The Diego Diaries: More (dd7 199)
=0=There
They flew through the bridge heading for Homeland as on the sensor grids of everyone focused away into the far distance, a huge force was coming. Prime was grim as he sat on the command chair of Tennyson considering his options. If they were fast enough moving the last planet and moons, the force would reach this space with nothing to show that anyone had been there. Or, they could arrive and force a confrontation. Or … he, Prime could destroy Homeland before the force arrived.
Wisdom was supposed to help a bot, he thought, but sometimes it made things harder. It was no longer easy to not take into consideration the consciousness of things around him such as the planet they were now orbiting. Heavy ped falls drew his attention as he swiveled to see Alor and Hard Drive exit the elevator and walk toward him.
"Prime," Hardie said as they paused before him. "Good that you came. The intervals of their jumps will put them here about 1230 joors on the TMC. It'd be faster but they're coming as an armada together. They do have a small scout team heading out before them. We expect them in three joors. What would you want to do about that?"
Prime considered that. "I would like them to meet a steel wall."
Hardie glanced at Alor who walked to a console nearby to make it so. "This group is broad but the data is still patchy given the energy interference and distance they are from us."
Prime glanced at his console screen where the moving lights of something big and far away could be seen. "We have to coordinate with Wheeljack. I would prefer for them to arrive in empty space."
"I would as well," Hardie said. "I checked with Wheeljack before coming up and he said they're actually gaining confidence that they might be able to shave a breem or two off the projected release time."
"I would prefer that myself," Prime said as Hardie walked to the navigation seat next to the pilot to sit. It would be a tense wait as a large force slowly but inexorably made their way forward.
=0=Out there
They came together in groups of ships that jumped the same distance each time. What types of ships they used wasn't detectable yet but it was of a much more advanced nature than it might have been without the collaboration of Sun Base. They were a confederation of intensely close, intensely loyal species that came into being in the same region and worshiped the same god, Vergo who was said to live in the floes.
They worked together to advance everyone and that they were different species made no difference. It was an admirable thing in theory and something less in practice for others. Part of their religious fervor included conquest and regional domination. Fortunately, there were very few inhabited planets around them and their reasonable ability to travel. Even if they were empire minded, they were benevolent in their rule allowing the few who met up with them to live their own lives their own way. They coveted unchallenged travel rather than territorial exploitation.
Odd, they were.
It was a lot quicker to go where they wanted with the tech that Sun Base had given them through trade. But it would still take a while to get there. Their tech level wasn't in the range of the bots but it was getting better. The Vergans were smart, adaptable and creative. The four species they'd met up with already weren't the only ones affiliated with their confederation as equal partners but they were the main players.
As they came through the dangerous floes that made travel in this part of the galaxy so difficult, they were tracked with every step by the bots who timed when they disappeared off screen, where they appeared again and the distance traveled. If they traveled in a regular pattern this way the bots would be able to time when they arrived. As they watched, Prime and his officers planned.
=0=Home
Ironhide sat on a chair in Lissie's room watching as she recharged. He had walked from his room to hers the moment he heard she was hurt and bunking here. The staff had told him that he was being monitored on the hospital's grid because Ratchet had made him a 'runner'. That is, he was listed as someone who wouldn't stay so they hooked him in and security was monitoring his aft.
They'd seen him limp down the hallway to her room to settle gingerly in a chair, then went onward doing their own duties. He'd heard from Flint who came by to tell him so he wouldn't find out on The Hourly News. It had been disconcerting in an extreme way to see her hurt, his sweet little Auntie who could disarm a charging war ship with her bare servos.
Her servos …
One of them was missing, the one that was covered in henna-like scroll work of elaborate antique-style writings. The one that had patted him when he was a fussy baby. The one who had infinite patience to help him build his little brick constructions and the endless love to listen to his rambling stuttered commentary about them. This was the servo he held as a child looking for rocks as they walked to the lakeside to wade in the water looking 'for stuff'. It was the servo that bound his boo-boos, petted his little face when he came to her with a discovery and the servo that slipped him a penny or two to buy candy when no one was looking.
Now it was gone to the wrist. Her beautiful painting and symbolism that was always there was gone. It gave him terrible flashes of Ratchet and his own lost limbs. He pushed those back as he sat beside her berth watching as she slept.
She was one pretty little femme. She was an older femme so she wasn't as short as Gypsy. She was not as tall as Elita and Arcee, though she was older than both. She was in between. Maybe given what he knew about what Jhiaxus had done to their genome, she was not like them but not what femmes would ultimately become. She was shorter than Ratchet but not by much. She was lean like a race horse and strong as could be. She could shoot better and fight harder and longer than a lot of mechs.
She was incredibly smart as well. She had an encyclopedic memory for things, could tell stories from any period of her life accurately and well and could settle arguments about what happened when and where for just about anyone and anything. She never forgot a slagging thing. She was infinitely patient teaching youngsters and even the senior ranks. All of them had to take classes in the officers corp periodically and she never made it anything but interesting and fun.
She was his Auntie, the only one he knew was still alive. She was of the 'golden generation', the ones who had sacrificed a lot for the up and comers. She was his golden light as a child, his confidante as a boundless youth and his friend and elder as a grown up mech. Now she lay on the bed maimed and silent.
It was EXTREMELY awful to him to see one of the pillars of his world brought low.
"You're out of your berth, infant."
He looked at her from gazing out her window lost in his own reveries. "They track me. Old Mech has the cavalry on me."
"Good thing," Lissie said with a slight chuckle. "You don't seem capable of ducking fast enough. I may have to take you into servo."
It stung a moment, then he leaned in closer. "Auntie … you lost one. Your pretty hand."
She raised the carefully wrapped stump. "They did, the slaggers. I'm going to have to get the scheme put on all over again. The detailer we use is booked in advance all the time."
"Do you want me to ask for you?" Ironhide said in a pained voice.
For a moment to Lissie, he was that sweet little boy that would do anything he could for his elders. He was infinitely loved, tenderly raised and doted upon by all of them. She grinned at him. "I may ask you, infant," she said as he lay his helm on the berth next to her. She stroked his finials with her one good servo.
Ironhide felt emotions rise inside as he relaxed into her touch. She used to do this to him when he wouldn't or couldn't sleep. It always worked. She would hum and he would listen. Then she would carry him to his berth and tuck him in. Most of the time she would sit down with a book and wait for him to wake. Then they would take a walk to the shore and look for things in the water while he told her the thoughts on his processor. She was always love to him.
Always.
=0=Out there on Tennyson
They came to Prime with a plan, the titans and other big frames working out the defense in this, a narrow safe path to their location that was the only short route to Homeland and Sun Base. They discussed what they decided, troubleshot it with the elders there, then Prime agreed to it. They walked off together to make it so on the newly arrived command deck of Clipper.
Prime watched them go then he swiveled back to watch Homeland on the view screen forward of the deck. It was rotating, a desert colored globe similar to Mars. Soon it would be at Sirius A, safe and sound he hoped. He wondered on the being who inhabited it as he waited for the titans to put forward a wall of steel against the newcomers.
The clock was ticking down.
=0=Prison
They sat in their detentions eating and recharging, pacing and watching the entertainments which were amazing, varied, some alien and all of it educational. The Hourly News was as open as a book, telling information that would never see the light of day either on Sun Base or Cybertron in the orn. It filled in a lot of blanks.
This was a colossal city-strewn colony with around 120,000,000 individuals and counting. There were huge city sites on the landscape that were bustling, amenity filled and nothing like they had seen since their life on Cybertron. It was wealthy on a scale that hadn't been seen since before The Fall. Everyone was busy, going here and there, playing, working and living.
All of them.
Sun Base had segregated their lower worker bees in satellite cities that were rudimentary, supplied the barest minimum of needs and kept the two sides separated. Here, everyone mixed, everyone apparently lived well and did what they wanted. Prime had implemented what he demanded and it was working. None of the prisoners were unaware that the cooperation needed to do this relied on mutual respect. The caste system didn't.
Even though they were aware of this as a basic operational principle of all highly evolved successful cultures, none of them were prepared to change a single thing.
=0=Tennyson
"The operation is on line, Optimus," Tennyson said as he spoke over the intercom. "All of us are here to direct the defense. We are at your command."
"Thank you, Tennyson, gentlemen, Kappa," Prime replied as he watched the ship armada make their way on the forward map to nearly the halfway mark to Homeland. "We will wait and see."
"Understood," Tennyson said as he glanced at the other mechs and Kappa who sat or stood on the deck of Clipper in pretender gear. "Well, we shall see what happens."
The others, grim and resolved nodded.
"This will be the biggest fight of our class for a Prime since before The Fall," Hammer of Primus said. He was here to watch and advise, this expert warrior who was a city format back in the colony in the 'Eight Ball' as the titan district of eight metroformers was called by the locals.
"At least in this dimension," Clipper said grimly.
They nodded in agreement.
The ships continued to come closer and closer.
TBC 2-4-2020 2-7-2020
NOTES tomorrow. I will be better organized them. :D
ESL:
inexorable: (in-X-or-uh-bl) something that cannot be stopped, something that will happen no matter what, inevitable.