For a species whose entire lifespan was dictated by the clock, humans wasted copious amounts of time. It had been twelve minutes since they'd checked in with the front desk, announcing their arrival and the rendezvous with Commander Mike Metcalf of the United States Navy—twelve minutes, and thirteen seconds, to be precise.
She watched the perfectly symmetrical lineup of clocks over the front door of the base, marking important time zones across not only the continental US, but the globe. The corner of her mouth ticking up at the scarlet numerics, her lips press into a thin line as she considers her footwear—these people, here in San Diego, California, were even considered with time utilized in the far east, if the clock above the door is, in fact, as true at she thinks it is.
Time is nearly irrelevant to beings that have existed for millennia—or, it used to be.. Stars had lived and died in the amount of time she'd been online and functional, visiting worlds and watching the universe stretch its wings and breathe. Having tasted stars, and the atmosphere of new worlds, time is rarely as important as the keepers of it make it seem—the universe is not bothered with concepts of timetables. In some places she had seen, races she had touched, time is not even a construct.
And yet, time is what humanity spent its days counting. Time is what plagued her people. Prime spent his days, his nights, his waking moments, counting the constructs of time. Resenting every hour on terra firma, wishing for a home they hadn't seen in—years. So enamored with the idea of returning home to a void and barren world, he misses what is right in front of him.
A young people. Beautiful and kind and bright. Earth is among a handful of worlds she admires, its species among some of the most lovely. They are a genuine race, all so different but so very much the same, that come in varying sizes, shapes, colors, and cultures. Rarely did she encounter worlds that harbored so many different species—organic worlds were so few and far between, it seemed—but even rarer still were the worlds that left her speechless, humbled, and breathless.
Not that Cybertronians breathed atmospherically, of course—-
"Something amusing, Commander?"
Her processor jars to a halt for a moment at the question, and she flexes the human hand at her side before crossing her leg over her knee, a common pose for seated human females. Cupping hands over her knees, her head cants to the side a little studying the lithe fingers, every knuckle. The human hand has twenty-seven bones, she recalls, which is fascinating—all of them are so delicate, so intricately beautiful.
Drumming fingers over her knee, her gaze triggers to the man seated next to her. Agent Clancy Burke hasn't broken his fascination with the paperwork currently balanced on his knee, a series of files, manilla folders, binders and dossiers, all nearly forming a small counting that he'd carted all the way from the east coast. He hadn't stopped organizing or digesting information since they'd boarded the plane here. She'd been mildly concerned for this man's mental capacity multiple times throughout her association with him, sure, but—he'd been positively wolfish with this visit to San Diego.
This isn't the first time Miramar has welcomed the Joe program to its doors—and it isn't likely to be the last, in all honesty. But, Andromeda liked to live her moments on this planet one klik at a time. Any more of that becomes difficult to think past, to digest. Which may be part of the Prime's problem, thinking far too many steps ahead than what fate allows. So often we miss what is in front of us thinking ahead, when matters of the moment demand far more attention.
She isn't so much interested in this crop at Top Gun—there are fine candidates, yes. But she isn't looking for pilots, not today. Well, to some degree, yes—the new avionics Joe has been developing will eventually need piloting. But, today, Andromeda's looking for leaders. Men she can trust, men who take charge and have been in the trenches of combat. That know their way around a challenge, and an enemy. Men who, eventually, can take to the skies and spearhead Joe's aviation in ways the United States Navy, Air Force, and space programs may never dream.
This current class hasn't interested her. Not the class but the instructors—Pete Mitchell, known colloquially as "Maverick," and Tom Kazansky, "Iceman." Both with confirmed kills, active air combat, and commendations the likes this program has not seen in nearly a decade. Calm under pressure, both quick thinkers, their records far preceded them—she'd barely had to tap into the network at the Pentagon to pull information on these two.
They did things in the skies this world had only ever hoped for. Quite the pair, indeed.
In 1986 they'd both been logged in combat. Both of them had earned kills. They'd been recognized and promoted accordingly—and they both were teaching this year at Top Gun, after bouncing around the coastal fleets on missions and assignments. Kazansky had been deployed no less than a dozen times, Maverick not far behind him. Both of them were climbing the ladder, gaining the right attention.
Both of them were exactly the kind of men her program needed.
Clancy nudges her with his arm, pen between his fingers as he still doesn't break eye contact with the dossier open on his lap, "You think these guys could get it together," he shakes his head, "I thought these guys were taught to scram jets under sixty seconds?"
Chuckling, his point is noted. "Easy, Agent Burke," she reaches over and flicks his knee with a delicate finger, "we've only been here thirteen minutes." Checking the tactical watch on her wrist, she matches the time with the overhead clock, "I'm sure Commander Metcalf will summon us at the first opportune moment." Unlikely, since she knows Mike's kind, but she's hardly one to press. Right now, anyway–not when it's only been thirteen minutes and thirty three seconds. She has more patience than this.
He snorts. "You have too much faith in people,"
"Do I?" She really knows the answer to this question, of course, but when Clancy's eyes finally break from the paperwork to cut over to her, she smiles at him thinly, "Or maybe you don't have enough in your own kind, Clancy."
"Not much to have faith in these days, ma'am—otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation, in this base, right now," he nearly mumbles before she chuckles and rolls her eyes, watching him return to his paperwork. Flipping a piece of paper, his eyes scan it, Andromeda nearly watching the gears in his mind spin with the effort.
He isn't exactly wrong, but his position is far too much like the Prime's—despondent. Seven years on this planet had taught her much about the human race, and her own people, lessons she is not quick to forget. Cybertron's war had fated them to this corner of the galaxy, a fact that Optimus readily forgot, or chose to ignore. There are lessons this planet has to teach, there is a chance to make different decisions and influence a young, hopeful, abundant population.
A pang of sorrow hits her sparkchamber, twisting and binding the energy in chest in ways that she doesn't appreciate. Gaze shifting to her foot, which hangs in the air as her leg drapes over her knee, she tries not to think of Optimus—she tries to forget how they'd left things. Largely unsaid, mostly cold, they hadn't shared ideals before he'd ordered them into hiding.
"Understanding and acceptance are very different things altogether."
He didn't understand. Anything, really. Anything about and it's beauties, anything about her. And, he probably wouldn't—the affections of one femme among a thousand other soldiers were hardly a priority when attempting to repair a broken planet. That she knew, could understand. It was reasonable.
But other things he'd said, other things they'd shared—-well. Things of the past cannot be undone.
Which is why she looked to the future.
Heaving a heavy breath, she tries not to remember the innumerable years of wearing the emblazoned brand of Autobot, how much her position in this war had cost her. Most of those memories she archived from her processor, chose not to open. It was too painful. Optimus' lack of empathy, his lack of reasonable understanding, was still a flay in her nervous system she hadn't readily repaired.
"Commander Savage?"
It takes her seconds to register the name that breaks the air between them. Then, gaze flicking over the woman currently dressed in standard Naval administration uniform, her leg snaps off her knee and she stands briskly, smoothing human hands over the front of her pants suit.
Approaching the woman, she offers a hand. "Commander Savage, it's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am,"
It is such a foreign title, hearing it from humans. She hated being addressed at rank by humanity, it felt cold and strange—she hadn't been formally addressed by rank and title for seven years, by her own people. It felt fickle and pointless, among humans. She wasn't a soldier of Earth. Not formally.
Mira Savage, an alias—her alia. A name among many. It wasn't the first identity she'd assumed over her lifecycle and it will not be her last, of course. Pretenders are designed for such things, that is her purpose, her function. To assume. To creates lives, to become. It had been her function in the war, on Cybertron, before the days of Megatron and cataclysmic destruction.
Once, she'd been a guest of cultures. A student of new life and opportunity. Pretender was never meant to deceive, her function was always meant to learn. But like all bots in the last glittering days of Cybertron's wealth and prosperity, her function had transformed. Countless aliases, innumerable identities lay dormant in the banks of her processor, unaccessed but not forgotten.
They become a part of you, and they take a little more. Pretends never truly leave the bot who assumes them, they just—hide.
And Mira Savage will be no different.
Mira Savage, former Commander of the United States Navy. Current Director of Ground Infantry Joe. Autobot. Pretender. Human, female. Semi organic, wholly Cybertronian. Alien, visitor, inhabitant.
"Mira, please," she gives her a placant, pleasant smile when the woman's face twists into one of first horror, then confusion, "I'm not a Commander anymore, Petty Officer," she immediately notes the woman's rank and addresses her as such, knowing the formality demanded for the US military, "you may call me Mira, or Director Savage, if you so choose."
"Aye aye, ma'am," she drops her hand all too quickly, not looking convinced, "Commander Metcalf will see you. If you'll follow me," looking beyond her, she nods to Clancy politely.
"This way, Director."
XxxX
What the hell—?
The thing is heavy as his gloved fingers brush the particles of sand clinging to the effigy. Buried for no less than a thousand years, the thing is flawless—beautiful, even. One of the most stunning finds he's ever pulled from the Earth, perhaps ever seen, in the field.
Sand kicks up around his knee pads, kneecaps burning with what's equal pain from kneeling in the rough sand all week and also heat. This fuckin' desert. It was brutal, somehow in ways he doesn't remember from others of his digs. Sweat has nearly seeped through the band of his wide-brim, stings his eyes—there's nothing to mop it. His shirt, his vest, even his sleeves are so damp that he's nearly swimming in a river of his own perspiration.
Blinking rapidly, he tries staring through the burning of sweat in his eyes down at the piece in his hands. His fingers skip over the crude insignia carved into the effigy, a symbol he, in nearly thirty years of study around the world, has never seen. His brow furrows confusedly as he tries to perhaps place what part of the globe this could come from—it isn't hieroglyphic. Not even close. It doesn't even appear to be language, though the markings beneath it could be.
So fuckin' odd—
"Hey Jones, you finished with that yet? We're loading the truck here shortly. If that's going stateside it needs tagged with docs before it flies!" It takes herculean willpower not to roll his eyes at the nagging information that seems to drip from the rim of the dune, him nearly squinting to see the man talking down to him, hands rimming his mouth like some makeshift megaphone.
But, ultimately, the man is right—it isn't his job to figure it out. At least, not here. There's people that do that. He's one of them, but not out here, in the dirt and heat, without resources. And it's hardly anything noteworthy, hardly anything that will hold his interest more than a few days—though, if he's right, and this isn't something readily discovered, it'll be a fine presentation. Probably get a feature or make a great journalistic study.
Rocking back on his legs, he waves over his head, nodding. "Yeah, I'm comin'," he calls up the dune, forcing his legs upright. Knees popping, he feels the small river of sweat slip down his spine from where it's gathered between his shoulders, wetting the waistband of his pants.
Swiping the hat from his head, he uses it to mop his dripping brow, pulling the effigy into the crook of his arm. Glancing down at it it again, he situates his hat, brow knitting together at the creature's face, staring hollowly at him like it's some grave sin, removing it from its home in the sand. It's disarming, for a minute. His heart skips behind his ribs, but he doesn't know why.
Making his way back up the dune, he tries not to feel like this could be the discovery of the year. The decade. He's unsure why—it's hardly anything amazing. An effigy of what he thinks could be Horus, with some kind of odd carving in a language he isn't privy too. But, archeology sometimes did that—presented seemingly everyday things already known to most of the world in new, exciting, thrilling ways. Trying to dismiss it, concreting in his mind that this is Horus.
Yes.
Definitely Horus.
Though, as he climbs back up the dune, he can't quite shake the gut feeling that this could something more, something different—something very different, indeed.
TheGhostWriter710, thanks for your review! Appreciate you, man!