The Diego Diaries: Home At Last (377) edited
-0-In the brig
The beasts on the other side of the energy barrier vented their opinions of the beings on the free side. It wasn't pleasant. Between the racket and the bad breath, it was a hair raising experience. Mearing sitting in the servos of Twin Twist watched them, studying the two aliens before her with stunned eyes. Seeing them in the flesh was a lot different than reading about them and viewing inadequate video.
They were huge, several feet taller than her. They were massively muscular with the rangy build athletes had. Their bodies were honed to a fine turn and seethed with the confidence and air of power that was only earned by relentlessly hard effort. Their skin was pallid without the form fitting habitat suits that lay on a bench nearby.
They had dark eyes that were so alien she couldn't find common cause with them. There wasn't anything remotely appearing to be shared experience in them. Their mouth was frightening, mandibles that parted to display their power and emotions. She wondered if they were also designed to rip and clutch flesh when they ate.
If they ate flesh.
Her own was crawling as she watched them, their dreadlocks flying as they stood rising and falling in their rage, their stance changing with each bellow. The dreads were fascinating, fleshy and mottled. She wondered if they were male or female, or if that even applied. She didn't know that they could change sexual gender according to need and that females were indistinguishable from males beyond the extra mottling on their jaws and lower facial regions. They were equally dangerous and ferocious in combat and family life, with perhaps an edge given to the females.
That was unknown to all who watched. Perceptor stepped closer. He held a box in his servo and keyed it. The beasts paused, then looked at the box. One of them snarled. The sound from the box crackled a moment as a voice low and masculine said, "What is that?"
The aliens glanced at each other, then took a step back considering the aliens before them. Giant aliens and flesh creatures from the Planet of the Hunt were watching them and it appeared that they had achieved understanding of their language. It was standoff for a moment.
"You have clarity then," Mearing asked.
"So it would appear," Simmons replied tartly from another pair of servos.
Ratchet looked at them diagnosing the problem immediately. It could work to their favor. He had a plan and considered it in another file as he focused on the present. "Percy, can they understand us too?"
Perceptor nodded. "They can," he said in his highly cultured voice. "We have interfaced with their comm frequency on the device . When we talk here, it will translate there and vice versa." He nodded to a wall device that communicated inside their habitat.
Ratchet turned after glancing at Prime who nodded. "I am Ratchet. I'm the doctor here. Do you need anything done for your hurts or do you need something to help your diet?"
They looked at him, then each other. Then one stepped closer to Ratchet. "You hear us."
"We do," Ratchet replied smoothly. "Tell us what we can do short of letting you out to make you more comfortable."
They stared at Ratchet, then guttural laughter was heard. "We don't need comforts. We are the Hish-qu-Ten."
"You aren't the Killers?" Ratchet asked on a hunch.
They looked at him, their demeanor darkening as their stance became more hostile. "You insult us by that question."
"Then tell us what we need to know to avoid that," Ratchet asked.
Everyone stared at each other a moment, then the bigger one shrugged. "We don't intend to give you information. What need do you have of it but to increase your understanding of how to defeat us?"
"We don't want war with you," Ratchet said. "We didn't ask for it and we don't want it."
"Weakling," the other said before a glare from his partner cut him off.
Ratchet looked at the subordinate figure. "I will wrestle with you, youngling. I am more powerful and agile than I look. Ask Ironhide."
They looked at him a moment noting his slight grin. Their experience with humans told them that expression indicated humor. Humor was an alien concept to them that had crept into their culture through human contact. It wasn't something they used among themselves. It was information to be considered tactically against the prey, the humans themselves. They believed it a weak attribute.
"Let us go." The big one looked at them with enormous ferocity, his mandibles clacking together in agitation. "You will regret keeping us here."
"Are you someone who is important? I am not aware of how to distinguish that," Ratchet said. He nodded toward Prime. "This is the only real leader of the Cybertronian people, Optimus Prime. He bears the power and stature. Literally," Ratchet said grinning up at the taller bot who was watching and listening to the exchange. "Megatron is a poseur. He's a clown who destroyed our world and he will destroy you and yours. You can run anywhere you want in the universe with your ships but he will find and kill you without mercy."
"We are warriors," the big one said with a roar. "WE WILL NOT DIE EASILY!"
"But you will die. Your families, clans, tribes … however you live will die. You cannot defeat us and he will come in numbers, great numbers with terrible allies. He lied to you didn't he," Ratchet said.
They stared at him, the smaller one looking up at the other for a second. "Megatron lies. The sun comes up. We don't trust aliens. They lie. They underestimate us, like you now."
"You cannot defeat us," Ratchet said. He met the big alien's gaze evenly. "But then, you already know that."
It was silent a moment, then the big one turned walking to a bench nearby. He sat and stared stonily at the far wall. The other looked at him, then turned back to the humans. He seemed to want to speak, then he too turned to walk back and sit. It was silent a moment, then Prime nodded. "Take the humans to the conference room. I will speak to these two alone." He reached for the box and got it. :Ratchet, wait by the door outside and listen in:
Ratchet nodded and followed the others out, the door staying open as all left. Prime watched, then turned to the aliens. He called Red who was outside. :I need the bars dropped so I can enter:
Red looked at him aghast a moment, then nodded. He handed Prime a remote from subspace, then stepped back out wordlessly. Prime took it pointing it at the energy field. It dropped so he stepped inside calling it up once more. Gazing at the two who stared at him intently, he walked to the table laying the comm box upon it. Turning, he considered them. "You have allied yourself with a loser."
They didn't speak, merely listening to the big dangerous mechanism who towered over them speaking with a rich baritone voice in a strange alien language, the language of the humans. It ushered from the translator into their own, itself a series of cries, groans and staccato clicks.
Prime considered that, knowing full well that they understood him. "Megatron is the father of lies. You are merely a pawn in his efforts to conquer the galaxy and the universe beyond. Your worlds and your people are of no consequence to him."
"And you? What about you? You keep us here as prisoners. How can we trust that you are different?" the big one asked.
"Your species doesn't share common ground with us on the matter of trust. You are a heroic predatory species for whom the niceties don't apply. You consider them weak. There is no way to establish trust between those who are so far apart."
The big one looked at Prime, then stood. "I am a leader of my clan. I am a good provider. We hunt and blood our young to do the same. As it was, so must it always be. Your ideas are your own, not ours."
"That is true," Prime answered gravely. "But when you are dead, you are just that. Over. Finished. Your species is going to pass from the universe and no one will care or regret it but us. We have seen him do that to so many we have stopped keeping track of them. Their worlds are cinders. The young are dead. There is no future nor is there a past. He leaves nothing behind. You cannot defeat him. You already know that."
The big mech reached out a servo and touched him, a powerful flesh hand sharply clawed pressing against hard steel. The big mech lowered it, then stepped back to sit. "We wish to leave."
Prime nodded. "We know. Your clansmen, the Killers. Tell me about them."
They looked at Prime a moment, then a guttural laugh sounded over the intercom. "Why would we do that?"
"It will help me make up my mind about you when they come. Do I give you to them or not? There is much on my mind about what to do with you long term. Maybe making you their prisoners will be preferable. I am probably not wrong in thinking your status as warriors would not be the same if it were known you were captured."
He watched them noting the direct hit to their pride. Warrior societies fetishized courage and held in low esteem the notion of capture. Even the humans looked askance at the failure of their warriors with a military code of resistance in captivity, something they had changed on the books only recently. Movies glamorized it, the heroic captive standing up against torture. He guessed they were probably the same. Handing them over to enemy clans without a mark on them would be dishonorable.
"They are going to come," the big one said. "They will come and break themselves against the shore of your resistance. The beasts will be their glory. Your armor cannot hold out against their blood and saliva."
"They cannot hold out against our superior firepower," Prime said. He subbed a weapon and powered up, the white hot heat of the plasma inches from his face intense. To his credit, he showed nothing even as the smaller one tensed, then forced himself to relax. "A mere thought in my processor and there will be a big gaping hole where your face is now. Do not imagine that we will be an easy kill."
The beast stared at the glowing heat, then watched as it disappeared into the arm and thin air of the Prime. He considered that, good intell about a foe that was becoming even more interesting than before. "I don't underestimate anything, Prime. I merely dismiss you from the present because you will not pit yourself against me."
Prime considered that. "You would not survive the encounter." He held up his servo palm side up and waited. The alien stared at him, then it before rising. Placing his own large hand on it, the appendage was dwarfed beyond belief by doing so. The power of Prime was evident. So was something else, something alien and alive. He stood staring at the hand, then looked up. A light was surrounding Prime, a light that was alive. It seemed to emanate from the center of Prime's chest forming around both like a fog.
It seemed to seep into him, an intelligence accompanying it. Then the room disappeared. He was standing on a plain that appeared to be empty in all directions. He had no gear and he had no mask. All he had was Prime standing in front of him.
-0-TBC July 25, 2013 edited