The Diego Diaries: Newbies 4 (326)
-0-Later on
Barricade walked to Club Hoyle to spend a while playing poker with other 'Cons. It was the only thing human that he cared about. Scorponok had disappeared earlier but he didn't care. He was a loner, although Shield showing up was all good. They were genuinely good friends, the two of them having grown up together in the same blighted neighborhood enduring the same deprivations. They had joined up early and stayed together, sharing spoils and punishments equally. He was the only mech alive that Barricade would take slag for and it was mutual.
Entering the plaza, he paused to look around. It was busy and homey though he would be loathe to say so out loud. Walking to the escalator, he rode up to the third floor where the club was. Walking along the bannister, he looked down watching as business and bots wound around each other. The club doors were open, the dark interior beckoning. So he entered and walked to his table to wait for the comrades and danger junkies that liked to flirt with death come to sit and lose to him.
He was that good.
-0-Communications, The Trigger
Sunstreaker sat monitoring the part of the four big arrays that The Trigger was delegated. The crew was attentive and the space quiet. It gave him time to consider things including the news that Shield was here after surrendering. Ironhide had come by to discuss this and had gone away clear in his processor that Shield didn't ever surrender.
Ever.
He recoiled his talons to observe, assess and make plans. He didn't give up. He didn't bow his knee. Oaths to the Matrix be damned, he was going to be trouble. His atar had listened sympathetically as Sunstreaker told him about the turf wars, battles for the hell of it and other diversions in the crime life that had once been the only refuge the twins could find in the indifferent world of Cybertron during the prelude to The Fall. Daggers pierced Ironhide's spark but he kept it off his face as he gathered the intell that he needed. When his atar left, he had left a bot with a mix of memories and unresolved feelings behind.
:Sideswipe:
:What?:
:Where are you? Where's Babe?:
:We're at the pool. Kaon's class is having an outing:
:Oh:
:Why?:
:Atar came by to find out more about Shield:
Pause. :What did you tell him?:
:Just enough. Nothing too detailed:
:Good. When do you stand down?:
:Dinner time:
:Come to the apartment. Babe is on a cooking kick. He's taking some kind of annex course online about making your own food:
:Take out is easier:
:True. But Blue has a bug up his aft about us eating better than we do. Be ready to say it tastes good:
:Thanks for the heads up, Sideswipe. I gotta go:
:See ya:
The line went dormant, the faint energy of Sideswipe always present. What was new was Blue and the infants. It was a good presence. He sat straighter and bent himself to the task before him.
-0-Ops Center, Autobot City, Mars
They gathered, the Alpha crew to discuss the migration that was beginning to show itself on the edge of their deep space arrays. They sat and stared at the roll out datapad before them. Prowl explained the various this and that's, the inside and outside and all the possibilities that his wily mind could manage in ten column math. He looked at them and nodded. "That's what we have."
Flint who would be in charge of the security for the entire event nodded. "Then we can expect perhaps some trouble but not a lot."
"Shield has let Paragon down. They haven't the numbers and the other fortress on the other side ... its still a cipher," Prime said nodding.
"Then we better prepare for a big one. The other two behind ... any idea of size?" Jetta asked as he furiously scribbled notes into his datapad.
"We have no idea. We do know from using the previous migrations to estimate this one that we are looking at about 600,000 in this tide. The others don't echo as large. I would assume that they are massing up as they go considering the word around the galaxy must be pretty good that we are not only here but up to it," Prime said. "I want the bridges to send analyst teams out to measure and assess for planning. I want channels opened so that we can hear what they need and where as well as pinpoint target that need. I want us to begin tomorrow to bring them in a bunch at a time while they are out there and not close enough for Paragon or the cipher to have a servo in making this harder than it already is. What about shelter?"
"We will just make it, Optimus," Jetta said glancing at Magnus who nodded.
"We will go from nearly 2 million to just over 2.5 million in a few orns. We have to be able to pivot on a dime," Magnus said grimly.
Everyone nodded. "I agree," Prime said. "This is priority one. We will begin to pull them in as the need is assessed. Most dire first, the rest on the sliding emergency scale. Take food out there, medics, all that we can do in the usual manner. We will have the refugees pulled into the system as its set up now. Spreading it out on the tarmac north of the air field will be good."
"The civilian airfield will be ready south of the Fortress by tomorrow so we can put ships there. We will also have the depot on Ceres and the storage facility on Charon available as well. We can sort through the ships as we have time," Revo said with a nod. Starscream nodded as well. "I will send teams now. I am supposing you have messages to play for the migration? I have mine to add for Seekers."
Prime nodded. "I do. We can send them with the assessors. We have to hustle. Having Shield surrender is a bonus but I feel he's the tip of the iceberg."
They all nodded and bent their helms to figure out the logistics of having a retrieval of this magnitude.
Again.
-0-Here and there that night
They sat at the table looking at the dishes before them, all of them prepared by Bluestreak. The kitchen was immaculate, the outcome of a mid caste upbringing by the winger who sat with a sweet expectant expression on his face. "Well?" he said hopefully.
Sunstreaker looked at Sideswipe, then the folded stuffed pastry lying on a platter in the middle of the table. It was a traditional Cybertronian puffed bake that had been made through a rather arduous process. One took a massive pastry and rolled it out putting the Cybertronian equivalent of butter in chunks in each of the layers. It was folded and rolled out again several times until it was soft and creamy in texture. Rolled out one last time, a spicy mixture was piled in the middle and the pastry folded over, its edges crimped in a pattern that was individual to each city-state. This one was crimped with the edges common to Praxus. It was baked and shiny, smelled rather good and was intimidating. "I've never had this. I've only seen them. What do you do?"
Blue stood and cut off giant squares of the big confection placing them on plates. Handing them to the twins, taking his own, he watched with anxious optics. "Tell me what you think of it."
They nodded and took forks cutting off bites. They paused, then both put them in their mouths. They held the pastry a moment savoring it, then chewed, swallowing it quickly. Sideswipe looked at Bluestreak. "This is good."
Sunstreaker nodded and began to dig in. They would demolish the entire enormous pie and both would get fragged that night in salutation by a very relieved, very charged up new cook. It was a win-win.
-0-That evening around town
They walked their beat, a chatty youngling with them. Smokescreen aka Smokey Jr. walked with them talking about the migration upcoming and the city overall. He was happy to be where he was, ready to prove himself to Prime and the senior Autobots and filled with questions. They answered them as they walked along, Drift smirking at Springer as he answered some about himself. Being the boss of the Wreckers, the heir of Impactor and an all around good natured bot, he had no idea of what it meant to be an 'icon' and 'heroic mech' but Smokey was filling him in.
"What about your grandatar? How is he taking having a youngling around?" Springer asked at last.
"He's good with it. My grandatar is really a good mech. He used to be a slagger. He would roam if you know what I mean. His firewalls must be awesome because my grandada is a bounty hunter and relentless. They are a matched set," the youngster said with a big grin. "I think they're the greatest. Neither of them wanted me in the service. My ada was good with it and my atar worried but they supported me. They got me educated and taught me to do my duty. I think they sort of went the other way than my grandgenitors. They're more conventional mechs than my grandgenitors."
"What do they do?" Drift asked as they walked down the street toward the Cultural Center which was lit up in the darkness with street and building lights.
"My ada is an administrative assistant ... does it all and my atar is a certified public accountant," Smokey said with a chuckle. "As I said, they went the other direction."
"No doubt," Drift said with a chuckle as they continued onward on their rounds.
-0-In the Bosom of Love
"LA-LA-LA-LA!"
"ATAR IS FUNNY! ADA! ATAR IS FUNNY!"
"Do you want help with the spar-?"
"NO, RATCHET! I AM AN AUTOBOT! I AM KIND, THRIFTY AND BRAVE! I DON'T NEED NO SLAGGING HELP!"
Ratchet watched as Ironhide grabbed a couple of cackling infants carrying them to the washrack in Sunspot's room. Sunspot and Spot stood beside Ratchet to watch as Hero walked up and looked at the three of them. "Ada."
Ratchet blinked and looked down. Hero smiled and pointed her tiny digit at the hallway. "Why Atar go there?" she asked in perfect Cybertronian.
Ratchet nearly fell on his face.
-0-Moments later
"Say it, Hero. Do it for Atar."
Hero stood in front of her genitors, her little smock slipping off one shoulder. She had been painting before wash up and had made a red blob for them to hang up on her little bulletin board in her room. She smiled gigantically as she wound a toy rabbit into knots in her tiny servos. Ratchet smiled at her and she smiled back. "Ada, why Atar go there?" she asked.
Ironhide who was sitting felt his optics flip backwards as he heard a tiny voice say a pretty damned good sentence. His name was there and so was Ratchet's.
"Why is she speaking like this? I am ... speechless."
"I don't know. Little femme was always watching and listening," Ratchet said equally captivated.
"Aw," Ironhide said picking up his daughter. She sat on his servo, a bit of red paint on her tiny pug nose and smiled at him. He could feel his optics mist over as he looked at her. "I went to wash your brothers. They needed it. Do you?"
She smiled. "I will go there," she said pointing at the hallway. "I will go with you, Atar."
Ironhide glanced at Ratchet whose own optics were twirling. "Did you hear that?"
"I did," Sunspot said. "She talks really good for a baby."
Both adults nodded and looked at the infant on Ironhide's servo. She smiled. "ADA! ATAR!"
"What?" Ratchet asked in a daze.
"I GO POTTY!"
And she did.
-0-Moments later with all the sparklings in berths
"That was funny. You have to say it was funny." Ratchet snickered. "She knows her two digit debris valve combination too."
"I should have made sure she had a check this morning but it was rushed. My fault," Ironhide said with a grin.
"That sparkling can do no wrong. Right?" Ratchet asked squeezing Ironhide's servo.
"Nope," Ironhide said with a chuckle. "That sparkling takes after you."
Ratchet grinned. "She rather reminded me of you, Only One."
They sat together marveling at the twists and turns of infant mentalities as the evening grew onward. The Hourly News would tell of the reclamation starting the next orn and alert the city to the need. Hero would blow Mr. Roto out of the water the next orn when she finally decided that she would talk to them in complete sentences too.
-0-TBC June 5, 2013
NOTE: Hero's talking is a homage to my sister who was her age and decided to talk from day one in complete sentences. My parents still marveled at it even now. HUGS!