The Diego Diaries: Here, There and Back Again 4 (605) edited
-0-On the way to Ops Center, Diego Garcia
Ratchet ambled along chatting with Ramcharger as he made his way back to the colony via space bridge at Diego's Ops Center. He walked along punctuating all of his commentary with his cane. He had been hilarious in his presentation as Ratchet knew he would be. He had told them of the prison riot, his own experiences 'back in the orn' as well as his straightforward belief that upper management owed its aft to the servos that did the work no matter whether you were talking about soldiers or workers in the civilian world.
"YOU SLAGGERS! YOU HAVE NO ARMY WITHOUT THE TROOPS! You think you're so important. Well … try and FIGHT A WAR WITHOUT US!"
Ratchet had sat grinning as the old mechanism told the younger ones where the 'targ ate the cyber cabbage' as his old Appa would say. It was informative, super entertaining during his 'chat' as well as the Q and A that followed. Calling a short break, Ratchet walked the little mech back to Ops Center sending him off on the road to Autobot City with his thanks. When the little mech disappeared into the bridge, Ratchet turned to stop into Ops Center for an update. A pensive Prowl appeared on screen from the autopsy department of the Medical Center.
"What do you have, Prowler?" Ratchet had asked.
Prowl explained, then both fell silent. "Does it bother you that he died all alone? I know he had no spark nor sentience, that he was a mechanism in all sense of the word doing his function honorably. It bothers me for some reason."
Prowl nodded. "Me too. I'm thinking without him we we'd be struggling here to do all that we have to do without the resources of energon he in all likelihood provided long ago."
Ratchet nodded. "If you need me I can come."
"I will remember that. Your next victims should be there already," Prowl said with a slight grin. "See ya. Wouldn't want to be ya." Then the transmission was cut.
Ratchet grinned. "Slagger." He turned to amble out heading for the hangar once more. The sun was warm and the sky blue as he headed toward the back of the hangar. Standing there waiting was Jetta, Devcon who had finally agreed to come, Vin from the Veteran's Administration and private practice, 26 from the Veteran's Administration and Scar. They gathered around him. "What do you want us to do, Ratchet?" Scar asked, his brutal visage softened by the warmth of his optics and the genuine decency he carried now.
"I want you to tell the humans about dignity among the troops, about their responsibility to take care of them and prevent harm, bullying, assault and the like from happening." Ratchet nodded to Scar. "I know you and Jetta have to go back so how about going first?"
Scar glanced at Jetta, then nodded. "Alright."
Ratchet turned to walk into the hangar as the masses began to sit. They took a moment to do so, then Ratchet nodded. "I have invited a number of mechs to come speak who run the spectrum of the military, society and professions." Turning, he gestured them to enter. "This is Jetta who grew up with our Prime, is a slagging fine City Works Director for the colony, a full time soldier in the army and forgot more about integrity than most of us will ever know. This is Scar, a former Decepticon marauder who is a construction boss, former 'Con mentor and father of one of the finest little femmes that ever lived."
Scar nodded proudly. "She is." Grins met that from all sides.
Ratchet chuckled. "No one will argue that point," he said with a grin. "This is Devcon, a special ops soldier in our army and a bounty hunter. If a bot is too bad for us to manage and we need them in one piece, we don't call the Wreckers. Dev hunts them down. If he ever gets on your trail, you're over. The others are Vin, who is a counselor both in private practice and with the Veteran's Administration and 26 who is a counselor with the VA. I think Scar should go first." Ratchet walked to the side to sit on a box.
Scar looked at him, then the humans. "I am Scar, the leader of a Decepticon ship boarding team that would hunt Autobot vessels, board them, kill everyone inside, then leave it adrift. Sometimes we would mine them to blow if anyone came to check the vessel. It didn't matter to anyone let alone me at the time that innocents might be the ones to die because of that. It didn't seem important.
"We grew up in a society where some got all of life's rewards and the rest of us, the greatest majority got nothing. If the largest part of your society grows up hungry and feeling worthless you can't expect them to uphold that society. When someone like Megatron promises you to make things better, you jump. What loyalty if any do you owe the other side when they ignored you for your whole life?
"Cybertron built a knife at their own throat by doing this to us," he said. "It was doomed the first time that a kid grew up hungry and feeling worthless. Every single thing we ever did as Decepticons felt like justice. When we came here we were running from the Empire because the leadership wasn't holding the center. It was spiraling apart so we left to maraud on our own. We ran into Prime and lost that battle. Somewhere in the prison, at some point, it dawned on me that there was another way, another path.
"Prime did a lot of things that Megatron and the Cause never did. He didn't kill for sport. He fought battles cleanly and treated prisoners well. He spoke and kept his word. He didn't lie or cheat. He didn't set two sides against each other on his own side to stay in power. He opened the door to opportunity for all of us and rescued our people to rebuild our culture. We have libraries, schools, a museum and art. Anyone can see it. Everyone can use them. My daughter goes to school, something she never could do on Cybertron.
"I teach the Home Guard how to defend. I fight in the ranks because I am an Autobot now pure and simple." He held up his forearm with the Autobrand. "I am new and remade. I am reborn in the midst of my people. The old version of me is gone forever. It was hard for a moment, then it was easy. I am a bond, a genitor, a leader in my trade and someone who sits on the governing board that manages the colony. My ideas and suggestions are considered and respected.
"That is the thing for me. Respect. We never got it on Cybertron before the Fall. We never got it in the 'Cons. We didn't know we even needed it. Now, its all different. I respect Optimus Prime more than any other individual I ever met. He is a leader. I know what we are here to speak about, the abuse of soldiers in militaries. I have no respect for anyone who would allow that. Not now. Not now or ever again. Megatron abused as a matter of policy. If you do that, you are no better. You are no friend or ally to me." He stood a moment, then stepped back.
Jetta who was listening thoughtfully nodded. "Scar speaks for me. Elita is my bond. We were always destined," he said with a slight grin. "From the moment I was born I was against the System. In the end I was put into prison leading protests against it. It destroyed Cybertron, the indifference of those in power concerning everyone else. It would appear that you have put the supposed honor of your institution … the military as a structure or thing, over your duty to your people who are the actual real military itself. Your concern for appearances is destroying your institution because what is happening is destroying your personnel. They are the military. Not some idea of it that you appear to hold in higher esteem than your people. If you think rooting this out and killing it, preventing it and punishing it somehow sullies some ideal of your service branch, then you need to leave too. You are part of the problem, not the solution. The military is everyone of your people, not some image of yourself taken from a recruiting poster.
"If you can't treat your personnel right ... if you feel that you have a right to judge them for things that have nothing to do with their service, then you need to leave service yourself. You never leave a soldier behind. You don't treat them as expendable. You always make sure that they are well, have what they need and are accountable. How is it that no one at the top is being held accountable for this business? How can you look at yourself in the mirror when this is done with your full knowledge and if its really sorted out truthfully, your personal professional agreement and assistance?
"In a fox hole, we are all one. It should be that way outside of one as well. No one is in the service to be your punching bag. No one. Take care of it now before you truly harm the profession that you profess to love. If you can't love and protect the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen and women who ARE the military, you can't lie to us and say you love the service. That's Megatron's lie."
Ratchet glanced at Jetta, then Devcon. That laconic bot smirked, then turned to the crowd. "I'm Devcon. I'm a bounty hunter. I'm from Iacon and have a son and grandson. I made sure they went to school in Praxus when no low castes were allowed. I told the slaggers in charge that they were coming to school. My babies went to school.
"I have been an Autobot soldier for most of my life and I have seen Primes come and go. All of us have. We have seen all manner of upper echelon leadership and lack thereof. Optimus Prime is the greatest fighting Prime in our history and for him, all of us do what we do to ensure that people are safe and we can rebuild ourselves. My grandson is a soldier but he's also my grandson. I make him go to college too because all mechs need education. Everyone everywhere should have that right.
"When Ratchet asked me to speak I did my due diligence. What I have found out about the military here shouldn't shock me but it does. How do you expect to function when some of your soldiers are terrified of others? That sounds like the 'Cons to me," he said as Scar nodded grim faced. "We work with N.E.S.T. and do just fine. Those soldiers have guts and professionalism. They are what I expected when I came here to serve and settle my family. What I didn't expect to see was Decepticon behavior in the ranks of the allies. What a disappointing finding that was for me." He glanced at Ratchet, then stepped back.
Vin and 26 glanced at Ratchet, then each other. Ratchet grinned, then looked at the audience. "This is Vin who is a counselor for families and veterans in the Veteran's Administration as well as private practice. 26 works in the Veteran's Administration as a counselor as well. Both are members of the Circle of Light, a pacifist organization among our people that is dedicated to good doings."
Vin paused, then looked at the crowd who looked back solemnly. "I am a former high caste which meant that I was one of the oppressors that everyone is talking about. I was the governor-general of Tyger Pax, a city-state on Cybertron. I helped oppress my people and I didn't see that my duty was to everyone, not just those of my small class. When the world fell, we fled along with everyone else who could escape. It was terrible and spark changing to survive. My bond and I changed over the length of that long wandering. We faced ourselves and felt ashamed. The Circle of Light and the Knights who helped us changed our sparks. Now we work as hard as we can to do as much good as we can.
"I am a counselor for those who have been harmed by the war. Civilians, soldiers, their families, the elderly, the young … everyone. I understand that you have many who could use this attention as well so I guess I am mystified about the behavior that is happening but not addressed. Why don't you help your soldiers? Why don't you dismiss the abusers? We are unable to understand this. Don't you want a unified armed forces filled with fulfilled and healthy members? You are asking everything of them and because of that, you owe them everything."
26 nodded. "I work with families, children of our military families, most of whom are in the professional full time service. I don't work with the adults unless it is part of family therapy. What I see is the accumulation of war on our soldiers that has been a terrible burden. We want to help them return to themselves, to find peace in their sparks. We want to do everything we can for all of them because they did everything they could for us. I don't understand what is happening with you. I would hope that you find the path to justice and support your soldiers. Ours saved us.
"I will never forget until the orn I die the moment I stepped down on Mars and saw the Prime. It was … religious to me," 26 said. "My babies are in school, they are well and safe. We work hard, all of us for everyone because all of us are one. All are one." She turned to look at Ratchet who stood. "Are there any questions for our speakers?"
Zillions. There were zillions.
-0-At the autopsy
It took a while to carefully remove the accretions of crystalline structures that had covered the body of the drone like tree rings. As the figure emerged, the familiar look of it appeared. It was so ancient its design reflected it. Its body was utilitarian, its face reflecting none of the features that made most Cybertronians very attractive even to non-Cybertronians.
A large dent in its helm with collateral damage inside his processor appeared to be the major cause of its failure. The databanks that were inside would take a while to retrieve. Layers of crystals, all of them blue energon needed to be removed. It would take energon scientists joors to clear it from the body.
Prowl stood watching as they worked. Prime had returned to Gliese 581 g to work on the security and detection program that would allow the city to be warned if anything happened in the area. Preliminary indications were that the system was just another nondescript red dwarf with planets in gravity. Most of the stars in the galaxy were red dwarfs, their numbers only estimated due to their low light functionality. They were just hard to see.
They turned the drone over and more damage could be seen. It appeared to be naturally acquired. There were no indications that a weapon had caused the dents and a large jagged tear in the cowling of his chest. As Prowl stood looking at the drone, he imagined its endless wanderings. He imagined being alone the length of time that this individual had been and felt a cold chill settle in his spark. It was inconceivable to him to be that lost.
As he stood watching Perceptor and Wheeljack chipping away on the arms and legs of the mechanism, Prowl came to a couple of conclusions and decisions. First, it would have a funeral with burial inside the Basilica with full honors. Though it had no thought to what it did but merely followed its programming, its nobility of purpose and steadfast efforts gave them the life they had on Mars. It would be honored for its service.
The second thing Prowl discovered was the name for his daughter in two decaorns. He leaned against the counter nearby watching with the oddest sense of sorrow as the scientists helped a long lost Cybertronian emerge from the ashes of its demise.
-0-TBC January 29, 2014