My Christmas Gift to Everyone! Merry Christmas!
Optimus Prime, as well as the other high-ranking Autobot officers on bridge duty, was doing his best not to notice the fact that the rest of the crew was busy with some manner of secretive operations. The bridge was mostly quiet with a skeleton crew pulling duty and only a handful of consoles lit up with use. A fantastic view of the local landscape filled the main view screen and Optimus was attempting to keep his optics forward while Bluestreak skulked through the shadows to his left.
"Must have somethin' to do with all this 'Christmas' nonsense." Ironhide grunted around his glowing energon fag. His deep voice carried easily through the nearly empty space.
"Don't say 'nonsense'," Ratchet countered as he carefully studied the flight logs. Bluestreak was now halfway to one of the small side viewports that someone had conveniently forgotten to close and lock. "This is a very important holiday here on Earth and our lads are trying to experience something new."
"Yer always stickin' up fer these kids." Ironhide complained, but he was smiling kindly at the chief medic. "Well, seein' as how Primus went through all o' that trouble to visit this planet as a human I suppose I shouldn't be such a grump." the old warrior allowed. Ironhide was seated in the command chair with his hefty arms crossed over his chest. Pulling a shift as Duty Officer mostly proved to be a chore but not today with all of these youngins' and their antics…
The rather bulky Bluestreak was nimbly stuffing himself through the open viewport, his feet leaving the deck and dangling precariously in the air as he balanced on the narrow ledge. This amusing scene was enough to make the others on the bridge break into a sudden fit of blatantly faux coughing. Ratchet had to give up entirely on the flight logs and he quickly turned his gaze towards the view screen. "Kids." he murmured under his breath as he carefully avoided making eye contact with Ironhide. To do so would definitely bring about an end to this charade as that old codger could make a rock burst out with laughter!
"Right." a chuckling Optimus Prime said as he engaged in the Cybertronian version of clearing his airway while observing Bluestreak out of the corner of his optic. "About that report, Prowl…"
Prowl, lips twitching with suppressed mirth, rose to his feet and made a show of discussing something of great importance with the Autobot leader and thus no one blew their cover.
As soon as Bluestreak had himself braced against the sides of the viewport he reached down for Bumblebee's outstretched hands. "They can so totally see us doing this." the young gunner snickered as his strong grey hands closed around those of his friend.
"Just play along like we don't notice that they are pretending not to notice that we are behaving like morons." Bumblebee laughed and then he busied himself with quitting the ladder and climbing up the side of the Ark with Bluestreak's assistence.
After a few moments of hard work Bluestreak gave a mighty heave and the smaller yellow bot wriggled through the viewport, his skilful movements nearly silent. However their triumph was short lived - both of them froze when Bumblebee's woven metal bag, filled to capacity, flopped onto the deck with a loud THUD and a sound like tin cans jostling against each other for supremacy. One shining textured corner protruded from the safety of the shadows and a rebellious can slowly rolled to a halt right there where it could be seen by the entire world. This is precisely when Red Alert walked onto the bridge and he stared curiously at the object before turning his keen optics onto the hidden pair of bots.
"Now what?" Bluestreak hissed from where they crouched under a console at the presently unoccupied corner of the bridge.
"Even if I didn't drop the bag there's no way Red would have missed noticing us!" Bumblebee hissed back. "Of all the bots to stroll onto the bridge."
Bluestreak's wings sagged. "Do you think he'll squeal?!"
Hearing the hushed conversation as if it were being spoken directly into his audio receptor, Red Alert gave the two younger bots a wink before turning to speak with Tracks. At the same time Optimus Prime suddenly became very interested in picking at invisible spots that appeared to be stuck to his armor. Prowl was focused intently at a blank data pad and Ironhide stared straight ahead at the main view screen, the glowing end of his energon fag absolutely motionless.
The two younger bot took their cue and bolted through the shadows, darted through the open door, and ran down the long empty corridor with hoots of glee. "It took every ounce of Ironhide's self control to keep from telling us off!" Bumblebee laughed. "Did you see his energon fag? It's never that still!"
"And Red Alert waved bye-bye!" Bluestreak answered with a grin as they slapped each other's hands. "We were so almost busted!"
"Good thing everyone is willing to play dumb." Bumblebee said and the two bots disapeared into the enormous recreation hall. The doors shut swiftly behind them.
Up in Wheeljack's lab there was much noise and flashing of lights as Sunstreaker applied his artistic talents. "Will you hold still!" the gunner snapped at his twin, his voice muffled by the welding mask covering his face. As he worked there were sharp whip-crack sounds and startling explosions of blue-white light that reflected off of the metal walls and ceiling.
"Don't burn my hands, ok?!" Sideswipe shouted back through the heavy mask.
"I know what I'm doing so quit nagging."
Sideswipe cringed anyway. "I'm sure you know your stuff but my hands are right there next to the business end of that welding thing!"
"Indeed, they are very close so quit whining and hold still."
"Um…"
When his twin paused to adjust his position Sideswipe shoved his own mask back and glanced over at Wheeljack who was lost in cheerful oblivion on the opposite side of the lab. Even still… "How can he not notice that we're here making a huge racket?!"
"Are you kidding me? Once 'ol Jack is involved with his latest project he won't notice anything short of a neutron bomb going off under his chin."
Sideswipe's optics widened with surprise. "Wheeljack has a chin?! How do you know that?? Did you see his face??"
Sunstreaker yanked his brother's mask down. "Will you just zip it and hold still?"
"Gee, 'Merry Christmas' to you too." Sideswipe muttered as he returned his attention to the task at hand. "So, where was I? Oh yeah: be careful you don't burn me."
"Zip it!"
Two levels down, in the middle of the massive recreation room, Jetfire was doing his best to follow a very odd set of orders.
"The others have attached the ends to the four corners of the ceiling. Now you have to tack them all together and then poke it into the ceiling." Jazz was saying from where he stood in front of the huge scientist, his head back and his optics focused on the much taller mech's confused face. Held between one thumb and finger was a mysterious sharp object. "Wheeljack made some of these for us the other day and I didn't even have to explain it to him…"
"What?!" Jetfire was beginning to feel a bit frazzled as he took the sharp object. "What is 'tack'??"
"That's what Spike said. We have to 'tack' it to the ceiling." Jazz said.
Jetfire stared at the sharp object in his hand. "I get it now. But we don't have all of it ready yet." he said and then he lowered his arm. This action caused several shouts of protest from the other bots in the room as the half-finished project sagged towards the deck.
"Calm down." Jetfire grumbled. "I'll 'tack' it in a second!"
"We'll do this batch first and by the time we are done Sunstreaker will be here with the next batch." Jazz was saying. "Now," he pointed one black finger towards the ceiling, "we'd better hurry before we get lynched by a mob."
"Right." Jetfire reached overhead and carried on with his strange alien work. "I'm a highly educated scientist but I live to 'tack' things to the ceiling." he teased.
"We love you because you're so tall." Jazz shot back with a laugh.
On the other side of the rec room, near the great double doors, Sludge was patiently following orders from a trio of delighted bots. Snarl snoozed nearby, his imposing spikes cheerfully decorated with gold and silver garland that waved gently in the breeze whenever someone walked by.
"This is going to save us half of a day's work!" Windcharger was saying as he swayed to the fantastic selection of earth Christmas music that filled the room. Once again Jazz had hooked them up…
"It not heavy." Sludge teased as he braced the flat of his angular head against the side of the empty cargo crate. Bracing his paws against the metal deck, he shoved the impossibly huge object to the very spot indicated by Huffer. It made such a dreadful screeching sound that Snarl woke up.
"What the?!… what this stuff on my spikes?" the Dynobot wondered as he stuck his rump into the air and bowed low with his front legs. Huge teeth glinted in the bright lights as the spike-tailed dragon yawned. "Someone playing pranks?"
"You have become a walking decoration." Swoop said with a laugh and he tossed another length of earth garland around his brother's tail.
"… and I could have moved the crate if you'd only asked." Braun was arguing with mock irritation.
"I had to lug the blasted thing up from the cargo hold because you were M.I.A." Huffer said as he gestured to Sludge. "A bit more to the right and that should be perfect!"
"What?! It not perfect yet?"
"Almost."
Sludge let out a snuff of air from his nostrils as he braced his head against the crate. "You too picky. It'll be Kwanza by the time we done with this…"
Once the crate was in place Sludge transformed into bipedal mode. "It perfect. Now what?"
"Now we tear it apart." Slag informed his brother as he tapped at the crate with one finger.
"Not 'tear' it apart!" Huffer yelped. "We're going to take it apart, gently. I need the slats."
"No problem." Slag replied as he and Sludge exchanged mischievous grins. It was always such good fun to get the smaller Autobots wound up…
Several breems passed while the two Dynobots helped to disassemble the slatted crate. It had once held a spare shuttle engine and was nearly as tall as the ceiling of the room. When they finished the job both of the Dynobots found themselves engaged in the unexpected task of re-assembling the slats into a strange creation. As they worked from bottom to top Huffer would ask them to bend the ends of each slat in such a way and then the smaller bot would weld the metal to a central anchor point. Once the creation was too high the Dynobots took over with the strange task under the direction of Huffer and Gears.
"Being stuck on this planet is certainly getting to their heads." Sludge muttered in his native language while he bent the end of a slat and held it into position against the core of the... thing.
"You're telling me!" Slag muttered back and then he dropped his visor over his eyes and brought the welding iron on line. "Oh well. Ironhide told us to 'be nice' and play along,"
Nearly half of an earth hour passed with everyone busily working at their creations. When the double doors whisked open the bots within the rec room froze and then broke up laughing with relief as Sunstreaker sauntered in with his traumatized twin.
"Oh gawd. Not another arc welder." Sideswipe grumbled and then he let out a howl of fright and ran for his life as Slag made as if to weld the fleeing bot's aft.
Grimlock ducked through the doors, Sunstreaker's amazing sculpture cradled in his arms.
"How did you manage to sneak that thing past everyone else?!" Huffer wanted to know.
"Who? Grimlock?" Sunstreaker wondered.
"Don't make me drop this on you head." Grimlock growled.
Sunstreaker was laughing but he made sure to step out of immediate range. "Mirage has once again proven invaluable in sneaking me around the ship. He kept a good lookout up ahead."
The blue bot shimmered into view. "Glad to know I'm good for something on this mission." he said with a wink before trotting across the room to assist Jetfire.
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The following day shone bright with sunshine and good weather. The air was crisp and fresh and Optimus Prime was in his favourite spot outside where he liked to sit and think. His present thoughts were interrupted by a flood of young Autobot gunners and many of his officers. Bluestreak darted to the front of the crowd and gripped one of Prime's massive hands. "We finally found you!" the gunner declared. "You have to come with us, Optimus! We have a surprise!"
"A surprise?" Optimus looked intrigued as he rose to his feet. "I wonder what this could be." Technically he wasn't lying as he had no real idea of what had been taking place.
Just then Snarl strolled past, ropes of garland glittering from where they had been woven around his spikes.
"What happened to you?!" Optimus asked in the Dynobot language.
Snarl rolled his optics. "The kids thought it would be cute to decorate me."
Optimus couldn't help but laugh. "Thanks for taking one for the team." he said and then he switched back to speaking Iaconian as he was escorted into the Ark by the excited crowd.
When the Prime entered the recreation room he immediately noticed a divide: those bots that had been working on the secret project stood in a thick half-circle in the middle of the room while those being surprised stood just inside of the door. Ironhide, Tracks, Red Alert, Ratchet, Prowl…
The Prime's blue optics focused on something in the nearby corner. A pole ran up the centre and it looked as if someone had welded the slats from a cargo crate to this pole. There were all manner of unrelated objects dangling by wires from each slat: empty cans, bolts, assorted lids, buckets, tools… and a mismatched length of chain had been wound around the strange creation, from top to bottom. Underneath lay a huge pile of packages that spilled out nearly to his feet. "What the hell is that monstrosity?!" he hissed to Ironhide. Ratchet heard him and gave his massive ankle a thump with his foot.
"It's a Christmas tree." Ironhide grunted under his breath.
"You're having me on!"
The old warrior shook his head. "I ain't makin' this up, Prime."
A Christmas tree. He knew what this was, having the cultural information stored in his databanks and now that he looked at the odd creation he could just make out the idea of a Christmas tree amidst the welded slats, the pole, and the dangling junk. Optimus somehow managed a plastic smile. "It's beautiful." he said out loud and then he began to look around the heavily decorated room while his senior officers joined him.
"Now!" Jazz suddenly announced and the other bots, the ones that had laboured for several days in the recreation room, broke out into earth Christmas carols. All but a handful of them sang rather badly, their vocal processors terribly unaccustomed to creating the sounds native to this planet.
As he walked forward Optimus saw Red Alert gritting his teeth but the Security Director appeared to be rather pleased by this grating attempt at singing in the earth way.
"…rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay…"
The ceiling had been decorated with flowing chains made from what appeared to be a wide assortment of newspapers, bags, tarps, and possibly even some old tires thrown in for good measure.
"…brought tidings of the same. How that in Bethlehem was born…"
"We suck!" a voice broke in over the singing and the carol was momentarily thrown off kilter as several of the bots snickered at their own questionable abilities. Optimus grinned while his optics followed the chains and took in the interesting metal ball hanging from wire along every few feet of chain. There was an abundance of metal stars hanging from the open spaces of ceiling and the walls were decked with earth garlands, more chains, and colourful objects that had either photographs or artist prints on their covers.
"Those are 'Christmas cards'." Bumblebee told his leader. "We exchanged them earlier today. Sunstreaker helped us to create them." As he spoke the small yellow bot held something out to the Prime.
"…Yet in the dark streets shineth the everlasting Light…"
Optimus lowered himself to one knee and accepted the flat wrapped object. "What is this?" he asked and the singing stopped. There was the sound of many feet and he was soon surrounded by his troops.
"You open it, sir." Bumblebee told him. "We made you a Prime-sized card."
Definitely intrigued, Optimus carefully withdrew the card from its covering while all of his Autobots pressed around him. When his optics finally made sense of the mess on the front of this hand-made gift Optimus realized that he was looking at the individual art from the bots that had created this card. Some efforts were highly skilled while others were hardly stick figures. But they were all drawn with great love for him.
When he opened the card Optimus found the signature of every Autobot within, from Ironhide to young Bumblebee. "This…" he gestured at the card. "is very kind."
"Merry Christmas, Prime!" his Autobots called out.
"We only knew about the card." Ironhide said. "I had no idea the kids were going to decorate the entire rec hall." The grizzled old bot was gazing around with a contented smile on his scarred face. "It's fantastic."
"It is." Optimus agreed and then he called each Autobot over to him by name and gave them a brotherly hug, from Bumblebee all the way up the ranks to his trusted friend and bodyguard Ironhide. Then he gazed at the artwork on the card. "I am very happy with this. I shall hang it on the wall in my office."
Someone was tugging at his wrist. "You have to come and see what Sunstreaker has created." Red Alert was saying. "You're not going to believe it!"
"Did you peek?" Optimus teased.
"He showed me last night." Red told him.
"I had to clear everything with security so we could sneak it through the corridors." Sunstreaker said and he led the way to a mysterious (and rather large) covered object at the opposite end of the rec room. "I knew Red Alert would end up a nervous wreck so I let him have a preview."
Optimus rested a hand on Red Alert's shoulder. "Nothing gets past our Red." he said and then everyone moved forward until they had settled into another half-circle around the mystery object.
A hush fell over the room and every bot grew still - except for Sideswipe who was bursting with pride for his talented brother. Optimus gestured for the cover to be removed and Sunstreaker yanked hard on the woven metal blankets until all of them had slid from his creation.
"My god, Sunstreaker!" Optimus gasped. "Never have I seen such a beautiful work of art made by the hands of a bot with severely limited resources!"
Sunstreaker stared first at his sculpture and then at his Prime. He became so self-conscious that he stood there stiff and awkward.
Optimus knew the gunner well and took no notice of the younger bot's apparent snobbishness. Instead he strode forward and loomed over the artwork. "This… this is amazing Sunstreaker. Tell me what is the story behind your creation?"
"Creation itself." Sunstreaker told him. "This holiday of Christmas is based on the ancient knowledge of Primus coming to Earth as a human being - in order to try and lead this race back to a world of peace and goodwill."
"Yes, indeed." Optimus nodded as he gazed down at the massive but life-like sculpture of a plump human infant, the head of which was encircled by a familiar sign of sanctity made from golden metal that had been polished to perfection. "In all things we find the sacred." he murmured softly.
Sunstreaker reached out and touched one of the sculpted alien hands. "I thought that I would make it from metal since Primus is metal… I thought it might make a good mix of… well…traditions. Beliefs. You have Primus and then Jesus and… 'God made flesh'… and I guess He is universal, everywhere…and we see things from our own perspective depending on what world we come from…"
Optimus dropped to one knee and laid his hand on Sunstreaker's arm. "I understand exactly what you are getting at." he rumbled softly and then he gestured around him at the various decorations. "It warms my spark to see all of you taking such an interest in the culture and traditions of people of this world. I know that it is easy to become frustrated with our present situation and to lose hope, to become depressed and bitter.
We must never forget that Primus sent us here to save this world from destruction at the hands of Darkness. And yet from what I can see as I stand here surrounded by such beauty and love it shows me that no one here has lost sight of our mission - to defeat evil and protect those who cannot defend themselves. You have all done well."
The hideous "Christmas tree" sat in its corner with the metal cans, lids, and dangling chains reflecting the lights. But this time Optimus Prime saw an object of great beauty as his optics took in the careful and loving handiwork of his Autobots that filled the recreation room. "It is all so beautiful." he murmured aloud and then he studied the smiling faces of each of his bots. "Merry Christmas to all of you, my brave and courageous Autobots."
"Merry Christmas to you too!" came the enthusiastic reply and then Bluestreak was by his side again.
"Now comes the next part." the gunner announced, his optics growing bright with excitement.
"And what is that, my Blue?" Optimus wondered.
"Another Earth tradition in honour of the Incarnation." Bluestreak said and then he grinned and pointed at the packages under the metal tree. "Presents!!"
May you all have a blessed and holy Christmas!
See amid the winter's snow
Born for us on earth below
See the tender Lamb appears
Promised from eternal years
Hail, thou ever-blessed morn!
Hail, redemption's happy dawn!
Sing through all Jerusalem
Christ is born in Bethlehem!
Say ye holy shepherds, say
What your joyful news today?
Wherefore have ye left your sheep
On the lonely mountain steep?
Hail, thou ever-blessed morn!
Hail, redemption's happy dawn!
Sing through all Jerusalem
Christ is born in Bethlehem!
Sacred infant, all divine
What a tender love was thine
Thus to come from highest bliss
Down to such a world as this...
Hail, thou ever-blessed morn!
Hail, redemption's happy dawn!
Sing through all Jerusalem
Christ is born in Bethlehem!
My very own Red Alert.
"I don't know you and yet I feel a kinship...kinship." 
