by Peter David
The Wreckers pounced on the ship, moving in perfect synchronization in their efforts. They kept up a steady stream of chatter, talking so fast and furiously that Sam couldn’t tell what the hell they were talking about. But, he reasoned, it didn’t really matter whether he understood, as long as they did.
The way that they were moving … it seemed familiar somehow …
Suddenly he laughed.
Considering the circumstances, it certainly seemed an odd reaction. Epps stared at him questioningly, and Sam said, “Don’t you see it?” He pointed at the Wreckers.
“See what? What’re you—?” Then he realized, and a broad smile crossed his face. “A pit crew.”
“Yeah. They’re moving just like a pit crew.”
“Who says television isn’t educational?” Epps said.
“So, ah,” Sam said uncertainly, “are you guys, y’ know … outta here? Like you said you were gonna be?”
“You kidding?” Epps pointed toward the mercs, who seemed engaged in endless, fascinated discussion with the Autobots. “This is going to be the heavyweight fight of the world. If you think we’re going to wanna be anyplace other than ringside, you can just forget it. We’ll stay under the El tracks, use subterranean roads. We’ll be fine.”
The Wreckers were finished in less than an hour. Once they were ready, Bumblebee climbed into the cockpit. Sam followed right behind him, although it was somewhat cramped since Bumblebee was taking up most of the space within.
Sam glanced around. He did not for one moment think he was remotely qualified to render judgment on the quality of the work the Wreckers had put into slapping this thing together. But to his untrained eye, it sure looked like it was being held together with spit and baling wire.
“You think it’ll fly?” Sam said, trying to keep the uncertainty to a minimum.
Bumblebee gave a confident thumbs-up.
That helped ease Sam’s concerns a bit, and then, almost as an afterthought, he asked, “And you do know how to fly it?”
The hand that was holding an upwardly pointed thumb flattened out and wavered side to side, conveying the sign recognized throughout the galaxy: So-so.
“Whoa, wait, what does that mean?” Sam was suddenly less sanguine about the whole notion. “Bee, explain that—”
Bumblebee declined to do so. Instead, the ignition of the engine and the liftoff of the fighter ship were almost simultaneous. Sam was thrown back hard against the seat as the fighter hurtled into the sky, banked hard, and headed at top speed toward the smoking remains of Chicago.
VIRGINIA
i
The situation room at NEST headquarters, while not quite as impressive as the one in the White House, was capable enough when it came to dealing with an emergency. Also, because of the fact that the walls were entirely curved, it had been given a whimsical nickname by NEST personnel: the Egg. Mearing, annoyed by anything having to do with whimsy, had actively discouraged and then outright forbidden it. Naturally, this had caused the name to become so entrenched that by this point even she was using it.
Fortunately enough, the Egg had not been in one of the sections that Sentinel had annihilated during his rampage through NEST confines. Having remained unbroken, the Egg was now serving as accommodations for General Morshower, Director Mearing, Agent Simmons, and the titleless Dutch.
General Morshower initiated the bad news by saying that was only the first salvo of what seemed an endless stream of setbacks. “Our high-range bombers were knocked out of the sky. We can’t get through the enemy air defenses over the city.”
There was a speakerphone set up in the middle of the table, and Lennox’s voice came over it. “All NEST teams are on stand-down, holding at Grissom ARB. We’re ten minutes outside the battle zone.”
Simmons was all business, not at all in a frenzied state, which was a bit of a relief to Mearing since she never quite knew which Simmons she was going to be dealing with. “Can we get any eyes in there at all?”
“Radio silence. Comms are jacked,” Lennox said.
“Just a couple of surveillance UAVs,” Mearing said, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles. “Only link to that whole city.”
Morshower looked grim. “They want us out. They want us blind.”
Simmons wasn’t listening to Morshower. Instead, his entire attention was on Mearing, and he was leaning forward eagerly. Or at least as far forward as his busted leg would allow him to. “Whoever’s manning those UAV drones, can we try to navigate them toward Trump Tower?” When he saw her puzzled expression, he continued. “The kid was on his way to Chicago. He thinks that Dylan Gould is a point-man human op. If I know anything, I know this: That kid’s an alien bad-news magnet.”
There was just enough of that manic energy in Simmons’s voice to prompt a skeptical look from Morshower. “Gould? Old money, long-standing industrial business partner. You’re saying he’s in on it?” When Simmons’s head nodded so furiously that he looked like a bobblehead doll, Morshower said to Mearing, “You vouch for this man?”
She considered it a moment. “Today. Maybe. We’ll redirect the drones.”
But that wasn’t sufficient for Simmons, who rapped the speaker box on the table as if Lennox were inside it. “Lennox, listen up. You have the only guys close enough who know anything about how to fight these things.”
“Sending combat teams now … it’s a suicide run!” Morshower said sharply. Then he paused, considering. “But it’s your team, Colonel. Your discretion. I’d back you up as best I can.”
Simmons leaned in closer “Can’t tell you what to do, soldier. But if I wasn’t in this wheelchair, I think you know where I’d be.”
“I absolutely do, Agent Simmons,” Lennox said. “And I think we’re on the same page.”
ii
The technician had set up shop in the Egg and was expertly controlling the drone as it maneuvered its way through Chicago. Its point of view camera sent the digital feed directly to the view screen on the Egg’s curved wall. Mearing and Simmons watched in stunned silence, surveying the scenes of utter destruction. Simmons felt as if he were looking at the middle of Baghdad after a night of shock and awe.
“Are you telling me,” Mearing said with astonishment, “that Sam was headed there?”
Simmons shook his head. “Poor kid. Probably never got close.”
CHICAGO
i
Carly sat in Dylan’s penthouse apartment in the Trump Tower, looking out at the smoking ruins of the Windy City. Some of the destruction had been caused by, she thought, army planes trying to launch assaults on the Decepticons and having no luck. Some of it was the Decepticons destroying things simply because they could, and they were sadistic monsters who enjoyed inflicting damage.
And Dylan was in their hip pocket. No … Dylan was their best pal. Their best flunky. He wasn’t the Devil. He was, as they once described someone on The West Wing, the guy who ran into the 7-Eleven to get Satan a pack of cigarettes.
And she had defended him to Sam. That was the most humiliating thing. Sam had been absolutely right about him, and she had been absolutely wrong. She could not believe how badly she had misjudged him. Although, to be fair, even if she had believed Sam that there was something up with Dylan, she would have just thought Dylan wanted to sleep with her. The notion that he was aiding and abetting an alien takeover would never have occurred to her. It hadn’t even occurred to Sam, and he was Mister Alien Invading Takeover Guy.
She walked back across the living room, pausing only to cast an angry glance in the direction of the vindictive little watchdog Dylan had left behind to make sure she stayed put while he grabbed some sleep in the next room. He had not so subtly suggested to Carly that it might be wise on her part if she chose to join him. She made it clear in no uncertain terms that that would never happen. That left her walking around the living room in a daze of fear and frustration.
The fear she could handle. The frustration, however, was going to continue to eat away at he
r until she managed to find something to do to occupy her time other than worry about Sam, Dylan, Decepticons, and the end of the world.
Carly glanced out a window. More pillars had gone up all over the city. Purely as a guess, she supposed that there had to be a preponderance of them here in Chicago in order to focus and disperse the energy that was going to emanate from the anchor. It would then be projected around the world to other pillars, and then …
Then what? A celestial neighbor pops in?
She could readily believe Dylan’s protests that science wasn’t his forte. How long would it take for the earth to be shaken to pieces by the arrival of the Decepticons’ home world? Minutes? Hours? Days at the most? All they needed to do to relocate the Decepticons was get a few pillars to the new world, and boom, off they’d go. But what about the humans for whom the bridge might prove too demanding a means of transport?
Then it dawned on her. She had seen hints of a vast ship hovering above, although it was hard to make it out clearly. What if it was some sort of ark? What if there were more of them around the world? Perhaps they intended to cram as many humans as they could into the ships and bring them to Cybertron as a brand spanking new slave race, just as Dylan had said. She had a mental image of Dylan standing there, on a perch, snapping a whip and encouraging all the pathetic slaves passing below him to move faster, damn it, faster. It was not a pretty picture.
Feeling the need to move, as if she could leave the mental image behind her, she noticed a telescope standing out near Dylan’s balcony. It was angled downward, which made her tend to think that he was far more interested in using it to go all Peeping Tom on surrounding windows.
She looked south across the river and spotted the two giant robots, Megatron and Sentinel, right where they had been last night, on the same rooftop.
Desperate to engage her mind, she swung the telescope around and focused it on the two titans to see what she could see.
ii
(“The city is secure,” Megatron says with confidence. “The humans cannot stop us.”)
(“Very soon, the rest of the pillars will absorb sufficient solar radiation to reach full capacity,” Sentinel replies. “Then they will be placed into launch position.”)
(“This is the victory I promised you, Sentinel, so many years ago. A victory where, in the end, we rebuild Cybertron together.”)
(Sentinel’s next words are laced with disdain. “I have deigned to work with you … that our planet may survive. I will never work for you.”)
(Abruptly Sentinel’s hand lashes out, and he wraps it around Megatron’s throat. With a twist of his upper body, he is suddenly dangling Megatron over the sheer drop from the top of the building to the street far below. He shakes Megatron several times like a cat worrying a mouse, Megatron’s feet treading nothing but air. “And you would be wise to remember the difference,” Sentinel warns him.)
(His point having been made, he tosses Megatron carelessly not to the street but back to the roof next to him. Megatron looks utterly stunned and says nothing.)
iii
Carly had many talents, but tragically, being able to read lips wasn’t one of them, even when the speakers had huge metal mouths.
Nor, as it happened, was it a talent that she required. It was abundantly clear to her that Megatron had just been bitch-slapped by his supposed ally.
She walked back across the living room, turning over in her mind what she had just witnessed. It seemed unlikely that there would be an occasion for her to use this information or turn it to her advantage in any way.
On the other hand, if it did present itself, she knew one thing for sure: She was going to be ready.
“Shhhh! Carly …!”
Her head snapped around, and her eyes widened in shock.
“Sam!”
He was standing in the middle of the living room in a half crouch, looking exactly like what he was: someone who had managed to, somehow, sneak into enemy territory to effect a rescue. He had one finger to his lips, and with the other he was gesturing for her to come to him.
For a moment, she was totally stunned, trying to figure out where he had come from and how he could possibly have gotten here. It overwhelmed everything else only for a second, but that second was all that was required for the stereo system to change into Laserbeak.
The malicious Decepticon launched itself straight at Sam, and Carly barely had time to scream a warning even as Sam caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. He tried to avoid the assault but failed utterly as Laserbeak slammed into him, knocking him headfirst over the couch.
The shouting, the falling—all of that would have been sufficient to wake the dead, much less Dylan. He charged into the living room from the adjoining bedroom, shoving the sleep from his eyes and studying the scene in astonishment. Sam was just clambering to his feet behind the couch, and Dylan locked eyes with him. “How the hell—?” he demanded, which admittedly Carly was also wondering, and then he bellowed, “Kill him!”
Laserbeak aimed his guns straight at Sam, who ducked back behind the furniture to avoid the blast.
Dylan threw up his hands in alarm. “Not the couch! It’s Ralph Lauren!”
Clearly annoyed but under orders to accommodate the ridiculous human whenever possible, Laserbeak turned and shot out the doors leading to the balcony. Wood and glass shattered and splintered, providing plenty of clearance. Laserbeak then came around the couch, grabbed Sam by the ankle, and dragged him unceremoniously toward the balcony.
“No!” Carly screamed, and she lunged toward Sam to try to head it off. But Dylan moved too quickly, coming in behind and putting her into a crude but effective headlock. She struggled, kicking at his shins, trying to pull free and failing.
With one quick throw, Laserbeak hurled Sam the width of the living room and over the balcony. Carly’s scream mingled with his own, and then Sam was gone.
Dylan shoved Carly aside, sending her tumbling onto the couch. Laserbeak was heading over to the balcony to double-check that Sam was nothing but a puddle of bloody mess on the sidewalk, but he was distracted when an angry Dylan bellowed, “Would you please tell me how the hell he got in here? What were you, sleeping on the job? Could you be any more useless?”
Carly saw Laserbeak’s angry red eyes focused on Dylan, and Dylan was distracted by Laserbeak, and all she could do was look with despair at the balcony where she had just seen Sam Witwicky thrown to his death. She choked back a sob.
Suddenly Sam’s head appeared just beyond the balcony. His head and then his shoulders, and she could see that he was crouching on something flat and broad: the top of an air vehicle. He was frantically gesturing for her to drop down, and then she saw the guns, bristling and ready. She instantly rolled off the couch and hit the floor, lying facedown and covering her ears.
Laserbeak glanced her way, unsure of why she had just done that. Dylan, at the wrong angle, didn’t see her and hadn’t yet looked off to the side to see what was arriving on the balcony.
The guns aboard the fighter plane cut loose, strafing the penthouse apartment, blasting Laserbeak against the wall.
Dylan threw himself backward, hitting the floor on the opposite side of the living room from Carly. He let out a scream and cowered behind a Louis XIV chair.
The guns stopped firing. Carly, sensing her moment, jumped to her feet and bolted for the balcony. Sam was just beyond the edge, his hand outstretched. A sheer drop yawned below, and she still had no idea how he’d come to wind up atop a combat vessel or whether they would make it down safely. It was, in every way, a literal leap of faith.
She didn’t hesitate to take it.
She hit the balcony and kept going, clambering up the railing and over in one smooth motion. With a confidence and smoothness that would have been the envy of a trained acrobat for a Ringling Brothers trapeze act, Sam caught her and pulled her to safety atop the ship.
The cockpit was wide open, and Sam eased her in behind Bumblebee. He was about to climb in hi
mself, but suddenly he was being pulled backward.
Carly let out an alarmed shriek.
Laserbeak was behind Sam, on the fighter. He was pockmocked with bullet holes and a sizable chunk of his body had been blown away, but he was still determined to inflict as much damage as he could, like a berserk shark in the throes of a feeding frenzy.
Locked in a life and death battle, Sam managed to angle himself around and grab Laserbeak’s neck, twisting the robot around so that he couldn’t bring his blasters to bear. Laserbeak fought back furiously. They tumbled toward the edge of the ship, Sam barely managing to stay on.
Carly tried to clamber out of the cockpit to get to Sam, but Bumblebee firmly pulled her back in. Apparently one human running around on the outside of the ship was more than enough.
Sam cried out in pain as Laserbeak managed to seize the leverage and push him onto his back, slamming him down. Sam lashed out with his foot, kicking Laserbeak back, but it wasn’t far enough as Laserbeak swung his blaster around and fired. It wasn’t point blank, but it was close enough that a miss was highly unlikely.
And out of seemingly nowhere, an incredibly small vessel came zipping in and intercepted the blast. Carly had no idea what it was. She’d never seen anything like it before. Whatever it was, it was blasted sideways, spinning out of control, and sent crashing into the ship’s stabilizers.
The ship was barely holding together as it was; the damage to the stabilizers was more than enough to cripple it beyond repair, or at least beyond what Bumblebee could fix on the fly. He struggled to control the rocking, tossing ship, and it began a slow, spiraling descent.
The ship tilted backward, and Sam, back on his feet, was catapulted directly at a startled Laserbeak. He collided with the robot, and the two of them went down in a tangle. This time Sam was on top and shoved Laserbeak back across the deck.