The Diego Diaries: Sun Dance (dd7 162)
=0=Trudging on
It was a whirl, the activity on Sun Dance as Ratchet walked through a bridge to go to Homeland. It was a sunny morning when he arrived at that city on that planet, the kind you find on Earth during a warm spring and a great change for him. He stood in the sunlight for a moment before heading for the building nearby in the city that held the command center for the planet.
He walked up wide steps into the building, then entered the command portion where everyone who saw him stood. He walked to the center of the room, then grinned. "Good morning. How are things going here? I haven't had time to speak to Springer."
"We're doing what you wish, Commander," a tall youthful mech said. He was Ciro who was in charge of the center while the leadership worked out a plan to evacuate elsewhere on world while some of them were on Mars itself.
"I know you are, infant and you're doing a slagging fine job. What should I know given that Springer is in the field?" Ratchet asked.
It would take three joors to tell him.
=0=Mars
They walked from the valley where they went to practice to the clifftop where they would transform and head out. It was a testament to the life they lived that Prime took a few joors out to go over the plays and teamwork that would stand them in the games ahead. In three orns they would be playing Praxus Science in the Stanix Stadium in the colonial city of Stanix. It would be epic.
"What do you think?" Hardie asked as they walked up the long trail to the top. Behind them the rest of the team from basketball and a number of handpicked mechs to fill the ranks followed.
"I think we have a chance to do well," Prime said in his usual mild manner. Inside, he seethed competitiveness, given that he loved sports of all kinds and had played them all his life. He was wired to win on the field of play and it probably had a hand into his ability to be tactical and persevere against all manner of slag as Prime all this time.
"Well, I'll take that as affirmative," Hardie said with a chuckle. "How is Prowl taking us playing his team?"
Prime snickered, then looked at Hardie with a smirk. "He is a bit torn..."
^..^
He walked into Prime's office earlier that morning with a datapad in servo. Pausing before Prime's desk, he stared at him with a slightly perturbed aura.
Optimus sat back. "Is there something wrong, Prowl?" he asked.
Prowl who never saw an orn where something wasn't glanced up at him from the data pad. "Terra is playing Praxus first game in the Stanix Stadium."
"And?" Prime asked with a big grin.
Prowl glanced up, then frowned. "Maybe you're used to a losing team in United but I'm a Praxian supporter to the bitter end."
"I intend to give you that as a gift … the bitter end part," Prime had replied.
The expression Prowl gave him, somewhere between angst, an unspoken rebuke and fury would live in his processor and picture files forever …
^..^
"I can imagine he is," Hardie replied with a chuckle.
"How do you feel about it as a Praxian?" Prime asked as they reached the top of the valley and the dirt road that led back to town.
"I try not to think about it," Hardie said as the others began to catch up to the two. "I depended upon Prowl before to cheat the team to contender status but not now."
"I hear you," Prime said as he transformed to truck mode for the long drive to town. The others followed in a long line.
=0=Around the colony
The newcomers walked around the cities where they lived with big opticed wonder. The Christmas Surprise season was well underway and there were lights strung everywhere and in all three of the biggest intersections in every city a massive lighted tree was planted. They were beautiful, filled with objects that glittered and shown while at night their lights sparkled.
They had been filled in by the news, the Community Bulletin Board and their many and various helpers, social workers, the odd Watch mech, workers in stores, priests, the odd pedestrian who was asked or noted their confusion, newspapers and television. They read the news tickers at the kiosks that were on corners with directories and other information for citizens. They were given directions and other news by government workers and those who ran services. There was always someone ready to help, such was life in a colony made up of refugees.
The vast scope of the colony now was majestic, especially at night with lights everywhere. They occupied a small part of the planet, all 104,000,000+ of them. Their colony was enlarging, not dotting the planet here and there as separate entities. Prime was determined to keep the area of defense possible.
The traffic flowed, streets were filled with pedestrians, shops, cafes, restaurants, services, theaters and other businesses were booming. There was always some new place to go, some new thing to see and do. There were also quiet oases in the middle of the bustle of urban living, parks and shrines, the Temple District, Basilica, Monastery and spas that were open to everyone and anyone.
Refugees came in steadily from Oasis Base out in space where Dai Atlas and the Knights, Circle and Missionary mechs and femmes toiled. They also were coming in from Sun Base and Homeland now. Both groups were counseled that bygones would be left behind and not brought to the colony. They were free in the new paradigm and anything short of that would be dealt with through the laws and procedures of Cybertron.
The news that Cybertron had been retaken was an astonishing development to the refugees from both new planets and that never a shot was fired convinced many that Prime was The One Who Comes. They stepped into a new life led by a mech that most of them considered holy. Obviously, the Pantheon and The One must hold Prime in the highest regard to allow such miracles to happen and then continue.
They came and came, heading to new homes, new opportunities and hope. They came to luxury and attention to their needs. Their families were free at last. Their enemies were being arrested and imprisoned. They took their meager belongings and their families into the life that should have been theirs all along and for most of them there was no looking back.
This was the Promised Land.
=0=N.E.S.T. HQ
Will Lennox signed off from the conference call with the Pentagon and several other places on world through the network of international policing that N.E.S.T. represented. They were due another two striker teams to come and learn how to work in space and with the bots.
He walked to the rec room then sat down at a table where the soldiers off duty were playing cards and eating lunch. Dealing himself in when Epps passed him the cards, he began to pass them around the table. When everyone had their cards, Niall glanced at him. "What's the word?"
"Two teams coming, beta and gamma. Good prospects. They're coming from China, Belarus, Mongolia, Peru, Sweden and Norway," Lennox said as they anted in.
"Sounds interesting," Graham replied. "We don't get a lot of eastern Europeans and I think other than the spokesperson at the Consulate any Mongolians either. I don't think there must be finer horsemen in the world."
"What about the lunkheads in the jail? Anything new on them?" Bobby Epps asked as he sipped his drink.
"No. Prime has Barron working on it. He's in now big hurry to create more controversy at the moment than he has to. Things are a bit churned up on Earth," Lennox said.
They played cards, ate lunch and gossiped. They would learn that Aedh was just starting to really walk, Annie Lennox had another tattoo albeit the washable kind that was the skull sigil of the Mandalorian people, she along with everyone else thought that 'Baby Yoda' was a total and amazing honey bun and they wanted one for Christmas.
"Niall wants one," Niall Graham said as he considered his son's hopeful request. "I asked Ironhide if he could get on it for me. He knows everyone who makes dollies."
"Ask him for me, too." -three other guys including Will Lennox.
Niall would.
=0=Ironhide
He clicked off the phone then grinned. "You want a Yoda baby do ya? Well, they shall get a Yoda baby."
They would.
=0=Class
Today was geometry. They were having a 'fun' math event that included dividing things into fractional parts, drawing angles and the like and eating everything when it was over. In the science lab that was built on a windowsill for the human kids, half of them were cutting up fruit while the others were calculating angles and other geometric shapes with precision. When they all had a hand in doing both they would eat what they had parted out. They would do so under the supervision of several mothers and a grandpa who were helping.
It would be awesome.
=0=Night time on Sun Dance
Ratchet stood at the fence jail watching the sullen multitudes behind the bars. They feared and loathed him in equal measure. He had taken some of them and hadn't brought them back. He had shot some of them in full view of everyone. He was a lunatic that they all obeyed though they would have ripped him a new behind if they could have.
These were the distilled group, 1,284 from many more thousands who had been proven by Teletraan sifting all their databases to have committed crimes that would require a reckoning. Some of them were just fraggers, those who did minor offenses or caste rudeness or stupidness.
This group was different. These were the field enforcers as their police were called, those who formulated policies and the judges who enforced them. Most of the council that ran the place was here and their co-conspirators. It would be soon that they would be transferred to the prison on Mars.
What they would do with their families was still being determined.
Ratchet walked along the pens scanning them for medical conditions. They didn't have any to mention. They were well nourished and put together. The population that served them couldn't claim as much but that was being rectified now.
Someone called to him so he slowed, then stopped. Standing near a fence, a small femme beckoned to him. He walked to the fence then leaned slightly in. "Yes?" he asked.
She stared at him, this slightly older femme then spoke. "When do we get out of here?"
Ratchet considered that. "When Prime and the courts decide."
"The courts?" she asked with genuine surprise. "What do you mean?"
"You committed crimes. You held people against their wishes. You worked them as slaves and mistreated them. That is just part of your problems."
She stared at him. It wasn't computing in her helm. "We didn't break any laws."
"Then you don't have to worry," Ratchet said cutting his loses.
"Then you'll let us out?" she asked.
Ratchet stared at her marveling at what a processor could conclude when it lived in a bubble and never had to care about anything but their own surroundings. He considered her. "No. You broke the law. You hurt people. You slaved. You'll have to stand an accounting for that."
She stared at him without comprehension, then she began to frown. "Surely, you can't suggest that we … that we did anything wrong."
"I'm not going to suggest anything. You'll get counsel. Talk to them." Ratchet moved onward marveling at the mindset. Apparently, this group had never had to pay consequences for their actions at any point in their lives. As he walked away he imagined them all as little children, small and perfect before the rot set in, drilled into them by their families and the tortured society that Cybertron once was.
It helped.
=0=TBC 12-20-19
Sorry about last night. I get ten days off at Christmas and intend to write and re-post edited pieces full bore. :D HUGS to all of you tonight from someone who loves you.