I envision the card game of "redfletch" as being a cross between bridge and mah-jongg, played with a five-suit deck somewhat like Tarot in that one of the suits always trumps all of the others: even the one that is "declared" for the hand.
I stole the "tek" as a unit of measure from Peacewish's These Games We Play. You're not reading that? Go read that! It's good stuff!
"Simfur fell last night," Escalade said, dealing out a hand of redfletch.
"I read some of the articles." Prowl sorted his cards. "I wonder how the religious college is doing."
"Last I heard, the 'bots razed it to the ground after escorting the priests and staff out. I bid eight octagons."
"That's ... pretty strange. Four fletches."
"They said 'cons were hiding in it. Have you ever been inside? I haven't, but a friend of mine named Arcee has. She says they could have, easily, place was a labyrinth. They gave new novices a map when they enrolled."
Escalade slid out a seven of squares, and Prowl smiled. He'd recently re-read the entirety of Oil's The Rules and Strategies of Redfletch, and with the battle computer on board, at last it made sense. He tossed a two of squares, and the dummy hand played a four of octagons. "Wonder if they let them bring out any of the relics."
"No. Just got the priests out and bombed the place to the Pit."
"It'll come here, you know." Prowl met Escalade's ten of squares with the knight, and the dummy contributed a six of octagons.
"It's already here," Escalade said, meeting Prowl's first foray into fletches with a deuce.
The dummy hand couldn't beat Prowl's card, and he led another fletch. "I know the reports are indicative of more unrest. Is it really that bad?" The dummy hand won with a Halls card.
"I know you don't patrol anymore, but haven't you read any of the reports from the gates?"
Prowl took the next trick. "I look them over for signs of unrest, but that's all."
"You're doing double and triple shifts again, aren't you?"
"Yes. Since I don't patrol, I can stand up to six at a time, and - "
"Prowl! Six!"
Prowl shrugged at his oldest friend. "It's needed. You know how few of us have elected to stay."
"There's next to no one, Enforcer or civilian, left in Praxus. The streets are full of Autobots and Decepticons and old mecha and femme who lack the ability to leave. It's turning into a slaughterhouse, Prowl."
"I'll ask Loyale if I can go on patrol the shift after next. Being in the Center you don't get ... the flavor, I guess. I know there's an un-Primusly amount of unrest in the streets."
"All the participants wear one insignia or the other," Escalade said. "No civilians."
"I really do need to go on patrol," Prowl said.
"Be prepared for it to be ugly when you do," Escalade said, and took a trick Prowl had really been counting on.
THE NEXT ORN
"Jazz," said Optimus Prime, "a moment of your time, please."
"Yes, sir," said the young mech, and followed the Prime into his office.
"Just 'Optimus,' please. Shut the door," the Prime said, and sat down, gesturing Jazz to the seat on the other side of his desk. "When we took Simfur, you disobeyed orders to confine rescue efforts to the students and staff at the religious institute."
"Yes, si - Optimus, I did."
"Why?" said Optimus, sitting back, and clasping his hands in front of him.
Jazz looked at him, then said, "My carrier's brother is a priest. I've learned, through conversations with him, that relics're irreplaceable. Under my command, my squad retrieved everything we could lay our hands on. Twasn't much, but it was all we could get out in th' time we had."
"I see," said Optimus. He sighed. Jazz was rarely any trouble, and when he was, it turned out to be for doing too good a job ... as at present. "Did that interfere at all with your other assignments?"
"No. Wish we'd had more time, but we didn't, an' I wasn't about t' let us be late to our rendezvous."
"What would have happened were you met with the need to detour?"
"Well, si - Optimus, we was five breem ahead of schedule. I held us a turnin' away from our rendezvous point, dispersed in th' crowd so that no one would remark on us bein' a collection of 'bots all in one place."
Optimus said, "I see." He steepled his fingers and thought for solid three breem, in part to give any guilty consciences in the room time to speak up, and then raised his head to say, "Thank you, Jazz."
When the door shut behind the young Autobot, Optimus commed Jazz' second on this mission, and confirmed that he had in fact done what he said. Then he commed Jazz' commanding officer, and promoted Jazz to full operative.
THE NEXT ORN
"Put your insignia of rank into your subspace," Loyale said. "I've learned over the years that the insignia's a great way to attract a lot of petty complaints. While two patrolmecha, out on foot, that's hardly remarkable." She handed Prowl a Grade Three chevron, with adhesive on its back. She herself wore Grade Two on the left arm, indicating a probationer. Prowl flushed; two probationers were never sent out to patrol together, so he had to put his on the right arm, indicating that he was the senior of the two.
Loyale caught his eye, and grinned, sensing his discomfort. "People also talk more easily to the junior member of the patrol, Prowl," she said. "You'll have to remember not to call me 'sir.'
"Yes, sir - oh, snap," said Prowl. Loyale grinned.
The street around the Center was deserted, and Prowl remarked on it. "One way to look at that piece of data," said Loyale, falling easily into proceeding, an easy, ground-covering gait that also gave the officer time to look around, "is that the rioters have enough respect for us not to put themselves in our faces."
"We still have a lot of empty cells."
"A contributing factor," Loyale said with a nod.
They heard the Seekers before they saw them. A trine came in at killing speed, the two outermost members dropping bombs, the central flyer emitting a wide-range null-ray. There were cries from below, the sounds of explosion, and a rising streamer of smoke.
Prowl and Loyale looked at one another, transformed, and went in the direction of the trouble, sirens wailing.
The null-ray, which Enforcers disdained as they were designed to injure, had been used on a large crowd, most of whom wore Autobot insignia, electric blue scarves, or paint in the same shade, the Autobot color. Most were down and out cold or dead, a few on their hands and knees, or getting unsteadily to their pedes.
Worse yet, Prowl recognized the Lord Mayor of Praxus, and several members of the city's council, among the fallen, although they wore neither insignia nor colors. One councilfemme was curled up, groaning, around the City Seal, which anybot could use as a frank; immediately, the two Enforcers moved to recover it.
City Hall was a mess. The eastern ell was in ruins, the western badly damaged, and the center, the oldest part of the structure, had been the scene of hand-to-hand fighting. Discarded armor and greying frames, of both factions, lay where fallen.
The Lord Mayor proved to be dead. Prowl carried the councilfemme, and Loyale the City Seal, into the central section. They found a small, pipe-crossed room kitted out for first aid.
"I've got some first-aid skills," Loyale said. "Go see if anyone else survived."
Prowl returned to the scene of the carnage. The balance of the Council were dead as well, but he carried three downed Autobots into the center of the building, and was returning for a fourth run, when a small black-and-white mech slammed him up against a wall, arm across his throat.
The attack had been so swift, and so fierce, that Prowl never saw it coming. He stilled himself, and forced his servos to let go of the others' wrists.
"Where are you takin' em?" snarled the mech.
"Center area of the building has a small first-aid station. You'll find my partner there, trying to help these people. Who the Pit are you?"
"Autobot, designation Jazz. Why are the Enforcers here?"
"We saw the airstrike."
"It was the 'cons?"
"Of course it was the 'cons! We don't use null-rays on our own people!"
Prowl was immediately embarrassed by this outburst, but instead of saying something truly humiliating like, "Now calm down," the other mech said only, "No, you don't, do ya?" in a thoughtful voice. He said aloud, for Prowl's benefit, "Ratchet? Jazz here. We got casualties, our own and civilian. I'm sendin' out a Praxus Enforcer to c'lect th' wounded, and I'm goin' in t' see if I can help with th' ones inside City Hall."
Prowl, of course, couldn't hear the response to the comm, but he was already heading out.
He returned to the small first-aid room with another crumpled burden and saw Jazz, a strange look on his face, standing over Loyale, a Decepticon blade lying by her side.
Prowl very carefully laid down the injured Autobot, then went to Loyale. She was dead, a knife wound to the spark chamber; she had some dents and a few paint transfers, mostly black.
Prowl surged up like a wave and grabbed Jazz' servo, smashing his wrist against the wall, and powering Jazz back against it with his forearm across the other's throat. "What the Pit!" he snarled, his rage a red-and-black wall towering over his training, ready to fall. "You kill her here, and you don't even have the decency to hide the blade?"
"I didn't kill her," Jazz croaked. He didn't cling to Prowl's forearm, as most mecha would in that situation; his free servo by his side, he repeated, "I didn't kill her. She was dead when I got here. You won't find my paint transfer on that knife."
Prowl snorted, got out the stasis cuffs, and fastened the Autobot to one of the pipes in the room. "We'll certainly check that out, and you too." He commed on Center's frequency, ::Officer down, officer down. Center wing of City Hall. I repeat, officer down, suspect in custody.::
A voice answered, ::Your message received, timed 18:42:07. Personnel dispatched.::
Then, because there was nothing else to do, he continued his search for survivors.
The large green ambulance beat the Incident Scene Analysis team to Prowl by several minutes. He had found no further living victims when the vehicle arrived, sirens wailing. The mech transformed, saying only, "Where are they? There aren't any more survivors; I scanned on the way in."
When they arrived, they found Jazz, free, calmly clipping and replacing lines in the abdomen of a mech who was still bleeding. Prowl's browplates drew down and together; Jazz, glancing up, interpreted his glare correctly, but said only, "Sorry, but I didn't think you'd tell me not ta help when I could," and stayed at his work. The green mech joined him, saying to Prowl, "Stand guard, will you? There could still be 'cons in this area."
The ISA team arrived just then, along with the officers assigned to the scene, and the comfort of routine closed in over Prowl's head.
FIFTY BREEM LATER
Jazz left the med bay in its usual scene of Ratchet-induced chaos. The Autobots were fortunate in that none of their personnel had died, although many of their supporters had; the city government of Praxus wasn't so lucky, as the Mayor and most of the council had been killed. And the Decepticons were now so numerous that Jazz, although no tactician, knew his side would lose the city shortly.
Wonder what'll be next for that Enforcer, he thought, and got a cube. Praxian doorwing models had always revved him, for some reason. He'd never told any of his teammates how much time he spent ... distracted ... while he was assigned to Praxus. And that was a nice-looking mech.
Still, you could do a lot better, he mused, for a first date.
The cube stung the area of his palm where the Enforcer ISA team had taken a scraping, and he grimaced.
TWO BREEM AFTER THAT
It isn't pleasant to have a paint scraping taken from the palm of one's servo, but ISA needed it for transfer analysis. Prowl grimaced just as Jazz had, and held his servo steady.
The technician nodded, put the chip in a jar, and had Prowl chop-stamp it, identifying it as his own beyond doubt.
An Enforcer whom Prowl had never met before said, "Lieutenant Prowl? Why are you out of uniform?"
"Sir," he said to this one, two grades above him, "Captain Loyale suggested we patrol with the lower-ranking insignia. She said that people would be more willing to talk to us if we weren't a lieutenant and a captain, sir."
"You intended to go on foot patrol?"
"Yes, sir. We saw the strike take place, and abandoned our plans."
"Who was it?"
"A trio of Seekers, sir. Too far away to see the colors."
"Given the victims, probably 'cons. And the Autobots do their best to leave buildings standing." He made notes on a datapad, then raised his head to look Prowl in the optics. "I think you know how this works, lieutenant. I'll need your weapon and your insignia, and you're stood down until we know what went on here."
"Sir."
Later that orn, the highest-ranking surviving city member, an adjutant to one of the council members, surrendered Praxus to the Decepticons. As he had no actual power to do so, fighting continued.
ONE DECAORN LATER
Prowl returned to duty.
He was not precisely "rested and refreshed." He had attended the rite for Loyale, and endured the stares of her family and friends, the pointed fingers, the whispered "But isn't he - "
Most of his administrative leave had been filled up with recharge. He'd been standing multiple shifts and was tired clear to his struts. The balance went to attempting to persuade his parents that it was wisest to leave Praxus.
His sparker, an Enforcer two levels senior to Prowl, finally ordered his adult sparkling to leave the subject. Ordered him not as a family member, but as an Enforcer to whom he was senior.
"But - "
"Prowl. Enough. If the city falls, it falls. Until it falls, I'm going to work, and I know you are too."
"And after it falls? You know what the Autobots have done in all the cities that've fallen so far, don't you?"
"What I hear is that they've enforced martial law."
They were, at the time, in Prowl's carrier's and sparker's neat, sunlight living space. It wasn't the house Prowl had reached his adult upgrade in; that home had, his carrier said, been worn out by four sparklings. His genitors had acquired this home, closer to his sparker's work and very near his carrier's, and sold the childhood home to Prowl's eldest sibling. Prowl had not, at the time, had savings sufficient for a down payment, and thus had no hope of bidding for it.
"What you hear is not complete," Prowl said. "In Simfur, they rounded up the Enforcers, and smelted every one of them. Said that they had illegally surrendered the city to the 'cons."
"But they were corrupt - "
"Now that they're dead, how can we know that? We're dependent on what the Autobots, and the government, choose to tell us. That young Prime doesn't lie, but the government does, and the Senate still has the power to silence him."
Prowl's sparker narrowed his eyes, and tapped his chinplates with one forefinger. "I don't know that the same isn't true of the Decepticons," he said. "Their Communications Officer, after all, he could make you think day was night."
"That's true, but he has to do that one mech or femme at a time. Whereas Optimus Prime - I know you've seen his broadcasts. He can persuade millions with a single word." Prowl sighed, and took his carrier's hand into his own. "Look, don't get caught in the middle, okay? If I feel it's gotten too risky to stay, I'll get a message to you. Please, at least think about leaving if that happens."
"All right," his sparker said. "If you send us a message, we'll think about it."
His carrier commed him with, ::That's the closest any of you sparklings have ever come to winning an argument with Hardhead.:: But Leewind had said nothing; she never did when her mate and her sparklings disagreed. She squeezed Prowl's servo, once, and let it go.
Now, looking about him, Prowl realized that the Center had changed in feeling tone since he was there last. For one thing, there were far fewer of his fellows about. In fact, he saw almost no one, and the halls, at shift change, should have been very busy, full of mecha and femme bearing insignia, and civilian support staff as well.
In the command center, he was apparently the only mech on duty. There was no one to relieve.
A scan of all the building monitors revealed only four other mecha present: Toolbar and Respond were among the very first Enforcers to begin working the Praxian streets, where Nexus and Brightbolt were the rawest of new recruits. And the equally elderly Direct was, frankly, the stupidest Enforcer Prowl had ever known. He ran the property room with the fierceness only a very limited mech brought to what he could do. That made him useful, in his limited way.
Prowl paged them all to the command center, and got outside his cube of energon.
SIMULTANEOUSLY
Optimus Prime wiped weary servos down his faceplates. "We're about to lose Praxus," he said.
Wheeljack threw up a plan. The 'cons' strongholds, in red, almost encircled the city; there were outcroppings of red pimples all over the city itself as well. Blue areas, their own, were widely scattered, and as they watched, two of the blue lights winked out.
Ratchet rose from the table. "We're about to have incoming wounded."
The others watched him run out the door.
"The Enforcers?" said Mirage.
"They aren't the issue here they have been in other cities. We've got no Enforcers on our payroll, and so far as we can discover, neither have the 'cons. But this is far beyond their ability to cope with. Praxus at this point consists of the old, the Enforcers' families, the 'cons, and our forces."
"And two hundred breem ago," said Perceptor, functioning today as Communications Officer, "the 'cons took over the communications center in Praxus, and begin broadcasting on the Enforcers' network, offering sanctuary outside the west gate for all Enforcers and their families."
SIMULTANEOUSLY, WEST GATE OF PRAXUS
"Your insignia, please," the pleasant young Decepticon said.
Prowl's sparker removed it from his arm, and handed it over.
"And yours," the 'con said to Leewind.
"I'm not an Enforcer," she said. "We've been bonded for - "
"I see," interrupted the 'con, still pleasant as milk. "Have you your bonding certificate?"
Wordlessly, she unsubspaced it.
The document was read from beginning to end and the seal fingered, to see if it was truly authentic. Then the 'con smiled, and handed it back. "Thank you," he said. "This seems to be quite in order. If you'll wait here for just a moment, we'll get the process started for you."
He left the minuscule office, barely big enough for three chairs and a stunted desk. The door clicked into its locked position behind him, and the ventilation system changed its noise slightly.
"I truly hope we're doing the right thing," Leewind said.
Hardhead shrugged. "We got the message from Prowl, and two minutes later the 'cons started their broadcast," he said. "If it's not the right thing, that's the Pit of a coincidence." He yawned widely.
Leewind felt suddenly very relaxed, which puzzled her: she'd been terrified to come here, to place herself into the 'cons hands.
OPTIMUS PRIME'S TENT, ON THE MARCH
"Jazz? I didn't expect you back so soon."
"Bad news, Optimus. I was ordered to report straight to you."
"Let's have it, then."
"Th' cons offered Enforcers safe passage outta th' city if they'd come to a particular gate. Once they got there, they took 'em to 'interview rooms' where they killed 'em and took th' bodies to smelt." The small Special Operative paused. "'Long with all them deaths, it means that Praxus has no internal defense at all."
CENTER, TWO JOOR AFTER
"Who has been trained in utilizing the comms?"
"I have, sir," said Nexus, one of the newbies.
"You'll be assigned here, then," Prowl said. "The rest of us are going on patrol."
"Patrol, sir? The 'cons control the area," said the other newbie. Brightbolt? Yes.
"Yes, patrol, Brightbolt. There are elderly mecha and femme here, and we are going to give them all the help we can to get out of the city. They'll starve or die in the fighting if we don't."
Then he touched his audial. "The feed says," Prowl related, eyes unfocused, "that the 'cons have taken over the City Hall, and city government no longer exists." He rose from the desk, removed his Enforcer's insignia, threw it down, and said, "I'm leaving. Anyone who wants to come with me may do so."
Toolbar, Respond, Brightbolt, and Nexus stood. "Where are you going, sir?" said one of the newbies.
"South Gate; it's closest. I ... don't know where, after that." He eyed the old mech still sitting at the desk. "What will you do, Direct?"
"I'll be here, sir. I'm goin' to make the 'cons kill me," Direct said with simple pride. "'S all I've ever known how to do, 's be a Praxus Properties mech, sir, and I'm too dumb t'learn much of anything else. I don' think the 'cons need a Properties mech, sir, so I'll die protectin' Praxus."
"A good journey to the Well for you, then," Prowl said, and clasped forearms with the old mech. The others did the same, mumbling some form of "Best wishes for the short time you have left." Courage and common sense very often turn out to be an embarrassing combination.
The four younger ex-Enforcers set a meeting place and time, and left for their homes.
In the end, Prowl, who was there fifteen breem ahead of time, waited for them for a half-joor, then went on ahead alone.
He could not raise Leewind, Hardhead, any of his siblings, or Escalade by comm. He made the assumption that all six were dead, and that he was alone.
Along with the crushing grief, which Prowl simply allowed to wash through him, tears loosening as it went, Prowl felt a burst of liberation. He was no longer answerable to a family tradition, or to the expectations of a community, the Enforcers of Praxus, nor to a childhood friend. If he was alone, he was also, for the first time in his life, free.
He passed few Cybertronians, almost all of whom evaded eye contact, and left him in his solitude, tears flowing down his faceplates.
With the demise of city infrastructure, there were no gate guards, and he passed unhindered out onto the plains around Praxus.
Cybertronian cities are not like human cities; there are no surrounding suburbs. The city stops, and the wild begins, interrupted only by the highways that cross it. Prowl chose one that went west, transformed, set an easy pace, and dropped into a space wherein his processor ran, and he let it, without taking its shifting contents under scrutiny.
TWO DECAORN ORN LATER
Prowl onlined to various warnings of low fuel, and ignored them. He had had the foresight to withdraw his savings in cash before he left Praxus; there would be someone around here who would sell him enough to get to the next seller.
And then what?
He didn't, at the moment, know.
He carefully pulled out of the cave he had found to shelter in, and resumed his journey along a highway which was relatively unscathed by the war: no holes, no blown bridges, no potholes.
In a joor of easy travel, he found a farmhouse. It was small, the building's footprint on the ground tiny, and cramped-looking even from the outside.
It had never been painted. This was not a prosperous farmer's or rancher's spread; this was hardscrabble living.
Carefully, Prowl pulled into the yard, transforming. "Hello?" he shouted. "Anyone here?"
There was a sudden, and suddenly muffled, noise from the house.
Prowl sighed. Whichever of the armies had been through this area had left the inhabitants extremely skittish of a single unmarked mech. He found the energon well, took enough to get him another five hundred tek or so, and left some money on the porch.
The farther he got from Praxus, the more skittish they were. He had nearly offlined before he found someone to sell him energon once he got beyond a day's travel from the city; the first three places he had pulled into held armed mecha warning him off, and their femmes and eldest sparklings behind them, their own weapons charged.
He was now about halfway between the cities of Praxus and Simfur, both in ruins, the casualties of war. He thought to make a small town named Tineres before nightfall; there, he would turn north, and try for Iacon.
Maybe Tineres would have a spot for an Enforcer, or even just a need for a bouncer. Having to travel like this, so soon after he had gutted his savings for the processor upgrade, meant he was on short rations, and worried about making his dwindling supply of cash last. Whichever of the forces he met with first, he thought, he'd join up with, if he couldn't get a civilian job.
By the end of each day, he also had a processor ache. The medic's notes told him that it meant he was overdoing it physically, and to back off his level of exertion a bit.
With the next energon in doubt, though, he couldn't.
Inside his upgraded, overworked processor, new connections were forming. A few met the ethical component, and began to search for a way in.