Transformers: Prometheus

CHAPTER 24

Area 50 had an armory. Lennox and his people raided it like they were pillaging artifacts from a tomb. There weren’t many of them, not really. Twenty-three men and women who came from the Rangers and SEALS and Deltas and probably every other branch of all-American badasses were loading M4A1s with full magazines and loading MGL-140s with special-issue grenades. “Alright,” Epps called. “Everything you can carry! Grab it, grab it. Come on, hustle, hustle!”

Jack finished checking his plates. There was no time to get into the full gear, and part of him didn’t want to wear the black uniform of Sector Seven, but he didn’t want to go up against the Decepticons without protection, either. So, he settled for the vest. Not that it’d do anything against an energon blaster or a Cybertronian fist, he thought. It was like he was wearing it to protect his ego more than anything else. Jack paused, thinking. He didn’t like the sound of that.

They were all improvising. The only thing that mattered now was keeping the AllSpark out of Megatron’s hands. It occurred to Jack that he had no idea how Megatron might take the AllSpark’s power for himself, but if the possibility was as concerning for Optimus and Arcee as it appeared, then it had to be a simple matter. He must’ve come close, if the AllSpark had been thrown to the stars as the only way to stop him—or, perhaps, it had thrown itself?

Sector Seven may have had tactics and technologies and contingencies, but Jack knew they hadn’t had much of a grand plan, either. The fact that Megatron and the AllSpark might as well have been matter and antimatter hadn’t occurred to them. An unknown-unknown that, right now, might as well have been an ax hanging over the neck of humanity.

More to the point, Sector Seven was not a combat group. It was a covert agency. If the organization had ever made plans to take on Cybertronians, it’d been with numerous advantages: numbers, secrecy, and surprise. Ravage had knocked out the last two, and Jack wasn’t sure what twenty-three soldiers and half a dozen light vehicles could do against the Decepticons in a stand-up fight.

He shook his head. “This isn’t good, Arcee.”

“So, your optimism does crack,” she remarked. She had to hunch to fit in the armory, and she kept out of the way. She held the AllSpark in one hand, against her waist, which struck Jack as less secure than he’d expected. “But you’re right. This is not good.”

“Have you been able to reach the Autobots?”

Arcee shook her head. “Not from in here. Once we’re on the road, I’ll try again. But even if they can hear me, they might not be able to reach us before the battle is decided.”

“Sergeant,” Epps barked, “Get that damn space cube stowed away!”

“Yes, Sergeant Major!” Huh, old habits.

“Here you are,” Arcee said, and held out the AllSpark to him. There was a part of Jack that didn’t want to touch it. Not just because it was a sacred artifact, but because he wasn’t sure what’d happen to him if he did. But he took it from her, and it was cool to the touch. The engravings felt rough, more like they’d been chiselled than cut with lasers. It felt, well, like a stone cube.

“And we’re sure the Decepticons can’t track it?” he asked.

“It’s inert and quiet, like I said,” Arcee replied. “Trust me, they’ll only be able to sense the energon signature when they’re right on top of it.”

“Well, you’re the expert,” Jack replied, tugging a black rucksack open and setting the cube inside it. Yeah, it felt way too sacrilegious to be hauling that artifact out of there in a backpack.

“This feels sacrilegious,” Jack told Arcee. She rolled her optics with a distinct click.

The goal was to keep the AllSpark as far away from Megatron as possible, and everyone was aware that the systems that kept the Deception warlord in stasis would start failing at any minute. Jack glanced over at Lennox, staring down at a map of the local region spread out on the bench before him—the operation was in his hands. If anyone could figure out a miracle, it was him.

Then, on the far side of the armory, Banachek finished up another discussion with someone on his comms (“Go with God, son,”) and Jack knew that, whatever time they thought they had, however long the fuse was on this bomb, it was less than they’d assumed.

“Well, that’s it, gentlemen,” Banachek said, turning to face them. “NBE-1 hangar is reporting a steady rise in ambient temperature. The remaining infrastructure cannot maintain cryostasis. As of right now, we are going to lose control of NBE-1.”

“How long do we have?” Lennox asked, not taking his eyes off the map.

“I don’t know. Twenty minutes, probably less. There’s a team volunteering to stay behind and maintain containment with the handheld projectors for as long as they can. But that won’t buy us long.”

And, Jack thought, when Megatron wakes up, they’re probably all dead.

Lennox nodded. “Well, the good news is that it doesn’t change anything. We just need to move a bit faster. Alright!” Lennox called. “Listen up, eyes and ears, because I’m only going to say this once. And you’ll need to forgive me for not sticking to the template like they taught us.”

It drew a few chuckles. Lennox leaned against the table. “Our mission’s simple: keep that cube away from the giant robot that’s defrosting a few rooms over. Darby’s associate there,” he said, pointing to Arcee, “is the fastest thing we’ve got.”

“‘Thing?’” Arcee murmured.

“Darby’s on cube duty. The rest of us, we’re going to cover them as we get as far from ground zero as possible. Sound simple? Well, here’s the bad news.” Someone muttered something and their neighbors laughed as Lennox traced a line along the map before him.

“We don’t have many options. Really, we only have one. Mission City is twenty-two miles away, straight down the I-11. We’re going to take that cube, and we’re going use that city as cover until we can get it as far away as possible.”

“The city?” someone asked, a split-second before Jack could.

“I know!” Lennox said, glancing at the soldiers, somehow as if he was looking at them each in turn. “I know. Some of us have seen what these things can do, and the last thing we should be doing is dragging them into a civilian center. But until we’ve got a link to the Air Force, the bad guys have complete aerial supremacy. Which means if we stay out in the open, we’re dead. Air power is the biggest advantage these guys have, which means it's vital that we prevent them from using it.”

Lennox took a breath. His gaze was distant. He’d weighed this up, Jack knew. Run the numbers, solved the equations—and didn’t like the answer. But if it was the only shot they had, it was the only shot they had.

“Listen,” Lennox continued. “Today’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’re going out there with weapons that’ve never been tested in a live fire situation, with nothing but shortwave comms, against giant alien robots. And the way Darby tells it, that guy in the hangar? He’s killed one planet before, and he’ll do it again if he gets his hands on that cube. And the real pain about it is that I’ve never known Darby to tell a lie.” Lennox chuckled, like he could find the levity in it all.

“But look, I’ve got a little girl out there. When I got sent out to the sandbox, I told her that I was doing it, so the monsters didn’t get her. I just didn’t count on them being thirty-feet tall and made of steel but, well, what can you do? Because all I know is, her daddy’s not going to let those monsters get her, you know what I’m saying?

“This is a good, clean fight. Fate of the world stuff. The kinda thing that all those recruitment ads lied to us about, huh? I know some of you are former marines—well, Darby, Epps and I will lead the way, but I hope you can show us a thing or two about dragon slaying.” Another round of chucking, but louder. Lennox watched them all, nodding.

“You’ve got one minute to finish arming up,” Lennox said. “If I’ve got my numbers right, we should get the cube into the city just before Darth Frosty breaks out of here. We’re moving out in sixty seconds—let’s go!”

The armory broke out into activity. Banachek crossed over to them. Arcee watched him like a hawk studying a rat. “I’ll do everything I can to get in contact with the Air Force,” he said. “I’ll be heading straight for Nellis. And then, after all this...” He glanced at Arcee, expression betraying nothing.

“Then we’ll have some things to discuss,” she finished for him.

“Yes,” Banachek replied, nodding. “I imagine we will.”

In fifty seconds, Lennox, Epps, and the rest of the team had piled into two of the armored buggies and two of the black SUVs. Only the first two vehicles were armed with those electromagnetic weapons, and Jack wasn’t going to bet on their effectiveness against anything larger than Arcee—assuming, too, that Soundwave hadn’t already told his associates about them.

He hefted the rucksack. It was odd how light the AllSpark was. If he hadn’t shoved it in there himself, hadn’t kept the bag on his back, he’d have sworn it’d fallen out. Before him, Arcee knelt down and shifted forms, getting her tires on the ground, her engine roaring to life, like she was challenging the four other vehicles. Whatever the AllSpark had done to her, she even sounded better.

“Remember,” Arcee said, as he climbed aboard. “Whatever you do, don’t drop the AllSpark.”

“I won’t,” Jack replied. “I’m kinda aware of the stakes, ‘Cee.”

Arcee canted a mirror. “That was a joke.”

“Darby!” Lennox called, leaning out of the side of one of the buggies. “We’re good to go! Fall in behind my vehicle! Let’s roll!”

Jack shot him a quick thumbs-up as Lennox’s driver accelerated out of the motor pool garage. Arcee leapt into her convoy slot like she’d been waiting for it, and the remaining vehicles fell in behind her, leaving Hoover Dam and everything else behind them. He knew Simmons had to have gotten Glen, Maggie and his mom out of there. Not because he trusted Simmons, but he trusted that Simmons wouldn’t dare disobey his superiors. He wished he'd had time to see them, to explain everything—or to try, at least. Jack tore his focus away from them. Right now, his responsibility was to the mission.

Arcee could’ve outpaced the others with ease, but standard procedure said the slowest vehicle set the pace. Without reliable communications, they had to stay close if they were going to have any chance of coordinating this operation.

Soundwave had to have them outclassed on that front. There was no way that he hadn’t noticed their departure from the dam, even if he didn’t know what they were carrying. Best case scenario, his cronies were too busy effecting Megatron’s release to chase them down immediately. Worst case, Ravage was already telling his master what’d happened, and Soundwave was vectoring in his associates.

Like Blackout. The MH-53 had to be somewhere nearby, and Jack figured he’d make his presence known soon enough. Whatever Soundwave had hit them with, it’d given the helicopter Decepticon the perfect cover to move wherever he wished. Lennox had said something about an F-22 in the AO, too. Jack hoped that it was one of their guys, but he wouldn’t bet on it. Not today.

Assuming a worst case scenario, that made three Decepticons—satellite, helicopter, and jet. The latter two could show up on the battlefield, with Ravage and Rumble as backup. So, if Megatron joined the fray, that made five. If they could just reach the Autobots, then they’d have true numerical superiority. But Arcee hadn’t said anything about being able to reach them and, as they streaked down the highway, still didn’t. Jack didn’t think that was a good sign.

The roads were light on traffic, and they kept good pace. They were maybe ten miles down the highway when an oncoming truck blasted its horn in a quick one-two. Just a trucker supporting the troops, Jack thought, as he noted the blazing red and blue paint job—

“Wait,” Jack said, as the truck roared past, “is that—”

Optimus Prime slammed on the brakes and drifted in a long one-eighty turn. Optimus was a ten-thousand ton behemoth but, for those three seconds, he might as well have been a ten-wheeled ballerina. Jack felt his jaw drop open. How the hell could a truck move like that?

The other Autobots were with him, and they matched his turn with perfect precision, holding their column formation like they were driven by the best stunt drivers in the universe. Jack caught a glimpse of Sam during the turn, clinging to Bumblebee’s cabin for dear life.

“Arcee! It’s the Autobots!”

“I know!” she replied. “I didn’t want to ruin the surprise!”

Laughing, Jack watched the Autobots fall into formation, with Optimus bringing up the rearguard. Lennox, leaning out of the lead Chenowth, stared back at the new additions to the convoy, and gestured in Jack’s direction.

“They’re with us!” Jack shouted, but there was no way for Lennox to hear him. He raised one hand and gave the Captain a thumbs up. Lennox returned it, then shook his head in disbelief as he drew back into his seat. Jack figured he had to be thinking the same thing he was: check out the fucking cavalry!

The fate of the world, if not the galaxy might’ve been hanging in the balance—but, now, with the Autobots at their back, it felt like a fair fight.