Leave it to Kaminari, Lennox thought as he worked frantically to reload his launcher, to land on top of the seething Decepticon’s shoulders while the rest of them had descended silently to the floor.
Regaining his footing, the enraged Barricade immediately located the fleeing human. “More of you meddling creatures! You swarm like bugs!” Raising an enormous foot, he started to bring it down as Kaminari and the others fled for the safety of the access tunnel.
The foot never reached the ground.
Making a supreme effort as he exerted himself to the utmost, Optimus Prime burst outward from the shattered vise and slammed into his old enemy. Locked together, Autobot and Decepticon crashed into the wall of the cavity, sending rock and cross-bracing beams crashing to the floor.
Lennox grabbed Epps’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here! Move, move!” With dislodged rock and earth crashing down around them as the two metal giants slammed back and forth against the enclosing walls, the soldiers joined the scientists in racing for the access tunnel.
The clash of the metal titans echoed behind them as they sprinted down the smooth floor of the covert passageway. Motion sensors mounted on the walls activated embedded battery-powered lights to illuminate their way: an addition on the part of the traitor Bruno Carerra’s engineers that now benefited his enemies. At the end of the tunnel they encountered a heavy door that was locked from the outside.
“Everybody step back.” A grim-faced Epps raised his launcher. “I just happen to have the key with me.”
The single sabot round blew out the lock as well as a chunk of the door itself. Shoving aside the smoking remnants, they found themselves standing in a reinforced subway tunnel that was still plainly under construction. It was far too early for the morning work shift to have begun to arrive.
“Which way?” Kaminari was looking up and down the unfinished tunnel.
Petr was already gesturing. “Nearest station in service is this way. There will be access there to surface.”
As they ran, Lennox caught up to the heavier Russian. “Let me guess. When we got here you memorized the public transport map for the entire city of Rome.”
“No.” Puffing as he ran, Andronov struggled to keep up with the others. “I memorize public transport maps and systems for hundred largest metropolitan areas when I first asked to join NEST. Thought it might come in handy one day.” He nodded in the direction they were running. “Was not difficult. Moscow’s metro is much bigger than this.”
“So is New York’s,” Lennox countered, and the two spent the rest of the time it took them to reach the nearest functioning station arguing the merits of their countries’ respective subway systems.
Crowded together in the lightless pit that Starscream had planned to be Optimus’s tomb, the metal leviathans were unable to deploy swords and clubs, far less explosive weapons. The fight devolved into a contest of physical strength and determination that saw first one combatant slam his opponent into a wall only for him to be wrenched around and smashed in turn into the enclosing rock and metal.
“It’s over, Optimus.” One powerful arm jammed hard against the Autobot’s throat, Barricade pressed the attack, leaning all his weight against his opponent. But unlike a human, no life-giving air passed through the Autobot’s neck. For all the damage he was causing, Barricade might as well have been pressing his arm against his foe’s foot.
Reaching up and under with both hands, Optimus lifted his massive assailant and threw him against the far wall of the pit. “Indeed it is, Barricade. You are a good soldier, but you’ve chosen the wrong side in this war.”
“More words,” Barricade spat. Straightening, he gestured for his enemy to come toward him. “Too many words.”
“I agree.” Poising for another leap, Optimus prepared to engage his opponent afresh.
Instead, this time he jumped straight upward.
Barricade was an instant late in following. Halfway through his leap he encountered a blizzard of cut stone as Optimus proceeded to shove one ancient chunk of rock after another into the pit. As soon as he had shoveled enough on top of his fuming adversary, the leader of the Autobots proceeded to activate one of his more advanced weapons to melt the upper layer of rock to as great a depth as possible. His aim was not to imprison Barricade permanently—no simple entombment in molten stone would achieve that—but to delay him.
The instant Optimus showed himself outside the Colosseum, Starscream knew this was a battle he could not win. He could inflict damage, yes, and wreak collateral destruction. But he could not win. Nor could he imagine what might have happened to Barricade. Had Optimus actually managed to kill the old warrior? One thing the leader of the Decepticons knew for certain: it would be unwise to wait until the truth made itself known.
“Deadend and Swindle: wherever you are, retreat!” he broadcast as widely as he could. “To the agreed-upon location!” Having issued the necessary order, he dodged another volley from the damnably persistent Ironhide, leaped upward, shape-shifted, and in his Raptor guise shot away to the south.
A frustrated Ironhide cast a volley of suitable Cybertronian curses after the fleeing Decepticon. Much relieved to see him alive and well, he then confronted Optimus.
“We can still pursue Deadend and Swindle.”
“No.” The leader of the Autobots was firm. “Spread out as they are, taking them out might well cause significant damage to the city. We have managed to avoid any human deaths. I would prefer to keep it that way. There will be another opportunity, later. And—Barricade is here.”
Ratchet was visibly unsettled by this news. “Here—where?”
“At present he is safely immobilized. We will deal with him in a moment.” Optimus paused as if listening. “I have just received a communication indicating that our four fellow human fighters are safe. Sam Witwicky may not be among them, but this is the second time I owe my life to humans.”
As soon as the human soldiers and scientists had rejoined them, the Autobot leader explained what had happened in the interval since they had fled from Barricade and into the subway tunnel.
“Next time,” he remarked gravely, “we must try to see that such an encounter takes place in a location that will not endanger a large human population.”
Petr looked doubtful. “Will be difficult. Starscream knows that your concern for our kind offers him protection. I think when he attacks again, it may be in a similarly crowded environment.”
“Then we’ll just have to find a way to kill him more quietly.” Ratchet spoke while attending to Ironhide’s slight wounds.
“Quiet killing is outside my area of expertise,” the big Autobot grumbled.
As they returned to work that morning the machinists and drillers and excavators working to extend Rome’s C line were surprised to encounter a previously unknown side tunnel that had seemingly materialized overnight. Running south from beneath the Colosseum, it intersected the existing line before disappearing at right angles to the proposed track. Following it, a pair of baffled engineers discovered that it curved sharply upward before finally breaking the surface in the center of a park.
Of whatever might have dug such an extensive tunnel in such a short time there was no sign, and the pit from which it originated was likewise empty.
Bruno Carerra sat in his luxurious villa north of Castrovillari and reflected on the week’s events. Things had not gone according to plan, but he was accustomed to setbacks. They were part of life; it was only a matter of how one faced them, how one overcame them. Optimus Prime lived, Starscream had fled, and Bruno sat in his villa. There would be additional opportunities to set in motion his plans for personal power.
The roar of a jet startled him from his musings. Walking outside, he met Starscream standing on his expansive lawn. Pity about the crushed fountain, it would have to be replaced. He walked to Starscream, his arms wide, his expressions effusive. “Well, my formidable friend, the game has gone against us this time,” ventured Bruno.
�
��Vile insect, you have failed me utterly. Prime lives. Your plan was worthless!”
“My part of the plan worked. It is not my fault you could not execute your end of the bargain. Come, let us forgive and forget. We have much to plan together.”
Starscream chuckled a mirthless laugh. “Together? Oh insect, I will indeed forget, but I never forgive.”
When the carabinieri finally traced some of the events at the Colosseum to Bruno’s villa, they found only smoking ruins. It was as if the man had never even existed: wiped clean from the face of the Earth. Starscream had attended to every detail.
Some time later, back on Diego Garcia, Lennox and Epps were winding up a rare relaxing afternoon when they emerged from the water to find a revived, gleaming, and freshly customized motorcycle waiting for them just above the waterline. No rider was in evidence.
Flopping down on the hot sand and removing his sunglasses from their holder, Lennox extracted a cold brew from the nearby cooler, popped the top, took a long swallow, and addressed the bike like an old friend.
“Don’t tell me, Knockout. You want to offer me a ride. Or else you’re missing Kami and Petr.” Following the encounter at Rome, both scientists had been called back home to render official reports on their recent encounters: Andronov to Uralmash’s research facilities at Yekaterinburg and Ishihara to the university at Tsukuba.
“It isn’t that,” Knockout told the two men. “I think something significant may be about to happen.”
Sitting on his towel, Epps let out a groan. “Oh man—didn’t we just get finished with something ‘happening’?”
Lennox sighed. “Just be glad we didn’t end up in Antarctica. What is it, Knockout?”
The Autobot sounded uncertain. “There is some confusion as to specifics. I have researched the syntax, but I’m still confused.
“What does it mean to be ‘shanghaied’?”
Lennox regarded the waiting Autobot. “It could mean one of two things, Knockout. Either someone’s about to be taken somewhere or …” He looked over at the silent Epps. “First Rome, now …?”
The technical sergeant looked grim. “Looks like it’s time to practice my Mandarin …”
For Don Szekely,
From all creatures great and small and Prescott
With thanks and appreciation
(and for Kyle and Rachel, too)
BY ALAN DEAN FOSTER
The Black Hole
Cachalot
Dark Star
The Metrognome and Other Stories
Midworld
No Crystal Tears
Sentenced to Prism
Star Wars®: Splinter of the Mind’s Eye
Star Trek® Logs One–Ten
Voyage to the City of the Dead
… Who Needs Enemies?
With Friends Like These …
Mad Amos
The Howling Stones
Parallelites
Star Wars®: The Approaching Storm
Impossible Places
Exceptions to Reality
Quofum
Transformers: The Ghosts of Yesterday
Transformers (tie-in novel)
Transformers: The Veiled Threat
THE ICERIGGER TRILOGY:
Icerigger
Mission to Moulokin
The Deluge Drivers
THE ADVENTURES OF FLINX OF THE COMMONWEALTH:
For Love of Mother-Not
The Tar-Aiyam Krang
Orphan Star
The End of Matter
Bloodhype
Flinx in Flux
Mid-Flinx
Reunion
Flinx’s Folly
Sliding Scales
Running from the Diety
Trouble Magnet
Patrimony
Flinx Transcendent
THE DAMNED:
Book One: A Call to Arms
Book Two: The False Mirror
Book Three: The Spoils of War
THE FOUNDING OF THE COMMONWEALTH:
Phylogenesis
Dirge
Diuturnity’s Dawn
THE TAKEN TRILOGY:
Lost and Found
The Light-years Beneath My Feat
The Candle of Distant Earth
The Veiled Threat Page 23