Chapter 142
-0-Ops Center, Diego Garcia
"Oh frag," Ironhide said. "He's going to have to give them the nuts and bolts lecture." He grinned at Prime who was grinning as well in spite of himself.
"Or the spikes and valves lecture, the plug and play or hard jacking lecture, the spark merging lecture, the Allspark or budding or Vector Sigma or Creation Matrix lecture or the 'found it by the side of the road' lecture, or 'the high grade made me do it' lecture, or the 'is that how you do it? Really!' lecture," Prime said.
"How about the 'Ironhide is the mech!'lecture? He can speak to that one first hand," Ironhide said smiling smugly as he looked at his sparkling.
"I want to hear that one, too. Maybe he will use your 'face life as an example of how we 'do it'," Prime said chuckling at Ironhide as his face fell.
Ironhide looking up at the screen winced. "Better not."
"No 'sexy doctor and the mom van' stories? No 'Two Moons Over Cybertron'?"
"You read that one, too?" Ironhide asked glancing at him with a smirk.
"How could I not? I am the hero," Prime said smugly. "Ten foot prong and you on your hands and knees. Sounds about right to me."
Ironhide snorted. "I never did get on top in that one," he said. "I saw one that Ratchet's writing on the same website. It's actually called 'The Sexy Doctor and the Mom Van' and it has Bumblebee and Wheeljack together."
"Better not show it to Perceptor," Prime said. He grinned broadly. "Tell me more. If you dare."
"Well, Wheeljack 'got blowed up' or so Ratchet had me saying."
"Got blowed up." Prime laughed out loud. "That is funny."
"I thought so. Must be my delivery," Ironhide said with a smirk. "Anyway I'm too scared to go into the burning building where Wheeljack is and get him out so he does it himself and sends me to tell 'Jack's little missus, Bumblebee."
Prime chuckled. "This is getting better. More."
"I go get him in the Ark. Apparently we crashed or landed here or something. I don't know how that fits. But I get him in the Ark and he comes out with his chassis hanging between his knees he has so many sparklings in him."
"Oh Primus," Prime said laughing loudly. "Ratchet is deeply disturbed."
"You don't have to tell me. I know," Ironhide said. "Bee says he's coming and he sort of rattles himself into a yellow mini van and takes off driving about eighty inside the Ark. And the part that's funny is Ratchet says there's a sparkling staring out of every window."
Prime burst into laughter drawing the attention of everyone in the room. He glanced at Ironhide as he tried to stifle himself. "What happens next?"
"He drives off and I look at him like I'm going to purge. I say, "I may be a mom van but at least I have the decency to have tinted windows."
Prime looked at Ironhide a moment, then burst into laughter. He laughed for a moment or two then settled as the hearing was going to pick up again. "I want to read this when he is done. I hope I am in it."
"I'm sure you are," Ironhide said grinning with a bit of pride over his Only One's literary skills. "I'll make sure you get access."
Prime nodded the turned back to the hearings with a smile on his face.
-0-The hearings
"Senator, we don't talk about personal matters in public and outside the confines of our species. You're not the first to ask us this but you're also not the first to hear that we can't accommodate your request."
"You tell us you're a doctor," Thomas said. "Who better to discuss this topic than a doctor?"
"Logically, that's true," Ratchet said as he ignored a snarky internal comment from Prowl about logic and this particular Senator. Smiling slightly anyway, he continued. "One of the things you learn in extended conflict is that the less your enemy knows about you the more secure you are in the long run."
"Do you consider us the enemy?" Thomas asked glancing up sharply from his list of questions.
"No," Ratchet said. "But our regulations are in place because they work and have worked in other places where the 'other' was our enemy. We keep our privacy private in the matters and issues that are important to us and have no bearing on our ability to fight and support our allies. It should be enough that I'm sitting here talking to you as a sentient being who comes from a race that can reproduce itself and continue."
"We have our own ideas about such things. We believe that we come from God and that all life begins at conception. What I don't understand is how a machine can have infants."
"I'm not a machine," Ratchet said patiently. "I'm a being whose basis is mechanical, metallic as yours is organic. It is the way we developed in the conditions of our world, the same as you here. But I assure you I'm no more a machine than your computer is a Cybertronian. Your computer is a machine. It does what its told but it cannot formulate thoughts independent of a user. It cannot reproduce itself, it cannot feel and dream. All the sentience that you take for granted as an organic life form other species such as mine also possess. We're as alive and living as you are."
"But you're mechanical. How can you feel? If I touch you how can you feel that?" Thomas asked seriously.
Ratchet getting that he was serious answered gently. "You have nerve receptors in your body that tell you when you touch and feel. We have senors. They're as small and intricate, perhaps even more so than the organic ones you possess. I can smell with a greater degree of accuracy than a canine who possesses a capability one million times greater than you. I can see for miles and tell you intricate information about what I view. I can hear for great distances and have to constantly dial down my audial capacity to give others their privacy. All these things make me who I am. When you touch me I feel it."
"Yet you reproduce. That infant was a product of what?"
Ratchet considered his demeanor, his vocal inflection, the bodily functions of his glands and the temperature of his skin. He scanned him from head to toe, the lightest setting possible so the human wouldn't feel or see it. He got that Thomas had shifted to genuine interest and so he began. "That child as you call it, that sparkling is the end product of love the way that your own children were. That sparkling has genitors that wished for him and love him with the same pride and intensity as any human would their own babies. He's the product of a natural process that I cannot tell you about but it didn't require a workshop or any outside agency. He's not crafted or put together according to some blueprint anymore than you are. It didn't require anything more than longing and hope. Just as it does with anyone wanting a child of their own, he came about according to the natural processes of our species."
"You've said that you haven't seen an infant in literally eons. And now this sparkling is here," he began. "How did it come to you? Was it a refugee?"
"We're all refugees, Mr. Thomas. All of us," Ratchet said as the image of his little sparkling filled his processor. "Everyone one of us Autobots are refugees. That infant is a the child of a refugee and if meaning he's not on his home world now, then I guess he is as well. But he's so beloved and wanted and loved. I wish I could tell you how much it hurts us that our babies, our little ones are mocked and made fun of. They're our future and the best part of us. Its the same with you, is it not?"
Thomas looked at Ratchet considering him for a moment. "When you say that the Decepticons won't leave even if you do, is that correct?"
Ratchet nodded. "Yes, I'm correct. We've never seen them do otherwise over the course of a nine million year war. Not on Cybertron. Not anywhere else."
"You track them, you find them, you work with our soldiers?" he asked.
"We do," Ratchet said looking back at Lennox and Morshower. He looked back at Thomas. "You should be very proud of them. This foe is merciless and enormously beyond the capacity most of you have to fight them one-on-one. Yet they walk forward into the battle and make us all proud of them. They're our brothers-in-arms, Mr. Thomas. We love them."
Thomas nodded, then looked at his time. He then handed off the questioning to Weaver. "I believe I've used all my time, Mr. Chairman."
Weaver looking at him strangely, nodded. "Very well. I do believe that after my questions you'll be given time to sum up for us the reason we should continue to associate through treaties and other agreements with the Autobots, Mr. Ambassador."
Ratchet nodded as he gathered himself for Weaver.
-0-Ops Center, Autobot City, Mars
"This Weaver … he's a fragging aft head," Starscream said. His expression showed great distaste.
Magnus nodded. "I won't disagree."
"Ratchet will dispatch him," Starscream said assuredly. "Not like I would. He'd be a smoking hole in the ground if I were the Ambassador."
Magnus grinned slightly as he glanced at the Seeker. "I will pass that on to Prime."
"Good," Starscream said with a smirk as his gaze focused on the screen. "Please do."
-0-Ops Center, Diego Garcia
"Here it comes," Prime said.
"Ratchet will chop him into little tiny pieces," Red Alert said turning to glance at everyone there as he sat at Security with various jacks plugged into him. He never paused in his vigilance even then.
Prime smiled.
-0-The Hearing
"Mr. Ambassador, you've made a great show of your young people and your solidarity with our soldiers which I'll take at face value. I've had other reports about Autobot ill treatment of the soldiers in N.E.S.T.," Weaver began. He didn't get much farther before someone took umbrage at his remarks.
"HEY!" Will Lennox rose from his seat in the front row. "What are you talking about! I'm field ops commander of the soldiers and have a hand in every single soldier and their disposition on our team! If you have any proof to what you just said put it on the table!"
Ratchet and Prowl who were startled by the outburst looked at Lennox who was standing in the audience quivering with outrage next to General Morshower who looked to put it simply none too pleased himself.
Weaver gaveling fiercely shouted for them to sit. Ratchet turned back to raise his own objection. "You've made objections about the treatment you say soldiers receive in the N.E.S.T. garrison by the Autobots. Since Major Lennox is the field ops commander and General Morshower the overall mission commander in tandem with Optimus Prime, you're calling into question not only their professionalism but their personal integrity. I expected, Mr. Weaver, that you'd do that with us. But to vilify your own soldiers? What sort of patriot and all around military lover are you?"
It was quiet a moment. Then Ratchet continued. "Put the facts on the table or remove your statement and apologize to General Morshower and Major Lennox. I relieve you of the burden of apologizing to our soldiers. I know you won't."
"I stand by my statements." Weaver looked at Ratchet with rage filled eyes. "I don't retract a word."
The room murmured and there were boos here and there.
Then Ratchet leaned forward, too. "I'd like for Major Lennox and General Morshower to address your charges. Then I would add my own response to your remarks."
"No way," Weaver spit back.
"Then we can have our say on the steps outside. Rest assured, Mr. Weaver, your mocking and defamation of your country's best soldiers won't go unaddressed," Ratchet said quietly. "I promise you that."
Weaver glared at for a moment, his emotions clear on his face, then he leaned back. "Lennox can speak."
"Major Lennox," Ratchet corrected as his voice betrayed his anger. He looked at Lennox then nodded.
Will who glanced at Morshower walked down the aisle toward Ratchet and Prowl. He paused beside them, both of whom dwarfed him. He looked at the committee for a moment, then Weaver. "I'm Major Will Lennox who commands the Alpha Striker Teams that are garrisoned with the Autobots and who work and train with them to protect Earth against a terrible merciless enemy. I want to know what you're specifically talking about because I'll tell you now anything you have to say about bad treatment of my soldiers by either us or the Autobots is bullshit."
The room erupted.
-0-Ops Center, Diego Garcia
"I think I love me some Will Lennox," Ironhide said grinning at Prime.
"I would not have said it that way. That is why I am glad he is speaking and not me. I love me some Lennox, too," Prime said with a chuckle.
"I'll let him know," Ironhide replied with a snort.
"Please do," Prime replied.
-0-Ops Center, Autobot City, Mars
When the cheering all around the facility died down, Starscream smiled. "I like this organic. One out of seven billion. There's hope for them. Maybe."
Magnus snickered. Down deep in the places even he didn't go, it would have surprised Starscream how much Magnus agreed with him over that sentiment.
-0-The Hearing
When the cheering, stomping of feet and wild whooping died down, Weaver looked at Lennox. "That's conduct unbecoming to a soldier, Major."
"What would you know about soldiers? Have you ever served anything but yourself?" Will asked. His rage was unabated.
Thunderous applause erupted both here, other places all over Earth and at a city on Mars. Then it died down.
Lennox was enraged, his fists were balled and his body taut with unreleased violence. "We serve together with pride and with great personal admiration for each other as individuals and as professional soldiers. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't learn something new about my profession from the Autobots. They're my brothers and sisters."
The room erupted again and then subsided, the energy in the room nearly crackling amongst the participants and spectators.
Lennox swallowed hard, well aware that his career was a crap shoot now. "We've fought together in all kinds of conditions, against foes you can't imagine. I don't even want to think about what it would be like to fight the Decepticons without the Autobots. You can't find a better group of soldiers, a finer group of individuals, a braver group of fighting mechs, femmes and men than you will in N.E.S.T. through the Combined Forces. I'm proud to be their field commander. I wish you could know them. I wish you could see their bravery. They fight for all of us. They don't have to but they do. I admire them, I love them. I admire their leadership, Optimus Prime, Ironhide, all of them. Who the hell do you think you are, Weaver, to make anonymous unsubstantiated charges against them and against us?"
"I'm not talking about you, Major Lennox," Weaver began.
"When you talk about the Autobots, Weaver, you are talking about us. Either tell us what you are talking about specifically, tell us names, dates and places or pull your remarks. Now!"
The room was electric, a charged and emotional atmosphere as thick as a fog engulfed the everyone there and Weaver faced it alone. The allies on the committee were looking at him or their hands as none of them stepped up to help him.
Thomas, the Senator from Montana was shaking his head, then he leaned forward. "I would like to hear the charges, too. Details, Mr. Weaver, if you may."
A murmur of agreement flashed through the room as Weaver sat looking at everyone for a moment. Then he nodded. "I will then."
-0-Ops Center, Diego Garcia
"Here we go," Prime said.
"Anyone take a bet that its Hedges and Johnson?" Ironhide asked.
"Not on your spark," Prime said.
-0-Ops Center, Autobot City, Mars
"I'd like you to tell Prime, Magnus, that if he wants to rid himself of an annoying squishy I volunteer."
Magnus smiled. "You might have to stand in line, Starscream."
It was Starscream's turn to smile.