The Diego Diaries: Avalone (dd8 267)
=0=There
It was dark, cold and dusty outside just like it was in a million other places they'd been over eons of time. Running through the darkness toward a scatter field around a massive shape Ratchet began to scan the huge mech as he gained ground.
Around Ratchet, smaller ships began to land and their crews swarmed out, some to wait to do their jobs and others to watch both the ship and the skies. Standing on the superstructure waving a light, Warlord signaled where he was.
Prime and Prowl hurried down a ramp from a shuttle they'd transferred onto and behind them swarmed titans and dreads in pretender gear as they in a continuous stream left Tennyson through the shuttle's bridge to the ground.
Ratchet reached the ship then began to climb the hand hold ladder to the top where he paused to speak to Warlord. Then Ratchet looked down. "We have to hurry! I want the crash and the first responder teams up here!" Then he with Warlord in tow ran through the open door on the command deck of the great silent vessel.
Down below, teams were swarming up, some of them flying medical platforms used on battlefields upward with equipment, most of it sensor. A number of mechs were working on a hold door that had buckled at the hangar deck and prevented anyone from entering that direction. Avalone appeared to have belly landed and skidded. What his interior looked like was anyone's guess. How long he'd been here this way was another.
Ratchet and Warlord ran along the corridor that he'd lit with small lighting devices that were magnetized to the walls. Onward they ran until the fire doors appeared blocking their path forward. They skidded to a halt, then Ratchet walked to a wall panel, slapped on a battery pack, then jacked in. He stood silently listening.
It was very quiet.
=0=On the ground around the vessel
The medics and doctors among the titans scanned the area identifying parts scattered everywhere. Including among them was ordinance and parts of flying vessels they carried in their holds and hangars. Avalone was classed as a colony/transport ship at the end of the revolution when the war began in earnest. He flew literally thousands of individuals away from Cybertron with Banner.
During the chaos of coming and going the two were separated and until now no one had any idea of where Avalone was. How long he'd been wandering and hiding like those separated did was anyone's guess. This could have been recent or it could have been the day after the Fall. No had any idea yet.
"This is unacceptable. We have to find all of our brothers," Coral Sea fretted as he looked around the ground to see things that shouldn't be lying there scattered all around. "He didn't deserve this. Banner will be endangered if this cannot be undone."
Typhoon squeezed Coral Sea's arm. The bot was very old, very 'proper' and an elegant mech. He was working to bring in refugees from camps created by The Network and Dai Atlas, those camps that were small and less able to safely have a bridge present. It was his honor and duty, this goodhearted mech that liked children. His upset was hard to see.
"Ratchet will find a way," Typhoon said gently. "We have to give him time. We found Avalone no matter the outcome and that counts. He's not staying here like this."
"No," Coral Sea said with dismay. "It wouldn't be right would it."
"No," Typhoon replied. "It wouldn't."
=0=Ratchet
He heard a faint sound, the kind given when a mechanism was barely hanging on. He keyed in a lot of code and got good data back. Avalone was in deep, deep stasis. It had triggered when he crashed, designed as it was to spare a mechanism the extreme pain of slamming into the ground at his weight and that amount of speed. It instigated as a result a number of primary and secondary functions which were designed to aid the victim into a condition that would sustain them and send a distress signal on their lowest and most titan and dread secured transmission bands.
Ratchet glanced at Warlord who looked sick with worry. "I can read faint signs. We have to hurry up and transfuse him but I have to find his breaks and get that sorted. He has to circulate it before it can help him."
"What do we do?" Warlord asked.
"I need into the command deck. I need heavies here to get through the fire doors. I don't have enough energy from him to have him help me," Ratchet replied as he pulled his plugs, set into the slot a transmitting plug, then opened a data stream in his processor to listen in and take down what he was hearing. It would also help him directionally find what he was needing with the repairs coming up.
Avalone was in no condition to help any of them help him.
=0=Prime and Prowl
They stood side-by-side staring at the dark figure of the behemoth as he lay unnaturally still. It was shocking to see, though all of them had before. These were the heart and soul of their people, these vessels and this should never have happened. None of them should be dead, hunted or hiding. They were the best of their species and now this one hung by a threat.
:Prime:
"Here, Ratchet."
:I need transfusions. Bring in the ships and get them ready to refill until I say otherwise. I need to break through fire doors to access the bridge. Only there will I be able to find a map of his arteries to see if they're compromised. Send in the big guns:
"Understood." Prime turned to the groups of titans and dreads standing nearby. "Ratchet needs heavy lifters to break fire doors down."
"Hammer, Parcel and Scorpio, go and assist," Ty said as Metroplex nodded. He glanced at Prime as the three derezzed to go. "They're engineers. They can maybe make the doors open without hurting Avalone."
Prime nodded. "I hope so, Typhoon."
He wasn't the only one who nodded.
=0=Up there
The sound of buzzing signaled titans present. Ratchet glanced back to see a couple he knew and one he didn't. "Hurry and get the doors open so I can go in and get the transfusions started."
Hammer nodded, then the three walked to the first door.
=0=Autobot City Fuel Depot, Milepost 43 on the TransWorld Highway, Mars
Ships had landed, dozens of them to fill up on medical grade energon that was pitched to the octane needed for giant mechanisms like titans. It was the stuff running through the pipelines that fed all of the titans and dreads that lived in the colony as features. It was the stuff that blew up with Metroplex and burned so hot and long when it happened.
Huge underground storage tanks held it, this precious stuff that came there to be stored by pipelines laid along the highway. Gigantic pipes ran under the rocky soil laid down upon the permafrost level in cushioned tunnels. There was give for the constant shrugging and quaking of the planet but not enough to make breaks in them easy. Sensors would alert the colony if they happened and they would be repaired in joors. The environment would never recover from that kind of accident without a lot of care in this, a barren unyielding planet.
An airfield was there electronically manned but for moments like this. Ships lined up on the landing strips as techs from the Energon Administration worked to fill their vast holds so they could fly through Trigger 2 to the scene. They would drop their umbilical lines to the feeder ports on the big ship and off load every precious gallon into the inert silent vessel. It would take a lot of loads to even make a dent in a ship that big.
They would move forward, be filled, then lift off immediately. It would go on around the clock.
=0=Ratchet
He watched tensely as the big mechs opened the electronics panels to add battery packs to rewire the circuits. It took more time than Ratchet preferred before the doors slid open. Ahead of them another set parted to show a dark deck that was the command center.
Rushing forward, the three huge mechs led everyone else including teams that had gathered after climbing or flying upward. Into the command center they ran, a darkened place until Parcel engaged an emergency generator. Light burst on and around them they saw the destruction of the big ship.
Cracks across the windows showed the impact as around the room everything was scattered including drones who lay where they fell who knew how long ago. The interface panel, a miracle of lights was darkened.
"Why is he not showing himself?" Scorpio asked with genuine fear in his voice.
"His level of stasis is survival level. He won't show on the panel," Ratchet said as he ran to the environmental console, sat and plugged in. He listened as everyone stood silently around him staring with nervous fear as they waited.
=0=Overhead
Ships came in and fell into orbit, huge tankers who were filled with titan specific medical grade energon. As they did the fleet moved in training their sensors in all directions, especially toward two Decepticon bases known to be located here. Their signals were scanned and logged, noted in the automatic sensor network to pick up on any activity there especially if it came their way.
As they did, they picked up on other presences as well.
=0=Prime and Prowl
They stepped onto the hangar deck once the doors were opened, then looked around. Portable lights were brought in and set up. Many more were carried forward to be placed at intervals until the ship could generate light itself. He followed them as they beat back the darkness, attempted to use elevators which failed, then set them at the ladder entrances instead.
Reaching one that led upward to the superstructure, Prowl and Prime began to climb. It would take a long time and many changes of direction to reach the double fire doors and the massive amount of work and effort being displayed there.
=0=Ratchet
He glanced at the others. "This mech is a marvel. He's gotten into stasis, one that preserves life in a crash. It was probably sprung on impact but his spark and the spark chamber is intact."
It was a deflating moment, the relief that flooded everyone.
"Then he's not dead. He's alive and awaiting repairs," Hammer asked.
"I'm not saying he's out of the woods but if his spark chamber had breached we'd be standing on the edge of one the biggest craters you ever saw. Right now, we have a chance because he's still alive, his essence. We have to trace his arteries and his secondary and tertiary lines. If there's breaks or problems, we have to find them and get them either repaired or shunted." Ratchet glanced at his team. "I want the vascular team up here immediately."
A flurry of calls and motions erupted as the teams began to coordinate.
Ratchet stood to order a few things immediately, then noticed a grim faced Prime and Prowl standing nearby. Motioning them over, he noted their affect. "We need to figure out his circulation, then hook him up. I'm not going to change his condition of stasis. I can override it but he would be crazed with pain and maybe try to move. He can't be moved until his frame and all its parts are scanned, tested and repaired. If we try to lift him for transport now he'd come apart and rain down onto the ground."
"Commander?"
Everyone turned toward a Home Guardsman who had managed to find their way to this spot. He held a data pad out to Prowl. "We scanned the two Decepticon bases, Commander. We also found this."
Prowl read it then frowned. Deeply.
=0=TBC 10-04-2021
ESL
vascular: (vah-skuh-ler) having to do with the circulatory system, arteries, veins and such
secondary: means second (The most important is primary, then secondary, then the third level, tertiary.)
tertiary: (trrr-she-airy) means third