The Diego Diaries: Still More Stuff (dd7 198)
=0=There
"MAGNETIZE!"
"HANG ON!"
"EVADE! NOW!"
"WATCH OUT! INCOMING!"
"OH FRAG!"
Five Autobot shuttles made severe evasive maneuvers as missiles from close by homed in on them. The Decepticon battle shuttles, four of them fleeing made their move, then poured on the gas. Trying to evade the incoming missiles, all five of the Autobot shuttles spiraled away dropping counter measures as they did. It was a good move for four of them but one. That shuttle was clipped by a missile which exploded immediately.
"LISSIE!" -four battle shuttles
Four ships stomped on the breaks as mechs jumped out and flew toward the shuttle that was missing most of one side of its propulsion sector. Trailing fuel and pieces parts, the ship hung steeply against level in space as fires almost immediately winked out. Reaching the shuttle, the mechs began to board its hulk and toss damaged parts out of the way while others gathered up a few crew who were hanging limply in space around it. In the front pinned down by broken steel, Lissie, the pilot and two Wreckers were found.
:MEDIC!: Drift called over the comm line. :WE NEED A TORCH!:
It took a moment for the needed individuals to show up. Springer who was holding up a stuck twisted bar that was pressing against Lissie in his two hands glanced at the newcomers who immediately began to cut the metal so that the medic could work on the patients. :Where are the others?:
:Flung into space. Some of them are going to need new arms and legs but none of them are dead so that's a plus: Sandstorm said as he gripped the girder with Springer. :How is she and these two?:
:Lissie? Amma? Are you awake?: Springer asked anxiously.
It took a moment for an answer to filter up. :I'm alive. What about my crew?: she asked from under a pile of rubble.
:We got them: Drift replied as he lifted a severed girder away. :Some of them are hurt but no one is dead:
:Good: Lissie said as more metal was lifted. :I would be very put out otherwise:
The mechs grinned as a tiny femme appeared from under the last girder. She was beat up and there was energon. It was hard to tell how much she was damaged.
:Amma … tell us where the hurt stuff is: Springer said as he leaned in toward her.
She stared at him, then grinned slightly. As she did she raised her arm which was missing a servo. :Well, this hurts: she said dryly.
It was a testament to the mechs watching that no one lost their shit at the sight.
=0=Tennyson
They were making their preparation to transport to Homeland when the news came in. When it did Prime was fully cut into the air traffic. Everyone paused their doings for a moment to listen.
:Drift to Tennyson: a tense voice said over the intercom.
:Prime here:
:The fraggers hit us with missiles. Four of us evaded in short order but Aunt Lissie was in the lead and caught a missile on the aft. We got the crew but they're hurt, some of them bad. No one is dead and the medics said they probably will make it but they'll need replacement limbs including Aunt Lissie. She lost a servo:
Everyone glanced at each other with surprise and shock.
"Drift, this is Ada. What's the status as best you can give?"
:We have five unconscious and battered, two with missing arms and one missing a leg and a servo. That doesn't count Auntie Lissie. We have them stabilized. Two more look concussed. They're staring at us like they don't know what, not who we are. The pilot and two Wreckers got buried in steel with Aunt Lissie. She showed us a missing servo and who knows what else. We're sending them through a bridge to you:
"On it," Ratchet said as he began to run for the elevator.
"What's the sit-rep and where are the slaggers?" Prowl asked.
:We're getting organized and we're sending the last ones through now. When we do then we go after them: Drift said.
:Prowl, send the other shuttles with them, all five. Send a cruiser to take care of the damaged fighter transport wherever it is. Take them down, Drift: Prime said. :Do not take chances. We can have the other two cruisers take care of the fighter transport:
Prowl then cut all of the nine remaining shuttles into the conversation. "Battle shuttles, this is Prowl. Form up on Springer. We have one down. Go after the slaggers and don't come back limping."
"On it." -nine battle shuttle captains'
=0=Down below
Ratchet reached the emergency sector of the vast Med Bay on board Tennyson. Hurrying in, he glanced around and saw the appropriate doctors and specialists working on each of the ten or so members of Lissie's shuttle. As he did, a stretcher came in with a small femme laying on it. Ratchet followed it into the emergency suite and began to work on her situation immediately.
=0=Springer
He saw the five shuttles behind him as he moved out with his remaining four. The shattered hulk of Lissie's ship hung in space behind them as a cruiser and a few smaller ships for retrieval approached. "Springer to Talon."
:Talon here, Springer: a voice replied.
"We're going after them hard, Talon. Hang back and be ready to counter measure any missiles these slaggers send up, if any," Springer replied as they flashed through the darkness together. "We're going to try shooting them into surrender but if not we may need your firepower to convince them to give it up."
"Understood," the captain of the Talon, a mech from Helex and a former Decepticon ship captain replied.
They formed up the proper formation for a shuttle-cruiser journey and disappeared into the darkness together.
=0=Suite
Ratchet ran the data on her, then glanced at her beautiful face. It was streaked with energon, her own and had a tightness about it that indicated pain. He immediately disabled her receptors. She relaxed completely. "Why didn't you do that, Lissie?"
"And deprive me of your expertise?" she asked with a grin.
"Your whole family is nuts but that's just me," Ratchet said with a brilliant smile.
She laughed. "You might be right."
He looked at her servo as he considered the data he'd gleaned from her full body scan. "Well, you have need of a new servo, a few dents need to be pounded out and you have three long screws embedded in your chassis. They must of flown at you and impaled you in your teeny tiny chest." He grinned. "A few inches higher and I'd have to do your optics."
"I know how you hate that," Lissie said with a grin as Ratchet began to take apart the debris where her slim servo with its delicate henna-like designs once was. "I just had my design redone a few orns ago."
"I know. I always liked that design," Ratchet said.
"I did, too. Slaggers are going to pay." Lissie watched him as he unbuckled her wrist assembly and held it up when she asked. "I got that back in the orn. Save it for me, Ratchet. I want the souvenir. That's the first part of my frame in all this time that had to be replaced."
"What will you do with it?" Ratchet said as he pulled a tray, filled it with denaturing solution, gently placed it inside, then sealed it with her glyph on the lid. He subbed it. "When you leave I'll give it to you. Maybe we can make the others faint."
Lissie grinned. "I hope so. I was thinking of making it into a plant stand or something to hold up my terrarium."
"You have a terrarium?" Ratchet asked as he began to carefully explore and debride the remaining parts of her wrist that were fused by the heat and explosion.
"I have one. Its filled with little rocks and some crystal plants from Cybertron. Flint goes there for the three decaorn meet ups by the remote base commanders. He went to the Manganese Mountains like I asked him and found some of the plants that do well underwater. I made a habitat garden out of it. I want him to find me some of those neon fish that live in the lake near Carbane. I want them to swim in it."
"I have to see this. I once saw a tank that was built into the side of a wall and had big fish in it. There were plants that glowed and those tall reeds that you could find around the Sea of Mercury and Mithril? They had them, too. They grew up and out of the tank, they were so tall."
They would chat about terrariums, Cybertronian plants that had internal light sources and other mundanities as Ratchet sealed off her wrist. Then he would begin the delicate task of removing long screws from her chassis, replacing a few things, then repairing the external damage. He would do so while he chatted with Lissie the whole time.
The others wouldn't know for a while.
=0=A while later
"WHAT THE FRAG!?" -Trooper
"WHERE IS SHE!?" FLINT!
"I'M GOING! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME STAY!" -Ironhide who had tried to sneak out at shift change but was caught by building security after being alerted by Ratchet that Ironhide might try to do just such a thing. "I HAVE TO BE FREE! MY LITTLE AUNTIE NEEDS ME!"
Scout logged off, then looked at Trooper. "Lissie is with Ratchet and will be fine. However … infant tried to sneak out of the hospital and I want you, Trooper, to go over there and settle his hash."
Trooper rose from his desk and walked toward the door. "I have to get Flint. He's homing in like a comet. Steiner is already there."
=0=There
Steiner leaned against the med berth as he watched Ratchet fill in the holes where huge screws had hit Lissie at speed. Dents were smoothed out, energon smears wiped away and other gentle touches were restoring her to her immense and fabled beauty. She was an old fashioned appearing femme, a look that the younger femmes in the colony and now Cybertron were returning to common usage given that everything old was now new again.
She bore a three tone paint scheme, one that reflected where she came from … Iacon … and her personal preferences. It was yellow overall with light blue lines down her arms and legs like tuxedo stripes. A light green bore accents here and there. The henna-like designs on her long tapered fingers and around the 'bicep-area' of both arms were personal and reflected her own tastes. They were done in heavily outlined black.
They usually were a statement of who a femme was or a famous statement from history that reflected something they believed or felt strongly. Hers was a bold statement that no one, not the Quintessans and later on the Functionalist Council would ever rule her or her people again.
They were elegant calligraphy and wove themselves around her arms and fingers with a lightness and grace that showed tremendous skill. Now one of her servos was gone and there were pits in her paint scheme. It would take a master to replace them but she had one, an elder from Praxus who lived here who was the son of Immortals. All of the Immortals on world patronized him. He was expert with designs of this nature and age. The paint formulas alone were whispered to be those of the Pantheon Themselves.
"There goes your scroll work, Lis," Steiner said with a slight smirk. "Good thing you're so beautiful. It might be detrimental for femmes half as beautiful as you to lose their fancy attire."
Lissie grinned at her brother. "You can still make a femme feel good, Stein."
"When will she get her servo, Ratchet?" Steiner said as he watched Ratchet wrap her stump with specialized medicinal metal that seemed like very thick and incredibly pliable tin foil.
"We have to give her protoform a few orns to heal. I put a lot of different lubricants and salves on your wrist, Lissie. You can shower and do things but don't take it off. I wrap stuff for family that only I can remove. None of you slaggers listen to me so I sabotage all of you this way," Ratchet replied with a brilliant smile.
Steiner and Lissie laughed just as Trooper walked through the door. "How's our beautiful femme?" he asked as he leaned down to kiss Lissie's forehead.
"Finer than frog's hair," Ratchet replied. "I have to replace the servo shortly and I removed these," he said holding up three very long slightly bent screws.
Trooper took them from Ratchet. "Dibs."
"Okay," Lissie said, "but I already called the stump of my servo."
"We're a twisted group. At least we got them before Sun. He made Ebio's digits an embellishment on his finials. It looks really great. He had them flattened, then layered over the right one that has the scar."
"I thought that scar made him dashing," Ratchet said with a chuckle. He grinned at Lissie. "Lucky you. He might have made your mangled servo a debris valve."
"You're too late, Ratchet," Steiner said. "He already did that with a servo from a slagger a few back. He doesn't use it but he carries it 'just in case'."
Huge laughter from all of them greeted that. Then Scout and Flint walked in.
Flint walked to Lissie, then kissed her cheek. "How are you, Auntie? I heard and got here as fast as I could."
"I'm fine. Did you know that Sun has an extra debris valve?" Lissie asked with a snicker.
Flint stared at her, then the others. "Is she delirious or did I miss something?"
=0=Fuming
He lay on the berth with a box of cherry and nut fudge that he had ordered from The Confectionaire and had delivered. He was eating his way through it to salve his rage at getting caught sneaking out. Huge mechs skilled at taking down any manner of big or little mech gave him the ultimatum: Either get back to his room and stay there or they would call Ratchet.
Then his Appa had come in with a frowny face and th2-7-2020e ability to make him crawl on his knees trying to get into the good graces of Trooper again. His elders, his god-like elders on both sides had that ability to make him feel his sad DEEPLY.
HE WASN'T A BABY ANYMORE!
(Unless one of his elders looked at him with even the slightest trace of disappointment and disapproval. Then he was on his hands and knees right away.)
Slaggers.
Thus, he sat eating fudge unaware that a few floors away his family was discussing his little Auntie's maiming, Sun's fetish for collecting and transforming body parts of vanquished enemies and Prime's profound deafness.
TBC 2-2-2020