NOTE: Those who celebrate this time of year holidays such as Christmas (or not), I wish you the most tremendously happy days. This is the third Christmas Surprise of this story and it will be posted in part tonight with hilarity to follow over several pieces. I wish I could tell you how much I love you and how glad I am that you are here for the ride. Take care out there in the big world and know that someone in the snowy north lands loves you. -Me.
-0-And not back to the story at hand
The Diego Diaries: Shock 2: The Orn Before Christmas Surprise
-0-In the High Council Chamber
Prime stood in his pool of light, his gaze level and unflinching. Shockwave looked at Prime and noted a number of differences from the last time he had seen the big bot. He wore markings of office that he hadn't seen on a Prime since the fall of Cybertron. They were the tattoos that gave honor to the city-states and colony worlds under his rule, small silver etchings that ran down his left arm. His paint scheme was flawless, the result of a lack of conflict. That meant that the war had not marred him in a long time. How long had he been in stasis Shockwave considered as he continued to take in the scene.
The chamber looked identical to the way it once was before he saw it in rubble. The banners hung where they belonged, Cybertron, the Primes, the city-states in smaller form at a lower altitude around the great hall. He noted them too.
The benches that ran along the wall where petitioners and others sat to wait their turn were there on both sides of the massive space. Sitting above the fray, the Councilors looked down on him, their faces revealing nothing. He saw them all and they looked unchanged, flawless in their presentation as well. Neo, the only femme on the Council, Gravitas, Templar and Vraz. They were there looking down on him, evaluating him somehow. Kudon was missing but Eronus was there and in Kudon's place sat the implacable, indefatigable Alpha Trion.
He was glad at that moment that his facial features were minimal. It was easier to hide his hand when no one could find tells. The atmosphere was as intimidating as he remembered, though he had no idea that the councilors and the Museum's historian had recreated the chamber to be so orns before in meticulous time consuming planning sessions.
It was flawless.
Shockwave turned to look at Prime again. "What is this, Prime?" he asked in his strange voice.
"Don't you remember?" Prime asked quietly.
He considered that, then asked the pertinent question. "I was in stasis lock. I am not now. How long?"
The room was tense, funereal and Prime held all the cards. He seemed to consider that question, then he answered. "It has been 47 vorns, Shockwave."
It hit him like a fist but it didn't register on his exterior. 4,042 years in stasis. That changed the game completely. He was without a clue, without any leverage, without a starting point or reference. He was Prime's prisoner in a situation that appeared to be impossible. He needed more information. "Where is this?"
Prime stepped to the edge of his platform, the angle of the light giving him shadows that appeared menacing. "Don't you recognize this place?"
"The High Council Chamber. I see the Council of Ancients and Alpha Trion. I recognize General Blackjack and Ratchet. I am assuming you wish me to believe this is Cybertron and all that was broken is fixed."
"I don't intend for you to believe anything, Shockwave. Nothing about you matters to me or anyone else. You are our prisoner as you have been for 47 vorns. A lot has transpired in that time and you are just an anachronism, a piece of unfinished business."
"What about Megatron?" Shockwave asked.
"He's next," Prime said icily. "When you are disposed of, then its his turn. There is no place for you or him in the new Cybertron. We have worked too hard to defeat you and rebuild this planet to risk the returning millions on your continuation."
Shockwave considered that, then he shifted uneasily, his first tell. "I assume you have ended the war."
Prime nodded. "We have. You lost."
It was silent a moment. "What now?"
"It is time for you to stand trial for the crimes of the Decepticon Army."
"Me?" Shockwave asked.
Prime nodded. "There are so few left that can pay for the totality of the crimes your faction committed that you have been delegated that honor."
"I heard Starscream and Thundercracker," Shockwave interjected, his voice edged with tension.
His second tell.
"They defected vorns ago along with the Seekerkin but you know that," Prime said quietly.
Shockwave considered that, the insane death order that Megatron had put on the Seekers, the chaos when they began to leave. Prime was right about that. "They committed crimes themselves, Prime."
"They recanted their allegiance and we gave them shelter. They have redeemed themselves and helped us destroy the Decepticons." He looked to the side of the room and nodded to a figure who stood regally, turning to stare at Shockwave. He walked with dignity to another platform on the floor, one that lit up from overhead when he stepped upon it. It was Silverclaw, Elder of the Seekerkin, Chieftain of the Mountain Clan near Vos and evidently an ally of the Prime. He looked at Shockwave, every fiber of his massive form brilliantly displayed. His staff, taller than him by two feet bore the markings of status and privilege he had earned in a lifetime of honor and service to his people. He looked at Shockwave, then spoke. "Shockwave, you know who I am."
Shockwave took him in a moment, then nodded. "Silverclaw, Lord of the Sky."
Silverclaw looked at him, then walked to the edge of his raised platform, the overhead light making him almost terrible in his affect. He was luminously beautiful, his emerald green and iridescent blue coloration almost shimmering in the light. "You are here to answer for your crimes, Shockwave, including the near genocide of my people."
"It wasn't my order," Shockwave said.
"You are one of the two remaining to stand for these actions. You could have rescinded the order but you didn't. You supported Megatron as he waged his campaign against my people. You allowed him to hunt trines, kill hatchlings and drive us into near extinction. Only the wisdom and mercy of the Prime saved us. We served him to defeat you and we did. Now you pay for what you did to us, to Cybertron, to all of our people everywhere."
"It was Megatron's order. He was always in charge."
"You will have to do better than blaming others, Shockwave, to save yourself. We are restored. Cybertron is restored. Our people fly the skies and live here in dignity, with opportunity. We defeated you and now is the time to pay," he said, his deeply masculine voice echoing in the silent chamber.
Shockwave glanced at Prime. "Megatron ran the Decepticons and anyone who disagreed was purged. I had no say in his policies."
"You didn't step in to save our people when he went missing You had the power and you didn't use it. You would have allowed the Seekers to disappear. Blaming Megatron isn't enough to spare you a reckoning long overdue, Shockwave," Prime said.
"For those of us who suffered, there are more missing. Where are they, Shockwave? Where are our people? Where did you put them?" he said pointing his staff at the big mechanism. "If you can't tell us where our people are, it is better for you to die than to continue living. At least we get the solace of knowing you are no more."
He glanced from Silverclaw to Prime. "What makes you think I know?"
"LIAR!"
He looked back at Silverclaw, noting that General Blackjack stepped out of the shadows to interdict if necessary. "You accuse the wrong person, Silverclaw."
"No. You know where all the camps were. Where all the dispersals of our people went. You need to tell and mitigate your sentence before they condemn you out of servo," Silverclaw said.
Shockwave looked at Prime. "Is that what this is? A trial and sentencing?"
Prime stared at him without expression. No one said a thing. Shockwave looked up at the six figures staring down at him without expression either. "What say you?"
No one spoke, the echo of Shockwave's voice filling the space before fading, a feature that the original on Cybertron had as well. It was as unnerving here as it was there. "Alpha Trion, you are here."
That bot leaned slightly forward staring down below at Shockwave. "So it would appear."
"I heard you were dead. All of you were dead," Shockwave said.
"It would appear that you are wrong. We are all here but Kudon. Chalk that one up to your side," Alpha said lying.
Shockwave considered that, then turned to face them. "You are here to condemn me."
"It is in your servos, Shockwave. So far, you give us nothing to pardon you for," Alpha said.
"What does the Quill say? Does it say I must die? Or is there another path?" Shockwave asked.
Alpha appeared to think, then he shook his helm. "There is no path beyond this one, Shockwave. It would appear that you didn't succeed in gaining clemency. You took your secrets to the grave."
Shockwave looked at him, parsing the syllables in his increasingly worried processor. "You would lie for Prime."
"I might but the Quill is indifferent. It merely writes what is to be without choosing sides," he said. "Take it for what it is. I see no path beyond this one unless you make it so."
It was as silent as a tomb in the room.
-0-In the booth
Starscream and Thundercracker watched side-to-side as the drama played out. It was an audacious scheme by Prime, one that Starscream was awash in admiration over. :This is magnificent:
Thundercracker pulled Starscream closer into his arm and nodded. :It is no wonder now that Megatron has never defeated Prime:
:No, it is not: Starscream said with a smirk.
-0-Inside the room
Ratchet watched with great tension as the drama unfolded. It was clear that Shockwave had been thrown for a loop over the situation. Now they had to convince him that his best interests lay in giving up what he knew for the greater good.
Ha!
Shockwave never cared for the greater good, not in any normal way, he thought. His idea of that was to enslave the population and experiment to make them 'better'. Right now, he wanted to take an ax handle to the big mech. Ratchet considered his conversations over the course of Shockwave's incarceration about how to retrieve his information.
"Why can't we go into his databanks and take what we need to know, Ratchet?" Jazz had asked one night as the senior officers sat in a conference room in Ops Center working out a problem.
"For any other mech I could, Jazz, but we're talking Shockwave here," Ratchet had begun. "He's designed differently and a lot of his personal structure was adapted and implemented by himself. I had a conversation once with a doctor who had added modifications that Shockwave made himself. He is designed to purge his data if anyone tries to take it. He is mined by security technology. He won't blow up but his data files will. Everything he possesses goes up in smoke if anyone tries to enter him with that purpose in mind."
"There has to be a way," Jazz persisted.
Ratchet turned to a computer and threw Shockwave's specs gathered during his incarceration before stasis up on a monitor. He tapped a number of keys and red lights began to blink. "These are his fail safes. This is the security system that he devised to ensure that what he knows no one else will ever divine without his permission. He's probably infallible that way. Unless we can find a way to tap into him without pulling the trigger, all will be lost. The only way we will ever know what he knows is if he tells us himself."
Perceptor nodded. "That's right, Ratchet."
"He's slagging diabolical," Wheeljack said.
Ratchet watched Shockwave do the math and wondered what Micca and Jarro were thinking in the control booth.
-0-In the booth
They sat at a station one reading the sensor data and the other watching the big mechanism react. It was a difficult thing to read an outwardly blank individual like Shockwave. He was designed to be opaque. But the tells were there. He was nervous, coming to an understanding about his lack of options and under the belief that what he saw was actually real, not a nightmare of his stasis fueled none state of being.
They were winning.
-0-Inside
Prime watched him, this enemy of enemies and waited as the others poked holes in his hope. Silverclaw turned to go, then paused. "You will not walk out of here alive if you keep your secrets, murderer. My people will not allow it. Either talk or we will have you. Our petition is already in the hands of the Council." He turned and walked back into the shadows.
Shockwave watched him go then turned to Prime. "You would hand me over to them?"
"I have no say in this matter, Shockwave. You should know that. I am only the Prime. The matters of treason and traitors are in the servos of the Council."
He looked up at the six impassive faces. "I am to assume you have no mercy for me? That you will grant the Seeker's petition?"
Neo looked down at him, this demon of her nightmares and leaned slightly forward. "Why should you assume from us what you never gave to others?" It was silent a moment. "Give us a reason for mercy. Tell us where our missing people are or your fate is written by your own servo." She sat back, her imperious expression so famous on Cybertron, so missing on Mars back firmly in place.
Prime stood quietly as they all did waiting for Shockwave to come to a conclusion. It was a terrible hope that filled Optimus, that the effort of all involved would pay off in information. Shockwave would know. He knew everything. He was in his own way as bad if not worse than Soundwave in the amount and kinds of information he possessed. It had to work but if it didn't they tried their best. As he watched, it was with a very great hope in his spark that he could put Shockwave back in his stasis pod again while bearing away to good service all that the beast knew.
Shockwave turned slowly taking in the entire chamber. It was flawless, the combined efforts of IntraComm, the University Film and Art departments, the history department of the University and Museum and the entire collective memory of the surviving councilors, Alpha Trion and the senior Autobots including Alor, Blackjack and Ratchet. He himself had added his small part but the effort was citywide including the unions and guilds who had worked orn and night to make this copy of a dreaded unloved place on their home world. It was made to pass muster and as Shockwave turned slowly, Prime became slowly aware that it did.
Shockwave on the other servo wouldn't know about any of that. The level of skill rendered here was flawless. The war of his processor against what he saw was ferocious. It was just the way they intended. He looked at it carefully, age evident to his optics in the building itself, touches that he remembered that marked it as genuine clearly in place. He knew that the mechs and femme sitting in judgment over him were genuine. He had seen them enough to know. They were supposed to be dead. Starscream was supposed to have killed them when he tried to move Cybertron.
Starscream.
That bot was here along with his trine. They were here and he was a prisoner whose reckoning had obviously come. Starscream would live and he would die. It rankled inside, burning hotly and as he turned back to Prime he made his processor up. "You would let Starscream live and kill me."
Prime nodded. "He has worth," Prime said coolly.
Shockwave took in this new version of the old Prime. "And if I give you what you seek, what then?"
"You have to give us a reason to let you live. So far, you haven't," Prime said shrugging.
"I have the data you seek. I would trade it for my life," Shockwave said.
A wave of revulsion spread through the room in the downturn of auras of the mechs and femmes inside. Prime felt it but he pushed it aside. "You would have to download all that you possess for us to evaluate before we would consider granting clemency for you. I would have to be convinced because it would take a Prime petition for a criminal of your offenses to be considered."
"I would give you what you want," Shockwave retorted. "That would be all you would require to find what you seek."
"I would be the judge of what we require. You have no chips to bargain. You know what this is. You were tried and found guilty in absentia. Your life is forfeit."
"I was in stasis on your colony world. What do you mean?" Shockwave said.
"Megatron retrieved you. Many, too many died. In the battle you slipped away, carried off in your pod. He never let you out of it," Prime said with a slight smirk. "We found you still in it on Megatron's last ship."
Shockwave took that in, shifting in surprise as he mulled it over. "He wouldn't ..." Shockwave was silent, standing completely still. "He is here. I wish to speak to him."
"You have no latitude to ask for anything," Gravitas said, his sonorous voice filling the room. "You are a criminal without conscious. You will either comply with the demands of this court or die."
Shockwave looked up at the councilor that he hated almost as much as Kudon. "You would give my petition no accord if I did."
"I would give you no accord, Shockwave," Gravitas said, his voice an acid bath. "The Prime, I will give everything."
Prime looked from Gravitas to Shockwave. "War changes all things. Your life is in your servos. It now falls to you to choose the path you will take. The one with hope made by your servo or the one that even the Quill will not write for you."
Shockwave stood impaled on the dilemma that was before him. He remembered a story that he had found while rummaging through the worldwide web. It was a story of a man thrown into an arena for the sport of others. He was given a choice of two doors. Behind one was a beautiful woman and freedom. Behind the other was a ravenous tiger who would devour him on the spot. He faced that dilemma now. Behind one choice was death. Behind the other was relative freedom and a pardon of the obvious death sentence that awaited him if he did nothing. He looked at Prime, wondering if he could drop his barriers completely going against a lifetime of secrecy and allow someone to take all that he possessed inside. It was crushing and emotionally traumatizing. It was paralyzing and agonizing. He stared at Prime, then nodded almost imperceptibly. "Alright," he whispered softly. "For a Prime petition and my life, I agree."
Prime stared at him for a moment, the triumph of this moment etching itself on his psyche. He knew it would take a long time to process the idea that he had bested a mastermind of devious depravity. But he knew he had and it was time to take what was now freely given. Glancing at the shadows nearby, he nodded.
Wheeljack and Perceptor followed by Ratchet walked out carrying three machines. Pausing before Shockwave, Wheeljack looked at Prime. "I would prefer him to be cuffed."
Prime nodded, glancing into the shadows once more. Springer and Blackjack walked out, pulled Shockwave's arms behind his back and shackled him, the soft glow of the energon cuffs another memory Prime would never forget. Setting their gear down, hooking two of them up, Wheeljack rose and inserted a plug into Shockwave's communications and information management port. "Turn off your security. Don't make us lose data because you're being stupid. The noose is still waiting," Wheeljack said coldly.
A light blinked on the security device that Perceptor held. "They're down," he said and he would monitor the net during the entire procedure.
Ratchet took the device in his servo and pointed it at Shockwave. The bot stiffed, his optics off lining as the data began to be downloaded into the server that was hooked to the security monitor. It would pass through that device to check for viruses or other defensive protections including delayed de-rez and kill files before being formatted onto the storage server. It would take ten minutes at high speed download at minimum before the data already assessed in size would be theirs. It would take decaorns to uncoil the massive sends from their bullet like formats into something they could read. Ease was being sacrificed for speed. Nothing was going to be done that would allow Shockwave time to change his processor. And nothing he would download would be beyond their ability to decrypt. That was assured with the initiation. His master encrypt/decrypt/encoding files would come too.
They stood in the great room watching the procedure silently. At exactly one and a half breems, the soft beeping of the server told them that the download was complete. They unplugged and pulled back taking their gear with them. Pausing to check its integrity, they saw that the data was genuine, fully available, security screened and unencumbered. All was good.
Wheeljack nodded to Prime and he turned to watch Shockwave relax. Shockwave turned to Prime and waited. Prime looked around. "Are we completed here? Wheeljack? Ratchet? Blackjack?"
All of them murmured their assent. Prime looked up at the councilors. "Are we through? Anymore questions?"
Neo grinned slightly. "I think I speak for the Council, Optimus, when I say that we are finished here."
Prime nodded and turned to look at Shockwave. As he did a slow grin formed on his handsome face. "Well, that's a wrap then," he said.
=0=TBC
2012 (12) *The story is The Lady Or The Tiger. They end it before they tell you which one he chooses. ARGH! :D