The Diego Diaries: Incident Lost and Found (dd8 264)
=0=Ops Center just before shift changeover
They came to the Center in numbers, titanic frames of dread and metro size. They came with intention. Those officers who would assist who were called to join them came as well, some of them from Cybertron and some from other places around the empire that Prime ruled like the monarch he was. The Center filled with them as Ratchet and Ironhide came into the vast room as well.
Gathering around the table, the towering figures of fifteen titanic frames waited silently as Prime and Prowl came from the corridor beyond from their offices to see what had caused the gathered to come.
Pausing by the table, Prime looked upward at Typhoon and Metroplex who looked grim and intense. "Gentlemen, what can I do for you?" he asked.
"We have found Avalone," Ty said with a grim edge to his voice.
=0=In a conference room nearby
They gathered around the table, some sitting while others stood against the wall waiting for Typhoon and Metroplex to lay out the problem.
"Optimus, you might know that our brother, the titan Banner has a bond who has been lost to time and space since the Great Exodus. He and Avalone were separated during the war saving our people and never came together again.
"Ratchet told us that Banner was suffering from this, something we all have known for eons. He asked us to help find Avalone and through the efforts of many we have. His signal is very faint, as if he's in deep stasis."
"Does he register as injured or what?" Ratchet asked.
"Its hard to say," Metroplex said. "The problem is he's located somewhere inside an area that is part of Decepticon hegemony. Its clear to me that they haven't explored it yet or they would have found him. He's too ripe a target not to check out."
"This is not good," Prowl said fretfully. "We have to get him out."
"We do. Banner has missed him since forever. When the war broke out in earnest he looked for Avalone but never found him. It crushes him not to be together. They were created together, are the closest of friends and have been bonded since nearly the beginning. We have to find him, get him airborne and repatriate him. He's so vulnerable.
"I don't know why he is so faint but he is. I fear every passing moment for him," Typhoon said. "I also fear that if he's lost and Banner finds out, that he died alone somewhere he will die as well. His grief is endless."
It was darkly silent in the room as Prime considered the situation. "Show me where he is located, if he is."
The map on a monitor nearby was changed until a faint light could be seen on a large and heavily damaged planet of undetermined composition. It was orbiting a small dwarf star and had little to recommend its location. Why Avalone was there was anyone's guess but titans were known to find out-of-the-way places if hurt, heavily pursued or prepared to die to do so without being pillaged afterwards.
It would be a tense conversation as they planned to figure out how to get a downed titan in the midst of Decepticon territory which, though not as guarded and explored as some places still held two outlying bases.
It would be a big operation along with everything else. No one would tell Banner until the situation was assessed and real data was known. It wasn't clear to anyone involved that he would live through the shock if this operation went south.
=0=That night after the imps were in bed
They sat at the dining room table eating a bowl of ice cream together. It was silent and heavy in the room between them.
"I can't imagine how poor Banner must have felt after all these long years. He's such a gent, Ironhide. He's really, really hurting for his bond," Ratchet said.
Ironhide nodded. "I don't like any of them being upset. It seems so wrong somehow."
Ratchet nodded. "I like them. They're pure. I told Banner that they get their sparks directly from The One. We never asked for them to be sparked because they were meant to be machines of work and war. The sparks just showed up without call, huge ones. Have you ever been close to the spark chamber of a titan or dread?"
Ironhide nodded. "When the dreads came," he said. "I was there when the humans saw it on whichever one it was. I can't remember. Its so big and the heat … they come from The One?"
Ratchet nodded. "I sorted out the ancient archive trying to find out information and an old scientist from the orn had put the facts into the record. Why he never made it public, I don't know but it explains everything. That's why they're so pure and selfless."
"No doubt," Ironhide said. "We're never home much anymore. We need to make it a good weekend one of these. We also need to go out to dinner and the movies one of these orns. Give the kids some family time."
Ratchet nodded. "I agree. Then there's the put off conference about Praxus moving up. We can let that wait a while."
Ironhide nodded. "Pookie is going to have all the time he needs. We can get a tutor if we have to, Ratchet. He's a little marshmallow. I hope we're resolved on this."
"They'd have to have something powerful to make me agree," Ratchet said.
The evening would pass peacefully as out at the Military Airfield a number of stealth Seekers readied themselves to be bridged in, take the scans needed, then head back.
Most of them.
Several special function Seekers would stay behind and because their feature was invisibility, they would make a personal check of Avalone where he was. They would stay with him until the Seekers came again to scan once more and then all would go. It would be then with all the data and the ground intel that the rescue would come. If Avalone was in any danger of death, all bets would be off. They would come right away locked and loaded.
It was noisy at the Military Airfield where Rainmaker and Starscream briefed the teams with the latest intel, sparse as it was. After a confab that included Prime and Prowl, the two teams flew into space following Warlord and Red Wing. They would disappear through the bridge in seconds.
Now everyone had to wait.
=0=Elsewhere
Cameron Frazer sat in the personal office with Harris, his father and Kyle Davis. He was released from his six month detention in the jail but he was now facing a possible deportation order not just from Mars but anywhere in the domain of Prime. Given that Prime pretty much had assets and installations all over the solar system and hegemony out 250,000 light years, it would mean that Cameron Davis would never be able to leave Earth for the rest of his natural life if he was deported and banned.
"We've hired attorneys from Earth who specialize in matters of immigration and deportation. However, it would do us all well to understand that they have no legal standing here unless Prime grants it and they can't make him do anything if he sets a verdict that we can't live with.
"He's also the last court of appeal and though everyone says he can't operate against common decency because of his character and the Matrix, we should understand that if he makes up his mind with the other two judges to cast you out of here, he probably wouldn't be willing to change it without good reason," Harris said.
Pierre Beliveau shook his head worriedly, then glanced at his son. "I will never understand why you did this. It doesn't matter what you feel. You can feel anything. You just have no business voicing it.
"If you step outside of your feelings, you can see that Optimus Prime is beyond generous and even handed in his dealings with us. We're all here and living like kings in first class facilities we can't make ourselves because he is.
"I don't expect you to like him if you don't. You have your dealings with the bots and with him. But this has put us all in an untenable situation and its going to cause a crisis in our family if you're banned from Autobot territory, Cameron. Your mother and I like living here and to do so in company of our greatest friends. Now its all up in the air. I am going to make a personal appeal for mercy for you. Its the only thing I can do, to appeal as a father to another father."
Cam stared at his father who had been upset from the first moment of this, his latest run in with the bots. He hated to see it. His mother and father were golden to him but he was following Owen's implicit orders. He enjoyed sparring with the bots and didn't mind being the villain.
He was rich now living here without spending a dime and he enjoyed the notoriety of being a Martian human back on Earth. Also, his relationship with the secretary at Unidad was picking up. If they were split up that would be over.
It was a lot of slag to think about. However right now he wasn't interested in doing so. Harris had started this. Harris would have to finish it.
"You can, Perri," Owen said. "I hope you do. I'd like to see if that would affect the outcome. Father to father."
Beliveau who loved Owen like a brother and knew it was reciprocated felt the sting of the situation. He knew Harris was provoking Prime with his son. He wasn't ready to risk the love of the best friend of his entire life in an argument just yet. Eventually he felt it was coming. He dreaded it almost as much as he dreaded Cameron getting banned.
It would be a tough few days for Pierre Beliveau as he waited for the hearing date to be set through the Office of the Primes.
=0=Morning
It was noisy at the Military Airfield as ships on the ready-go line were serviced, inspected and made ready to leave at a moment's notice. In space unseen but for the odd optical specialist mech or femme on the ground were several huge vessels gathering to go on the mission. They included Xantium, Omega and Gamma Supreme as well.
Sitting in the Ops Center conference room, the planning group had decided to go with massive overwhelming force to rescue Avalone. If he had to be brought back without assisting his own transfer for whatever reason, it would take a lot of brute strength and tractor beams to lift him for transport without harming him in the effort.
Hammer of Primus was going to direct the lift and transport. He was a wonder with math and understood force placed properly to prevent stresses that could be fatal if Avalone was harmed or unable to be self aware to help them. Hammer would do so in pretender gear given that he was situated on Cybertron permanently in body.
Stellar, Ambient, Caspian and Tennyson would come to be that lift, the four possessing enough tractor power to cushion a ship as big as Avalone without too much harm. Most of the doctors in the titan frame, all of the dread pretenders and many titans had volunteered to come, to help move things, lift them and assist the medical portion of the rescue if needed in that format.
Ratchet would assemble most of the doctors he'd trained to do titan and dread medicine. None of them were bonded to them yet. They weren't that level. But they could work on them, even the hard stuff with Ratchet and the two titan doctor's input and that was golden. The idea was to get him ready to remove from his location and put him down at the Big Frame Shipyard that was west of the colony and just past the Industrial Park City location.
The buzz was high as they made ready to save one of the best of them. Avalone was a good mech, quiet, scholarly and devoted to Banner. Their 'friendship' was a legend among their frame, their relationship as romantic and elegant as anything known about their frame. It was going to be a very hard, very fraught operation.
=0=TBC 10-01-2021
ESL:
fraught: (frawt) something that is filled with danger, could go bad or something that causes anxiety or worrying "The war was fraught with danger and the idea of failing was enormous."
untenable: (un-ten-ubl) something that can't happen, can't be defended "Given the avalanche, their home site was untenable and they had to leave."
implicit: (im-plih-sit) something closely connected or implied. "The idea of dying was implicit in the group of sky divers."
hegemony: (heh-gem-inny) leadership or dominance by one over others
"Britain in their empire had hegemony over one fourth of the world."
reciprocate(d): (ree-sip-row-kate, ree-sip-row-kated) to respond to a gesture by making one of your own. "His sweet gift of flowers was reciprocated with a kiss by his wife." (ah, romance) :D:D:D
You are loved. You are needed. You are wanted. The world is better because you're here. Your diversity and differences make the world a better place. You are good the way you are. You are loved. Remember that always. -Good night from Granny in Alaska.