pulse that stopped them dead in the water.

He glanced at Prowl who was laboring over the entire show as they made their way to a conclusion. He considered the leadership who had arrived on Mars and were taken to the Prison Hospital for examination …

Drift watched as the sullen quartet walked to the high security ward where doctors were waiting to examine them for soundness. The level of guns and electrical prods facing them were enough to get seething compliance from each, these four horsemen of the apocalypse. When they entered an examination room, they were prompted to sit on the med berths there. Ratchet who wasn't there, gave his instructions to several of his most powerfully built and experienced military medical doctors.

One of them walked to Inana. "My name is Tesoro. I'm here to check you for medical and virus conditions." He pulled a jack and slipped it into a port on her neck as the other doctors did the same. Then he pulled a meter, pressed in a code and all four of them slumped into stasis. "I do believe they're suffering from the sleeping sickness," he said with a grin.

Drift smirked, then hit a monitor coded to Ratchet out in the mayhem.

Ratchet was squatting on the cowling of a battle shuttle looking the worse for the wear. His smirk appeared on the screen. :You called, infant? Like I don't have enough to do right now?:

"Sorry, Ma. Pa's orders," Drift replied. "All of them are in stasis."

:Good. Run them for the usual and leave them in level four medical stasis. I want to examine them myself. If you need the space, put them in the morgue on trays. Or better yet, stuff them into umbrella stands: He gave them a dazzling smile as the ship shifted nearly causing him to slide off into the void. He clambered back up, then grinned. :Fraggers. I give you the best few joors of my life and this is the thanks I get. Anything else?:

"When you coming home?" Tesoro asked with a chuckle.

:When they don't need me anymore. I don't expect to be home anytime soon. These servos … : was as far as he got before the ship shifted again and he rolled off the cowling backwards to disappear again.

Laughter greeted that, then Drift glanced at Tesoro. "Anything more? I gotta get back and save Ma from himself. He never could hold his liquor."

Rude remarks and much laughter greeted that as the big mech walked out with the others. The medics would do their part, then slide the four into the morgue where they would remain until Ratchet could give them the once over himself.

=0=On a street corner

They watched newbies being driven from the Refugee and Immigration Center at the Port of Autobot City, Mars. They'd come through there themselves once upon a time having been transferred from Omega Base, the massive refugee camp run by Dai Atlas and the Knights of Cybertron some time before. They'd come as a group, ostensibly an extended family and had settled in Crater District 4 within walking distance of each other. Now they were making their way in the colony attending school, working at jobs and otherwise blending in as they learned the way of things.

They were a gang, one born of a hard life on the road for eons of time. They'd been a tight group on Cybertron before The Fall, alumni of the suffering and deprivation that living in a place like Slaughter City could leave on a mentality. The running on the road had given them a new way of thinking, that taking was better than giving, that punching first was better than ambush. They'd become a tight gang of fellows, many of them related and had covered their tracks while hiding their identity very well.

The Gang Task Force in the Day/Night Watch was looking for them, they knew. Some of the younger members had smeared their flash on a few walls here and there. A red streak had signaled their presence before discipline was restored. They'd seen Hauser, the gang specialist around but he wasn't on to them yet.

He wouldn't be if they worked at it. What they were considering was their future here as a gang in this, a society that eschewed money, who existed as a barter economy with complete opportunity and access for anyone. It was perplexing how they'd fit in here where anyone could get, do and have what they wanted. Gangs and others like them thrived in inequality. How they would adapt here was still to be seen.

So they watched and learned, identified other gangs and bided their time. When they could, they would figure out the new paradigm and their role in it. Until then, they blended in and watched. As one, they turned away to walk onward, ever looking, ever learning, ever gathering information.

=0=TBC 123-15-2020

ESL

eshew(ed): (eh-shoo-D) decline, don't bother with, don't take part in

cowed: (cow-D) overpowered, overwhelmed, brought to heel, emotionally depleted