Flashback - Mathematical Principals (closed)

[Deleted]

The alarm klaxons were a sound one learned to tune out after awhile, barring the first moment when they kicked on and everyone switched their comms to the base-wide emergency channels. Attack alert, northwest tertiary perimeter, standing guard outnumbered, requesting backup. The on-call duty roster was already flagged, squad rotations scrolling past; Ironhide met Chromia's gaze over the top of their sparkling's head where Bluestreak had hunched in hir seat at the first sound of the alarm, and exvented heavily. "So much for a bit of down time."

Chromia grinned, the expression flickering in her optics, and cupped a hand over Bluestreak's helm. "Always just when you think you've got free time, huh?" she shot back, and then, to Blue - "Have to go, sparklet. Sorry. We'll be back as soon as we can."

Ironhide bit back a curse, silenced before he ever gave it voice by a subroutine that kept the more virulent phrases away from developing sparkling audios after the infamous 'fragger' incident. Chromia's squad had already scrolled past his HUD, his own was up next. "Inconsiderate fraggers," he grumbled, which was safe and nothing Blue hadn't heard before. "Yeh'd think they planned this for th' first down-shift we've had all decacycle."

Sparkling optics, already big in hir small face, were getting steadily larger in the way that indicated an upset Blue. Chromia, ever prudent, laid a kiss on Blue's helm and made a quick escape from their table. Ironhide scooped the small frame up for a quick, tight hug, rumbling a soothing note, his own optics already searching across the rec room for any of their usual caretaking substitutes.

None of whom were in sight. Scrap. A quick survey of who was there - and wasn't immediately departing to duty stations - left him with a handful of the science geek squad to pick from. With another hug and a quick kiss Ironhide slid Bluestreak down to hir own pedes as he stood up. "Hey Blue - see th' red an' blue mech over there? Name's Perceptor. Why don't yeh go sit with him an' th' group over there 'til Mia an' meh get back, okay? Won't take more'n a couple kliks, just gotta send some 'Cons packing. Ain't nothin' t' worry about. Okay?"

Getting a nod from their beautiful and brave little sparklet, Ironhide indulged them both with one more hug, field pulsing pride and love, and then gave Bluestreak a little nudge towards the group of scientists sitting over by the far wall. ::Bitlet, incomin',:: he commed them tersely. ::Just watch hir til' we get back, alright?::

His squad number was flashing red, immediate deployment, on his HUD. Biting back another slew of words he couldn't say until out of Bluestreak's hearing, Ironhide headed out.

[Deleted]

They had been having such a good time before the alarms had gone off. Spending time with Ironhide and Chromia playing a game and just enjoying the time with cohort. But ou knew what that noise meant and if it hadn't been for Chromias quick reactions ou probably would have gone to tears.

Not wanting them to leave but knowing they had to the not quite as little sparkling held onto them tightly as possible before being set down and pointed towards a group of mechs, particularly a red and teal one. Ou was uncertain of them but Ironhide had told hir to go to them and he always kept hir safe so...

"Be safe 'Hide, 'Mia come back soon."

One last hug before they had to go and ou was making hir way towards the group of science bots and in particular Preceptor.

[perceptor]

Alarms blaring, the rec room scattered in all directions from what had been a somewhat quiet rest shift, Perceptor's team among them. Addressing each of them in turn he assigned their posts, more for the formality of doing so than any need, and after they too had left, Perceptor did not find himself alone in the frenzy to battle stations and ready to report to his own, but accompanied by an almost equally calm sparkling.

"Hello there, Bluestreak. Where are your --" but even the most perfunctory scan of the room and adjacent ones told him what he had suspected, that both Chromia and Ironhide had already reported for duty at the site of the attack, leaving Bluestreak once again in the care of the nearest trustworthy Autobot, which today appeared to be himself.

Having issued commands to his own team, four-fifths of whom were also assigned to duty either at the attack site itself or elsewhere outside the relatively well-fortified sectors, Perceptor was left with no one whom to delegate the care of one youngling standing rather earnestly, if wistful, in front of him. Perceptor's own work of processing environmental and real-time battle tactical input as needed was intended to be done from a centralized control, though he realized his suitability as caretaker as he quickly addressed each reservation still remaining within his mind: he was in possession of the codes for full remote access to perform his duties, and he was not unarmed should he need to protect Bluestreak and himself, even if his rifle tended to remain safely in subspace unless necessary. There was no question as to the necessity of Bluestreak's protection.

"Would you like to sit down?" he began, inexperienced in the care of sparklings and therefore unsure of how to approach one, even one as apparently advanced as Bluestreak, judging solely by hir size and vague recollections of stories told. Considering, he allotted two full processing cores to hir supervision, immediately assigning the remainder to accessing his duty interface. A tedious task when the system's central processors were themselves running at capacity, he idly looked over the discarded tools and projects of his own team of engineers. They had been quite close to sustaining an independent power supply to a vastly more efficient pump circulator when the attack had occurred, and a gas immersion chamber, pressurized switch spring, and various gauges of heating coils all remained, abandoned, on the table.

All that, in reach of a sparkling.

He allocated an additional two processing cores to Bluestreak's supervision in preemptive caution.

[Deleted]

"Hello 'Ceptor. Ahrnnhaid and Chromia have ta go fight th' bad bots now so they said ta come an' stay here with you."

Ah yes, hir accent considering hir cohort consisted of Ironhide, Chromia and Jazz it was a miracle that the sparkling was understandable at all. Climbing up onto a seat the little grey bitlet took a seat and made hirself comfortable. Astoundingly wide optics survey the assorted mess of tools and likely very dangerous to sparking parts.

As is the nature of all young of every species every were Bluestreak immediately began to reach for what was the most dangerous thing there.

"What does this do 'Ceptor? What were you an the other smart bots doin' 'fore the alarms?"