The Diego Diaries: War Drums (dd8 231)
=0=Late that night on Mars
They tiptoed through the house, passing Ironhide slumped in a chair with the television running, filling the room with a dim light as some kind of gardening show played with the sound muted. They stared at him, smirked, then continued pausing from time to time to check the rooms of sleeping children.
Reaching the berth room in the back, Springer and Drift watched as Ratchet carefully and gently retrieved Tell, lay him on a blanket on the berth, then wrapped him up.
Tell opened one optic to stare at whoever was there, grinned, yawned, then fell back into recharge.
:This is some genuine champion infant: Ratchet said as he gently lay the bundle into the baby carrier, closed the transparent lid and handed it to Drift.
:We won't argue with you: Springer said as they walked back out to leave. :Thanks for the memories: he said as they slipped out with a smirk and a snicker.
:I aims to please: Ratchet replied as he shut the door. Glancing at Ironhide, he grinned, bused the place up, then walked to the berth room to crash until morning which wasn't that far away.
Ironhide slept ever on.
=0=Up there
Prowl walked into his house, checked the overnight dump and then headed for the hallway that led to the berth rooms of his children. Checking each, tucking in two, he made his way to the suite where Optimus was laying on the berth in recharge.
The light outside shown in through the window casting a pale illumination in the huge room. Prowl stared at Optimus, admiring his beauty and the magnificent aura that he still held from Festival. It struck him sometimes how he was here with this mech living with him in a life he never in his wildest dreams ever expected.
Walking to the berth, he reclined, then relaxed.
A servo gently took his own, one that could rip steel out of solid bars. It squeezed his then let go.
Prowl rolled over and pressed himself against the solid frame of the only mech he would ever love. The miracle of that singular thing always resonated through him as he settled into sleep. It would be silent in the room as they recharged together. Morning would come in its own good time.
=0=On a Metro
They sat together with the baby carrier on the floor between them. Staring at him, Springer sat back. "Ada is a maniac. I hope Tell doesn't take after him."
Drift snickered. "Yeah. I noticed that. It runs on your side of the family. I was just dragooned in."
"I thought you were the heir and I was your consort," Springer replied as the train slid to a stop to let some on and others off. It picked up again.
"Tomorrow is the meeting to see if he's ready for his treatments," Drift said. "Are you as nervous as me?"
"No. Maybe," Springer said. "I hope Ada is sober by then."
Drift grinned. "It was hilarious watching him and Prowl get plowed by that floating car."
"I have it on video," Springer said. "It'd be sad to post it on social media."
"It would. When are you going to do it and are you going to subtitle it so everyone can know its them in pretender gear?" Drift asked.
"I'll figure it out. How hard can it be?" Springer asked.
=0=Far away
They listened to the message that told of the paradigm shift, that Cybertron was lost to the Decepticons and Prime was ruling his kingdom once again. It was perplexing to wonder what happened to Megatron because no mention of him was made. Not by Prime, nor Starscream and Rainmaker.
He sat on the command seat with a slight frown. "We don't have good intel. We've been away too long. I need intel."
"Then we should send a recon unit to find out. Maybe follow the signal to its point of origin and see what's going on," his second said.
Palladin considered that, then nodded. "Send our best commando unit out and have them get there. I want intel. If they can get to the ground and look around, then good."
Lancer was sitting nearby listening to the conversation. "Prime will have great power. We have to be smarter than him. I would suggest that we find out as much as we can, then dig in somewhere to see what the situation is. There must be more like us, those who are already here and those who could join us."
Palladin nodded. "Agreed. Make it so," he said to his second-in-command, another phase sixer named Serial. He was, indeed, a killer.
=0=Just before dawn
Prowl walked into the Ops Center followed by Prime and Hard Drive. Several of the senior Autobots were already there and gathered around screens and the command table data maps. Pausing there, they both were updated by Paragon, then sat to consider the situation.
"Have we any intel over who they are?" Prime asked.
"No. The Science team didn't get the dishes settled because of the incident and won't be leaving again until tomorrow," Paragon said.
"Is there no way to speed it up? We're blind here," Prowl asked his doppelganger.
"I'll contact Sciences and see what they can do. Apparently, some of the equipment was fried by the beam that pulled them in," Paragon replied, "some of the data recording and transmission pieces. They were only conventionally covered in protection and it wasn't enough to withstand what happened." He glanced upward at Prowl. "Its the same thing on the shuttles, though on a smaller scale considering the shielding they have."
"We need to figure this out. But its also going to be highly dangerous. We can't bridge too closely given the size of our own and not risk problems," Perceptor said. "It will be hard to get intel from the area because of the unstable nature of it."
"Then we watch them and take the data as it comes," Prime said. "Our arrays out that way will suffice until the expediter and deep space scanners can be launched. Tomorrow, you say?"
Perceptor nodded. "I'm sorry, Prime. It's a delicate operation. Burnoff is making the replacements now."
"Very well," Prime said as he sat musing at the size of the lights pulsing at the edge of their range of vision. They were traversing an area of lighter possibility of a flash of energy striking them, a detour that would make things safer. It was perplexing to sit and wait.
=0=Out there
They stood on the flight deck of the battleship where they were stationed. Several mechs, all of them in their original colors, not the gun metal gray that had been required by Megatron waited for the word to go. They were stripped of their insignia, bearing no markers for their faction which they seemed to have left behind.
They were talking together as their ship was made ready. Their conversation was intelligent and reasonable, not the usual fire breathing screeds of their kind. When the crew called to them, they headed toward a three mech shuttle. Walking up the ramp, they closed the hatch, received permission to leave, then flew out through the energy barricade into open space. It would take two full days of flight before they could make their move.
They disappeared from the armada following swiftly into the ever night time of space.
=0=At a mid morning meeting about a procedures
Ratchet walked into a waiting room of the Children's Research Hospital and Outpatient Facility in Terra. It was the place that children with syndromes, handicaps and all manner of mental and physical conditions and disabilities came to be treated, trained to cope and otherwise cared for, some on site as intake patients. He grinned at the grim faced mechs who held a baby wrapped in blankets.
His little carrier was sitting on a coffee table in front of him. Tell's name and faction were spelled out in beautiful script and a tiny sigil along with a teddy bear bearing a Wrecker sigil and a scar over an optic. He would find out that Sunstreaker had painted all of it at Drift and Springer's request. It was the first Ratchet had noticed that they'd customized it just for Tell. It was sweet.
He sat down, then glanced at the baby. "He looks like a champ."
"He is," Springer said. "They aren't going to stick him and make him cry are they?"
"Nope," Ratchet replied. "He's going to be examined, then we get to decide if he's ready for the gene therapy and such. If he has it then he's going to feel fussy. Be prepared to walk with him for a joor or two after each one. Its not just scripts. Its also solutions designed to rewrite the CNA of every cell in his body."
"It sounds painful," Drift said with a frown. "I don't like it when he cries."
"He has?" Ratchet asked with surprise.
"Just once. I thought I'd pass out," Drift replied. "I put him down for a moment to get his bottle and he cried."
"Ah," Ratchet said with a grin. "He likes his old man."
A tech walked in at that moment. "We're ready for you now."
The three arose and with carry basket in servo, they walked into the hallway, down to a door which said 'Children's Genetics Department' before going inside to sit and watch the show. It would be a personally difficult and painful experience for two of the toughest and most hard bitten mechs around.
Ratchet wouldn't like it either.
Grandson.
=0=At a private firmness
He sat at the work table carefully putting together the most intricate part of a satellite system, the recording and transmitting parts. The call had been made to him and he'd dropped everything else to get on this project so it could go forward.
He was Science's go-to guy for such things having an innovative mind and the servo-optic coordination of a machine. Default had gone to the school to check on their children, both of whom attended a private daycare that provided all manner of wonderful activities and care. All of the schools on world were amazing and so was this one. That it was only three streets away made it perfect.
He worked hard on the project, aided when Dee walked back in while Turquoise fielded their calls and worked on projects of his own at the receptionist desk nearby. It would be a wonderful orn for all of them when Copperton came to have lunch with them in the workroom.
=0=Flying in the darkness
They continued onward toward the place where they could make their move and jump toward the origin site of the constant messages sent out by Prime, Rainmaker and Starscream. They would use bridge tech on their ship that was developed by Lancer, their group's science officer. It had helped them leave the Rim to get this far and even though it was dangerous to use for the other vessels given the region, the distance they were making was lessening the risk ever kilometer they flew.
They were scientific, smart and had a depth of talent to make their reach more powerful than the usual group of deserting Decepticons. Lancer, the chief scientist learned his stuff at the knee of Jhiaxus. Soon they would engage their bridge and be where the message sounded. They would fall out of it into the sunny warm skies of Diego Garcia.
=0=On the sidewalk in front of the Children's hospital
"The first treatment will start on second Friday. I'll be there. You can bring him to the Med Center to get him through its after effects. I'll help you there," Ratchet said. "Then we can see how affected he is."
"I hate this," Drift said as he held the carrier with the sleeping baby inside. He'd been a champion but he was worn out from the handling he'd gotten for the tests.
"Welcome to my world," Ratchet said with a grin. "Meet up for lunch at The Pit Stop. You can cheer up with the punters."
Springer grinned. "You do know that I took videos of you and Prowl floundering around in London, right?"
"You slagger. I suppose you're putting them up on social media?" Ratchet asked with a chuckle.
"Of course. How hard can that be for the greatness they convey?" Springer asked as they began to walk to a Metro station nearby.
=0=Some time later that night
Drift leaned on the door of the office space they shared in this, a new apartment taken to accommodate a child and work that spilled over to their home. It was in the same city, Iacon and in the same neighborhood if not same building. Their routine was safe here in this, the city their son would call his home. "I see you're still at it."
"Don't test me, Drift," Springer said as he worked on the videos that he was going to post. It was well into the second joor as he fiddled with the programming that would allow him to annotate the video so everyone could see Prowl go under the water and Ratchet fall over a bin. Among other things.
"I'll see you at breakfast," Drift said as he walked to the berth room with a grin. Sometimes the jokes wrote themselves and sometimes there was Springer. And it was clear to Drift at this point.
Springer took after Ma.
=0=TBC 8-14-2021