The Diego Diaries: Trouble (dd7 203)
=0=Command deck of the Dreadnought Tennyson
Machlis, Faber and Fuller stood before Prime with burning fury and not a little bit of uncertainty. They'd ridden a shuttle to this place wherever it was. It had taken a lot of calculations and finagling to push the littlest space bridge, Autobot City Space Bridge which was doing heavy duty deep space transport to reach this far, even though it meant flying a bit before arriving at Tennyson.
They made the entire journey magnetized to the forward hull of the battle shuttle, Impactor's Revenge.
When they decided to withhold information, Magnus had risen, ordered them to the airfield, then had them magnetized spreadeagled on the forward hull of the ship. They had in theory 'led the way' to Tennyson. Magnus himself was in no mood to pussy foot around given that an enemy had become technologically advanced through violations of his beloved Tyrest Treaties and other laws, laying Cybertron itself and possibly Mars open to invasion.
Prime stared at them as Magnus filled him in. Everyone on the bridge listened including all of Ironhide's elders, the Seeker high command and the ship captains. A large number of titans and dreads in pretender gear, some from Cybertron along to watch and some along to assist where they could rounded out the hard opticed group there.
Ratchet scanned the three then walked back to stand behind them. He made himself ready to sign to Prime. Even though Prime was hooked into their transponders, he was still deaf so Ratchet was there to fill in the blanks and give him observations. In short, he was ready to do what he always did as Prime's diplomat, secretary of state and running partner of a great duration of time.
Prime sat forward as he regarded them. "You put our home world in danger doing something that you knew was forbidden in every way possible. We want to know a number of things and we are not in any frame of mind to play games. Tell us about their capabilities, what you sold them and everything else you can. You will do it now."
Machlis stared at Prime with a gathering sense of himself. Around him besides his son and grandson were any number of familiar and unfamiliar mechs. They stared at the three with a cold hatred as everyone waited. "I'm not sure what you mean, Prime."
"Then maybe I can ask," Hardie said as he rose, then walked to stand in front of the three. He stared at them with a coldness that was shocking. "I'm ordering you to kneel."
They stared at him as the temperature in the vast room dropped to freezing. Hardie was a Praxian Elite and an Exempt. He was an Immortal, a very famous one. They would have to obey him for the first one and give him respect for the other two whether they liked it or not.
Fuller glanced at the other two, then began to kneel.
Machlis glanced at him. "STAND!"
Fuller froze, then rose upward again.
Hardie stepped closer. "Then you don't acknowledge me?"
Machlis returned his gaze. "No. I do not."
"Then The System of Exception is over. Either you honor all of it or you honor none of it. You can't pick and choose. You know the rules." He turned to Prime. "The System is over forever."
"No it isn't," Faber said hotly. "We don't recognize you."
"But I am The System. I am The System made real. Our caste is the greatest, most powerful, most elevated and honored. You have to obey me. You have to recognize me. If you don't then the entire thing is over," Hardie said.
"You can talk forever, Hard Drive, but it means nothing," Machlis hissed.
"What say you, Prowl?" Hardie asked with a slight grin.
Prowl who was staring at the three with a furious expression of loathing stepped closer. "I say they just destroyed The System. No one in our caste can disobey an Elite. If they do then they acknowledge that it's finished."
Faber stared at Prowl. "Frag you, Prowl. You're a caste traitor."
"I'm high caste," Paragon said as he stepped closer to Prowl. "I agree with him. Its all or nothing. The System is over."
Another mech, one who had a beautiful paint scheme who was here doing Guard duty stood and turned to them. "I'm high caste. I agree with Paragon and Prowl. You either obey it all or its over."
The room was silent with the weight of the tension everyone felt. One could even hear systems running. The titans who were here, half of those in the operation watched the conversation, then Hammer of Primus stood up from the table nearby and walked to the group pausing before the three. He towered over them. He was beautiful as all metro-titans were and his charisma as a warrior was amazing. It was silent a moment longer.
"I am Hammer of Primus. I carry His noble name as my own. I am pledged to the Prime through my spark and there can be no way I can deny that even if I wanted to. I am old and I have served The People as a warrior since the days of the Immortals. It is my function to serve both Cybertron and the Primes. It is who I am.
"The System was an abomination. It was under the Quintessans. It was under the Functionalist Council. It was under under the last several Primes since the Golden Age. Now we have a Prime who is The One Who Comes. We have Cybertron back and we are retrieving our people wherever they are. Cybertron and The People are all that matters to me and my clan. All of them matter. We serve spark bound to The One and to Primus. We serve spark bound to this Prime. That means we will do whatever he commands and do it willingly even unto our own death.
"No one is out of the bounds of our duty and love. No one is left behind. We came here to rescue these planets from the sudden doom of unpredictable energy rifts and save our people therein. All of us put ourselves in danger to do that. We have succeeded. All of our people are safe on Mars and the two planets are circling a star that is perfect for them. No more will the danger of being destroyed hover over either.
"You have put all of us in danger. You have made decisions that will impact every Cybertronian alive. It won't be limited to those around here. You gave them the location of Cybertron didn't you." He spoke it rather than asked.
The three stared at him, then Fuller glanced at the others. "I heard that you did. I heard it at a dinner."
Machlis glanced at him. "Not another word."
"You will tell us. You will tell us everything. Understand … when they come for us, they come for you, too. No one will be left standing when they come. They bear technology that is a good standard against us. Our safety lay in other species fear of us, that we couldn't be overtaken by them so we were left alone. Now you have destroyed that reality by your greed. Tell the Prime what you have done. If you don't, I will be most unhappy," Hammer said with menace in his voice.
Fuller stepped closer to Prime. "I told Magnus that I managed Sun Base, the planet. I didn't have anything to do with this sort of thing. I surveyed and managed the planet. That's all."
"You're such a coward," Faber said to his son. He looked at Hammer. "What will you do if we refuse?"
Hammer stared at him, then glanced at Prime. "Whatever you will, that will I do, my lord+." He bowed to Prime, then turned toward the three. He straightened to his full 36 feet of height, then slammed his fists together.
"You would beat us up? You would kill us?" Faber asked.
"There are worse things than being dead," Tennyson said from the table nearby.
Kappa rose, then walked to stand beside Hammer of Primus. "You are supposed to be our kind. You know what it means for us to be in the universe where others are hunting you. They kill us for our tech. They sell us into slavery. Does that not bother you, Machlis?" she asked.
Machlis stared at Kappa without remarks and so did Faber. Fuller stepped farther away from them, staring from one mech to the other with fear on his face.
"Perhaps we can dump them on a planet with a slave auction," Titan said as he rose from the table. He had come late in the lift off and was hanging out on another ship on the defensive line before coming here to assist if he could. "It might do you some good to find that who you are means nothing. Our safety is in our unity. We are nothing without each other. We rescued several titans just now, eleven of them that were hunted. Some of them were severely injured and without others finding and saving them, they would be hulks floating in space stripped of their tech. Tell us what we want to know, slaggers."
"And if we do, what then?" Faber asked.
It was stony silent in the room as Prime stared at them. He looked like a statue in his chair. "I will let you live," he said in a near whisper. The siren going off in his helm was enormous as he stared at them.
Prowl who was feeding him the conversation off line was standing next to him.
Blackjack the Elder and Ironhide the Elder stepped closer to Hardie. "I'm Jack. I was an immortal with Sun, here and our other brother, Hardie. We've lived the entirety of our life as a species with one goal in mind. No one would ever feel the boot heel of an overlord again. Time after time after time this thinking was rubbed out and time after time it came back. I used to think we were deficient in some way but I know now that we never had a breather, we never discussed it enough and slaggers like you, silver tongued liars took advantage of our pain.
"We have suffered enough. We have SUFFERED ENOUGH! YOU WHO WOULD ENSLAVE US WITH YOUR CLASS HATRED ARE OVER! You've put Cybertron and all of our suffering brothers and sisters in the cross hairs of a mad empire. I will personally make you suffer a VERY LONG TIME if you don't tell us what we want to know."
"I have dibs on his optics." Sun grinned without mirth. "I collect trophies from those slaggers stupid enough to challenge me. See this?" he said as he pointed to his left finial that now didn't bear the scar that was always there. "That overlay of silver was one of Ebio Imperialis's digits. I broke it off his servo and kept it." He pointed to another silver flash on his arm. "This was a finial piece from Jhiaxus. He decided to frag with me and I ripped off his left finial with my bare servos. I'm thinking your finials and a couple of digits from each of you might complete my collection."
It was incredibly tense as the big mechs worked the three slaggers. To their credit they held their ground.
"Let me fill you in on the situation as it stands," Ratchet said as he walked up to stand between Sun and Jack. "We have no bridges available. We're stuck here. We can run for it but to do so would help them find Mars. The big ships can jump because they bridge themselves wherever they want to go. They can even put shuttles in their hold and take everyone but the battleships and cruisers. We can't jump so we're here until Wheeljack and Perceptor tell us that the two planets we moved from here, Homeland and Sun Base are safely in orbit around their new sun.
"Did we tell you that we did that? They're about eight point six light years from our colony on Mars. They're there and all is pretty well but the Triggers that brought all of us here are busy stabilizing Homeland's orbit. Until they can release Homeland safely, they're unable to help us no matter how bad it gets here. Since we can't jump nor can we run because it would help them find Mars, all of us are stuck here." Ratchet leaned inward toward the three. "So are you."
"If they attack us, they attack you. If they kill us, they kill you," Arcee said as she cracked her knuckles. "I volunteer to magnetize them to the front of the battle shuttles and I volunteer mine to the front lines. If anyone is going to get shot full of holes over this, I don't see why it isn't you."
=0=TBC 2-8-2020 2-14-2020
LEONESS: I love Magnus. :D He was perfect in TF: Prime. :D:D:D HUGS!