The Diego Diaries: Chaos (dd3 62)
-0-The next day
"This would go faster if we carried them."
"They can walk, Ironhide. It's about time these slaggers earned their keep."
They walked along the sidewalk, two tiny bots on leashes wandering along behind. Stopping for every new rock, every passing person, every whim that crossed their processor, the entire group was going at a very slow rate. The sun beat down and it was a balmy 20 degrees above zero. The streets were filled with mechs and the odd femme as 100,000 plus newbies made their way around town.
The atmosphere of the city was electric. The airfield was busy. The line for The Paint Box was out to the street. The shifts would change in a short time so they hurried as fast as very tiny short legs could manage to go.
"You sure we can't carry them, Ratchet?"
"Nope. Make them work for it, Ironhide."
They ambled along toward the schools with grins.
The sparklings themselves had no comment.
-0-At the Residence
They stood in the bedroom, Prowl delegating sparklings to teacher aides that had come to help with the baby care. When they were delegated out, he led them to the dining room where they sat at the table and fed the infants from bottles. After a moment of fuss, the infants took to the bottles with gusto.
The little mechs sat at the table eating their breakfast silently, watching as babies overtook their home. Miracle sat on the table, his own sippy cup up as he drank his breakfast. He was in hog heaven, the oldest sparkling in the room. Prowl worked to care for everyone even as he organized the meeting that would happen shortly. Prime was in his office going through the over night data dump.
"Ada?"
"What, Spirit."
"Do we get to keep these sparklings?"
Prowl . "No, son. We're babysitting them. Their families want them back. We just have to help them until their families come for them."
"Okay," the little mech said.
Prowl vented a soft sigh. "There are families that are very afraid for their sparklings. We have to take very good care of them until they come back."
"They will?" T-Bar asked.
"We plan on it," Prowl said.
He meant it.
-0-At the Ops Center Conference Room
They gathered, all of the many leaders of the many different departments and constituent groups. The overnight expansion of the city was fortuitous and challenging. They housed the newcomers easily but the sorting out of everything else would take time. With every migration, new specialties, skills and workers arrived to make things easier, the possibilities vaster and the life of all better. They would discuss the new potential at the meeting. Leadership and representatives of all the many and ever growing constituent groups, professions, professional organizations, and departments sat waiting as they watched the High Command walk toward them through Ops Center.
Prowl, Prime, Ironhide, and Ratchet entered to take their places. Ironhide carried Hero and Prowl carried the tiniest little mech, name unknown. Everyone stared at him with curiosity but for Jazz, Mirage, Nova, and Herling. They were told the story already. "Where did you purloin that sparkling, Prowl?" Neo asked with a grin.
Prowl looked at it then the others. "When we were out there we backed Overlord off. Before he pulled back, he threw six things into space. They out to be sparklings."
The temperature of the room plunged to the equivalent of vacuum. For a moment no one spoke. Then Neo flinched and rose slowly to her peds. "What?" she asked in shock.
Prowl looked at her. "They threw six babies into vacuum and left. Starscream," he said looking at the grave appearing Seeker at the end of the table, "flew with others to retrieve them."
She sat down slowly, shock in every inch of her format. "That's ... I have no words."
They looked at the Seeker and he nodded. "Overlord is mine," he said quietly.
Blackjack and Alor shifted uneasily. "What the frag?" Blackjack said. "That slagging fragger."
Prowl nodded. "We're keeping them together at the Residence. We plan on returning them to their families as well," he said with defiance.
Miler looked at his son. "May I?" he asked. Prowl gently passed him over. Miler cuddled the infant. "We'll retrieve the others. There are many I'm told. I know we will succeed."
Prime nodded. "I intend to make it so. We have a lot of things to do to make it happen. Soundwave will be a part of that. What I need is everyone in this room to raise their right servo." They looked at him and complied. "Swear on the Matrix that whatever we discuss stays among us and is not to be known by others without my permission." They all nodded and gave their assent. He leaned back. "Thank you. I would not normally take this step but we have a number of civilians among us and discipline of message and behavior have different norms in the civilian world than the military."
"What would you have us do, Optimus?" Magnus asked.
"There is much to do and I am still formulating this for a plan of action. What I want to do is understand our situation here before showing you what I plan to do about both Overlord and our missing people. But make no mistake," he said sitting forward, the full bearing of his dignity as a mech and as a Matrix bearer evident to all. "We will get them back and remove the threat on our borders." He sat back. "Prowl?"
The tense winger took the agenda that had been compiled under his direction by Jazz. "Thank you, Jazz for putting this together. Our first order of business is an overview by Magnus." He sat back and relaxed. Magnus looked at him a moment. "You can call on anyone of us, Prowl. We will help with the babies."
"I know. Thank you," Prowl said. "I will remember that."
Magnus nodded. He looked at his own datapad. "We're still compiling data but the overall population is about 422,310 overall. We have more than 1,200 new Seekers and over 3,100 soldiers or mechs and femmes who've been soldiers once. There are 800 or so Circle of Light members and 56 Knights of Cybertron among the mix. They've identified themselves and have been shown where they can find others in their particular groups. There are mechs that have specialties that are essential, especially in communications and defense. There are a number of artistic individuals, some of whom are preserving their skills as the last practitioners. I highly recommend that they have a chance to teach and train others."
Everyone nodded. "Send me the list as you go, Magnus. We'll see them and get something started," Herling said.
"I shall," Magnus said studying his datapad. "We have over 2,000 younglings and sparklings to educate. We'll be opening a tower for just that in the satellite habitation area that we're working on now, Herling. We need to have your input or do you want us to follow the plans we already have?"
Herling considered that. "I would like to have you meet with our education committee, Magnus. I want the teacher representatives there as well as you and the other genitors, Ironhide. They can give insight into any tweaks that might be necessary."
Magnus nodded. "Tell Blondi when and I'll pencil it in," he said. "We have thousands of ships that are being assessed and taken care of. The depot on Ceres is a godsend. We've built as you know facilities there to deconstruct ships, denature toxic materials, smelt a lot of the more specialized and rare materials into reusable ingots, and prepare ships to be sent back for refit or total destruction. The energon depot that just opened there is extremely helpful as a refueling station as well as the new housing for those on shift or passing through. All in all, it's a very great thing and I suggest that you visit when you can to see what they've done. It's a great asset to our situation."
Prime nodded. "Please give my regards to those involved." He glanced at Jetta who was sitting next to Elita. "I am assuming you helped shovel the foundations?" He grinned and Jetta did, too.
"You can assume that," the handsome black and red bot said.
"Our housing situation is holding strongly," Magnus said continuing. "We have accommodated the new arrivals with 42,000 apartments awaiting occupancy. The new habitat area will be residential housing for up to 200,000 new families. Our workforce has been enhanced by skilled workers as well as those who are artistic designers. Given enough time, we can absorb 100,000 new refugees once every nine decaorns without straining resources too heavily. The need for skills such as teachers and other specialists, however, has to be addressed. We received only 30 educational specialists according to the data this time."
They looked at Herling. "We're graduating 15 new teachers every twelve decaorns. They're immediately mentored with our master teachers to help them become confident and skilled. I would like you to know that Terradive and Roto have finished the master-mentor teacher accreditation programs and they're at the peak of the process in our system. They're invaluable as mentors."
"They're invaluable as teachers," Ironhide added as everyone nodded in agreement. "Mechs are heroes in my book."
"Teaching Orion requires hazardous duty pay," Ratchet said with a chuckle.
Herling laughed as the mechs nodded in agreement.
"I will have you know mech and little mech walk to school everyday and Orion can paddle in the pool," Ironhide said with affronted pride and such.
"Awesome," Jazz said with a grin. "Orion floats better than you."
Agreement including Ironhide's ensued.
"Right now," Magnus said strenuously steering them back on track, "we are good, Optimus. We can handle the physical placement of the population and provide work for everyone with much left over. We are on track as per City Plan 3.2 of the Master Plan."
"Good," Optimus said with relief. "What about the refugees, Ratchet?"
Ratchet glanced at his datapad. "Less illness over all than most. Most of this group didn't come as far nor were they as badly off as the others. There were some mental cases that are in Jarro's servos," he said glancing at his colleague. Jarro nodded. "Mostly post stress and some having difficulty leaving the only place they found as safe after The Fall and Great Exodus. These are very established colonies in this group. They're being treated. Some were hospitalized due to hallucinations and behavior that seemed to be leading to self injury. They're in custody in the Mental Health Department of the Medical Tower. I'm expecting progress from most of them in the short term and a couple in the long. We're doing outreach among the newbies to show them options for any problems of adjustment or grief related to leaving their life behind. We are also going to be evaluating the infants and younglings to make sure they're not overlooked. We also have a small group of elderly who are suffering because the migrations so far haven't returned family they miss. It's in servo, Optimus."
Ratchet nodded. "Right now, we have the usual bumps and boo-boos. We also have a long list of surgeries for the newbies that are going to be performed by the doctors and medics in Medical. We also have a number of doctors and medics training in the schools that will assist. Gypsy told me that we have 120 sparked mechs and three femmes that are in varying stages on the timeline. The protoform department in Specialty Fabrications-Medical will take the orders and create the necessary formats for the sparklings. All in all, they were healthy and lucky. The five 'Cons we captured weren't so much. All of them are in a critical condition in the ICU. They were completely transfused to eliminate the dark energon contamination but that isn't completely clear yet. That stuff is something that can linger. We will have to see. The fifteen mechs who defected with the first two are in good condition and champing on the bit to be free. Nothing too bad. Almost no sign of protoform wasting either. Huzzah." He sat back and grinned at his daughter. She looked back at him with a serious expression. It was vintage Ironhide.
"That's good news, Ratchet. Thank you. Please convey my regards to your department," Prime said nodding. He looked at Jazz. "What do we know, Jazz?"
He leaned forward. "I talked again to Hardtime and Coldspray. They were afraid because of the sparkling incident that they wouldn't be allowed to stay here so they didn't bring it up to me. I informed them of the error of their ways. They told me that Overlord would be low on energon and would likely use the refugees as slave labor to build a base of operation in the asteroids and planetoids nearby the migration lane. They would dig in and do their usual mayhem from there."
Prime nodded. "I imagined they would," he said quietly. He glanced at Starscream. "What is the status of the energon removal in that sector, Starscream?"
The big Seeker shook his helm. "We haven't reached that sector yet, Prime. The debris field shifts and we've been gathering it in plotted waves to make sure that if any energon is found it would be found out there and not closer to us. We work around the clock but have not been able to expand into that territory yet." He a moment. "That gives the slagger energy."
Prime nodded. "It does," he said quietly.
-0-TBC 2012 (10) edited 8-16-18