CHAPTER 28

How long had they been in Mission City? Ten minutes, fifteen? And in that time, they’d lost contact with Optimus, and they were down two Autobots, and any hope of an organized evac of the AllSpark had gone with them. Megatron was a force of nature, an unstoppable emperor without equal. He hadn’t ripped Jazz in half because he was a threat. He’d done it because he wasn't.

Sergeant Jack Darby had seen combat. Not much of it, but just enough to know that you didn’t truly see combat. Combat simply was. It was there in the tinnitus of a hundred spent rounds, the nerves and reflexes humming and honed, and the bone-rippling shock of an IED going off. It subsumed you like a fish in a tempest. But he’d never seen something like this.

Lennox’s people fell back down the street, moving in teams, covering each other, bounding down the street with alternating covering fire. Ironhide stood tall, bringing up the rear, spraying fire at the tank Decepticon—and at Megatron. The tank was down an arm and smoking from dozens of hits. The damage that’d been done may not have crippled it, but it didn’t advance. Jack was pretty sure it didn’t need to. It was a tank, walking or not. It could sit back for a standoff engagement and, short of breaking line of sight, short of getting through to the Air Force, there’d be no way of responding to it.

But Megatron kept his distance, too. Maybe Ironhide’s firepower was keeping him back, or maybe the warlord was gathering his minions. Maybe he didn’t have to do anything but keep Ironhide distracted. Or maybe he didn’t want to risk firing his fusion cannon without knowing that the AllSpark was secure. Jack had never forgotten that he was carrying the Autobot’s holy relic—but now, more than ever, he was aware that it was there, on his back, on his shoulders.

No pressure.

Ratchet stomped to a stop by Bumblebee, looming over Jack and Sam. “You’ve gotta help him,” Sam called up to him. “Ratchet, please!”

Ratchet frowned. “This is hardly the place nor the time for battlefield surgery!”

Arcee tossed one of Bumblebee’s legs down beside the prone Autobot. “What, think you can’t do it?”

Ratchet glanced in the direction of the two Decepticons.

“Cover me, Autobot, and without the insults!” Ratchet looked at Bumblebee’s ruined lower half, right hand folding back into his wrist and forming a cutting tool. “This will take time.”

“Motorcycle!” Lennox called, racing toward them, waving one arm. “Hey! Tell us what it takes to kill one of these things!”

“Aim for the chest,” Arcee said, turning. “Behind the chest armor, at the heart of the protoform, is the spark chamber. It doesn’t matter how much damage you do otherwise, that is the only way to guarantee the kill. Even if you were to rip off Brawl’s head, he could be repaired.”

“Brawl?” Lennox asked.

“The tank?” Jack asked, looking at Arcee.

“The tank, yes.”

“Not one of Megatron’s brightest warriors,” Ratchet mused, working on Bumblebee’s legs, “but what he lacks in intelligence he makes up for in—”

“Firepower, I get it,” Lennox snapped, then turned his attention to Jack. “Sergeant, I’ve got a plan. Look, we have to make this quick, I can’t leave my guys back there. Give the cube to the girl.”

“What?” Sam asked.

Jack slipped the backpack from his shoulders, as Lennox continued: “Listen, Sam, was it?” He pulled a flare from his kit, thrust it in her direction. “Take this flare. There’s a tall, white building with statues on top,” he said, pointing the way. “Take the cube. Go to the roof. Set the flare.”

“No,” Sam said, shaking her head, stepping back. “No, I can’t. This is insane.”

Lennox, raising his voice: “That’ll signal the chopper, and they will—”

“No! I can’t do this!”

Lennox snatched Sam by her hoodie, yanked her in close. “Listen to me! You’re a soldier now! The only chance we’ve got is to hand this thing off while they think Darby still has it! We need to get this thing out of here or a lot of people are going to die!”

It didn’t help. It was too much. Tough love was scarred into you by drill sergeants and do-or-die stress. It wasn’t the sort of thing that you got from a suburban high school where your biggest problems were boys and too-flashy cars. Sam stared up at Lennox like a field mouse in the paws of a lion. She was on the verge of tears.

“I can’t,” Sam spluttered. “I can’t! I can’t leave Bumblebee.”

“Captain,” Jack said, setting a hand on Lennox’s arm. “Hey. Give her a second. Sam, it’s okay. You can do this.”

She turned her big, wide eyes on him.

“Jack, I can’t. I’ve never— I can’t run that far. I won’t make it.”

Jack shook his head, holding the backpack in one hand. “Sam, it’s okay. You’re gonna make it. Because Arcee is going to go with you.”

To her credit, Arcee didn’t protest. Sam looked up at her, eyes wide. “But Bumblebee...”

Bumblebee pushed himself up over Ratchet’s grumbling and the crackling sounds of battlefield surgery. He let out a low whine. The meaning of it was clear enough: Sam, go.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

But that was enough. Sam nodded, sucked back her tears, and her expression hardened.

“Okay. Give me the cube.”

“Pack’s too big,” Jack said, fishing the AllSpark out and handing it over. Sam thrust it inside her hoodie, under her arm, like she was shoplifting it.

“We’ll buy you as much time as we can,” Jack said, and he looked up at Arcee again. “And, Arcee?”

“Yes?”

He wasn’t sure what to say, standing there, with the fate of the world in the balance, and settled on: “Make sure she gets to that rooftop.”

Arcee nodded and slammed her fist against her chest plating. “Consider it done. Sam, let’s move.”

Then, they were moving, racing off toward the extraction point. “Epps,” Lennox barked, “Get on that radio and tell them we’ve got a civilian girl with precious cargo, rooftop marked by flare.” Then, he tossed one of the M32 launchers to Jack. “Remember how to use one of these things, Darby?”

“Think so,” Jack replied. “Point and shoot, right?” He checked the mag—six grenades, and they didn’t look anything like the usual 46s.

“The Sector Seven specials,” Lennox said. “They burn hot. They said these guys are weak to high temperature rounds but, well, I’m not quite seeing it yet. You get what we’re doing here?”

“Keeping the Decepticons busy. Trying not to die in the process.”

Lennox chuckled. “Yeah, something like that. Make a lot of noise, tie them down, and every robot we keep shooting at us is one more that isn’t going after her.”

The fight had lulled at some point. Ironhide stood in the middle of the street, cannons raised, a gunslinger without an opponent, as Lennox’s men took up firing positions around him—in the alleys, within doorways, behind cars. Jack ducked into a doorway, waited, the report of his heartbeat louder in his ears than anything else. For a moment, he let himself imagine that the Decepticons had retreated.

But then Megatron’s voice boomed through the streets—”Decepticons, attack!”—and Brawl lurched into view, spraying fire from his minigun, and Lennox was shouting to “Hit that fucking tank! Hit it! Hit it!” and combat swept him into its arms like a hurricane.

----------------------------------------

If there was one guideline for modern warfare, it was that you did not send tanks into an urban environment without infantry support. Jack hoped that mattered as much on Cybertron as it did on Earth.

The opening stages of the battle was an artillery duel between Ironhide and Brawl. The rest of them couldn’t get close, not without risking fire from Brawl’s miniguns. But, they could still advance. By inches, and by feet. Hopping from doorway to doorway. Breaking off and heading through back alleys, getting indirectly closer, where their grenade launchers might stand a chance of landing some good hits on the walking tank. Ironhide was the anvil, and Jack had to hope that a dozen smaller hammers could land with the strength of one massive one.

Beyond Brawl, Megatron stood in the middle of the next intersection, watching, waiting. He didn’t even bother moving, and not just because Lennox had ordered everyone to ignore him. The world would flinch before Megatron did.

Which was perhaps why, to Jack, it felt like Megatron hadn’t taken the bait. The only asset he had on the field was Brawl. Starscream hadn’t come around for another attack run. If he’d seen Arcee and Sam escape...

Megatron spat something in Cybertronian and raised his right arm. There, Jack supposed, he saw his answer. Brawl ducked to the side as Megatron’s fusion cannon glimmered with heliotropic radiance—

And a red and blue tractor cab ran through the intersection, blasting its horn, toppling the titan. Megatron went down, already rolling clear, as the soldiers cheered—

And there, slewing around, tires screeching—

Optimus Prime rose for the fight, fists clenched.

“Megatron.”

“Prime!” Megatron replied, almost like he was pleased to see him, like he was welcoming an old friend, his tone laced with mockery.

Optimus charged, projecting glowing swords from his arms, as Megatron leapt to the air and shifted into his starfighter form, and met him head on—literally. Megatron slammed into Optimus like a missile and Optimus, clutching at his wings, his fuselage, like he was trying to wrestle his opponent to the ground, couldn’t do anything but go with him. Whatever was going to happen between them, Jack figured, was for them alone.

Which left Brawl for them.

“Move up!” Lennox called. “All teams, give that tank everything you’ve got! Ironhide!”

Ironhide stomped his way up the street, closing, firing both cannons. Jack raised his M32, squeezed off a shot. Brawl took the hits, held his ground, sweeping the street with his miniguns, and brought his secondary cannons to bear on Ironhide—but there was too many targets, too much incoming fire. A bolt from Ironhide caught the drive sprocket and treads that made up Brawl’s left shoulder, blasted it apart. A grenade knocked out two of his four optics. The Decepticon staggered back, shoulders aflame—

And still he just would not die.

“Maintain fire!” Lennox barked. “Hit him, hit him, hit him!”

And they did, and Brawl hit them right back. A man next to Jack ate a burst of minigun fire, cut in half. Brawl was lashing out now like a wounded animal, firing everything he had—cannons, missiles, miniguns. The humans might have been small, might have been difficult for Brawl to hit, but there was another guideline of warfare that came to Jack, then: quantity had a quality all of its own.

“Lennox!” Epps screamed over the noise. “He’s ripping us apart! The big black truck is down!”

Jack swung out from cover, levelled his launcher at Brawl’s damaged chest, just as Brawl swung his remaining arm in his direction, the two-by-six barrels there spinning up. Ah, Jack thought, struck by something his mom had told him: that, in times of mortal stress, the body can produce so much adrenaline that it was like time slowed.

Still, enough time to pull the trigger.

I’m sorry, mom, Jack thought—and then, oddly, of Arcee—as a bright golden bolt streaked through the air, and punched straight and true into Brawl’s chest.

The Decepticon fell back, plunged through a shop window, energon spraying—and something else, an azure flare from deep within his chest, like a star going nova in the space of a single heartbeat—and then went still. Jack looked back, and there was Bumblebee, limping along, one arm raised.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Bumblebee said, voice buzzing with static.

Jack let out a breath. “No, it’s good. Perfect timing.”

A gunshot rang out, and Lennox hopped down from Brawl’s smoking wreck, sidearm in hand. “That tank’s definitely dead now,” he said, holstering his weapon. “Medic! How’s Ironhide?”

“I’m fine,” Ironhide remarked, on his knees, battered and smoking. He’d landed many good hits on Brawl, but he’d taken more than his fair share in exchange. Sparks arced from somewhere in his side.

“We’ll say ‘less than ideal,’” Ratchet replied. “Walking wounded, you could say. Him and Bumblebee both. They’re in no condition to fight. Not yet.”

“Alright,” Lennox replied, nodding. “Get them patched up,” he said, and grabbed one of his guys. “And you, check our casualties. The rest of you, with me! Let’s go! We’ve got unfinished business with Megatron!”

No one needed any encouragement than that. Those who were left fell in behind Lennox, double-timing it, turning a corner and heading towards the sounds of violence.

Epps jogged up beside them. “Hate to say it, but I’m running real low on grenades. Not sure if we have the firepower for another engagement like that.”

“Then let’s hope we’re getting some planes,” Lennox remarked.

There was nothing more to say. They raced toward the fight, against the tide of people rushing away from the clash of the titans, the brawl between Optimus and Megatron. And, as they ran, Jack heard something. Over the screams and the sirens and the alarms, even over the vicious impacts of metal on metal, there was a noise. So familiar that, for a split-second, Jack’s thought was to disbelieve it. So sinister that, even through the warmth of the sun on his skin and the heat of the adrenaline in his veins, it cut Jack Darby to the core.

The thump-thump-thump from his nightmares.

Blackout. He was here.

He was close.

And closer.