CHAPTER ONE
It wasn't that there was nothing outside of Patna, but in the dark of night, there may as well have been. The headlights of the Decepticons' stolen car illuminated the road up to several hundred feet in front of them and little else, so that all Megatron knew of their surroundings was a vague sense of land extending endlessly on either side and the occasional pocket of lights to indicate some small settlement or a service station. In a way, it reminded him of deep space travel.
They'd been driving for almost four hours now, the little clock set into the dash ticking away the minutes at an almost painful rate. The first two hours or so had been eventful enough with Rumble and Frenzy doing their level best to drive everyone else insane and Skywarp and Thundercracker both discovering that they suffered from motion sickness. (Megatron wasn't entirely convinced that Starscream didn't also. The Seeker hadn't had to throw up on the side of the road like his brothers, but he'd certainly kept his mouth shut a suspicious amount since they'd left the city.) But now the car was silent.
In the rear view mirror, Megatron could see his soldiers bunched in the back seat, Skywarp and Thundercracker huddled together miserably while the twins spilled out of their creator's lap beside them. Soundwave was the only one still awake, his hand stroking one of the boys' hair absently as he stared out the window at the passing darkness.
Starscream had been the first to pass out, his head lolling pathetically on his cousin's shoulder, and the two of them were now snoring in sync in the passenger seat. Megatron reached over to brush a hand across Starscream's forehead every now and then. He was fairly certain his former SIC had been running a fever since before they'd gotten to the gang hideout that afternoon, and he kept debating if it was worth waking him up and making him take something for it.
If only they had something they could give his brothers to stop them getting sick... At least they seemed to be sleeping well enough.
"Lord Megatron?"
The ex-warlord shook himself from the stupor that miles and miles of silent, dark highway had inflicted upon him and hummed in acknowledgment of Soundwave's voice—the first he'd heard in well over an hour now.
"The vehicle requires fuel," Soundwave explained, reaching around the driver's seat and one of his twins to indicate a dial on the dash that Megatron had noticed creeping further and further into its red shaded area as they drove. "The upcoming lights may be another service station."
Megatron nodded in understanding, and when the road branched a moment later, he guided the car off toward a small, weather battered store and a collection of gasoline pumps.
Light flooded the car from the overhead lamps as they pulled into the station, and some of the car's other occupants began to stir when they pulled to a halt beside one of the pumps. Megatron glanced at the two Seekers curled in the passenger seat as he cut the engine and removed the key. Slipstream had lifted her head to blink around in confusion, but Starscream only continued to breathe deep and even against her. Eager to complete their errand before that changed, Megatron climbed quickly from the vehicle and began searching for its mouth.
"It isn't Cybertronian," Soundwave reminded him as he extricated himself from his sleeping creations to come and join his leader.
"I am aware," Megatron snapped back, and straightened up from where he'd been trying to peek under the front of the car.
Soundwave was already dragging the nozzle from the gasoline pump over to a small hatch on the side of the car. Too tired to bother feigning competence at the moment, Megatron rolled his eyes and moved to retrieve some of their cash supply from the trunk instead. As much as it pained him to have to pay for human services, he'd prefer not to attract anymore attention from human authorities.
He popped the trunk and was just about to lift it when Soundwave's hand slammed down on top. Megatron's head snapped up, ready to berate his second-in-command, when he saw the hints of uncertainty and even fear in the other man's face.
"What?" he demanded.
"It's... I was... It's not..." Soundwave stammered, avoiding Megatron's gaze.
And then, something thumped against the trunk from the inside.
Megatron wasn't sure what he was expecting when he wrenched it open, but it was not the snarling bundle of teeth, spit and fur that came hurtling toward him. On instinct, the ex-warlord jumped back and made to strike the creature before it could reach him, only for Soundwave to snatch it away before he could.
There were several frantic yelps, followed by a hiss of pain from Soundwave, and then a pitiful whimpering sound that put Megatron in mind of Skywarp when he was scared. Megatron forced himself to stop staring dumbstruck at the open car trunk and turned instead to where Soundwave was now crouched on the ground, making hushing sounds and cradling the thing that had leapt from the trunk in one arm, while he held his other hand aloft, dripping blood from what was obviously a bite mark.
"The dog," Megatron stated blankly.
Soundwave didn't look up.
"I told you," his commander began to growl, his gaze fixed on the dark blood now splacking onto the pavement below, "to kill that thing. I told you I never wanted to see it again!"
"My apologies, Lord Megatron," Soundwave murmured, still not looking at him.
"You yourself said that dogs are dangerous!" Megatron found himself bellowing now. "And look what it's done to you! Soundwave, I swear, if you do not throw that thing away this instant, I'll—"
"She reminds me of Ravage."
Soundwave's voice was quiet still, but it stopped Megatron's tirade in its tracks. He found himself staring down at the top of his second's head with his thoughts spinning in circles as the blood continued to drip and the dog continued to whine in Soundwave's lap.
"She is only young," Soundwave continued. "And she was scared to be in an unfamiliar place. I can only comfort her so much."
"You cannot keep vermin as a pet! Particularly not vermin that is capable of causing such injuries!" Megatron hissed in frustration, watching as the creature started climbing up Soundwave to lick his face. The intelligence officer finally looked up when she shoved her nose under his chin.
"She is not vermin," he replied calmly, still cradling it like one of his own creations. "And dogs do not bite when properly trained and cared for. As I said, she was simply scared. It was my own fault for locking her in there."
"Why did you bother? Did you think you could keep it hidden from me?"
"I... do not know," Soundwave confessed.
Megatron closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. Clearly, the creature meant a great deal to Soundwave if he had taken such an uncharacteristic risk, and Megatron had taken too much already that Soundwave held dear.
"Fine," he snapped. "Keep it for now. Think of it as a reward for your competence if you will, but if it attacks anyone else, it's gone!"
If it bites Starscream, I'll kill it myself, he added mentally as Soundwave stared up at him in amazement.
"And it stays in the trunk," he added out loud. "I don't care how frightened it is, I'm not listening to Starscream and Skywarp shriek about it the rest of the way."
"Of course, my Lord," Soundwave agreed hastily.
Megatron turned back to the car to find the money for the gas before he could start regretting his decision.
"I will need to wash and dress the wound," Soundwave spoke as he climbed to his feet once more, "but when I return, I believe it would be advisable for you to take a rest, Lord Megatron. I will continue to drive to our destination until morning. If you wish."
Loathe as he was to relinquish control, Megatron felt all the stress of the day wash over him the moment Soundwave mentioned rest. If he got back behind the wheel now, he knew he was liable to nod off over it and send them all careening into a ditch somewhere. Far from the noble end he'd envisioned for his Decepticons.
"That would be appreciated," he finally confessed.
But there was no way he was sitting in the back with the twins.
After he'd finished paying for the fuel and assisted Soundwave in wrapping a bandage around his hand, Megatron made his way around to the passenger side of the car.
"What's all the shouting about?" Slipstream grumbled up at him when he popped open the door.
"Move," Megatron ordered her, and the femme only bothered throwing him one dirty look before she slid out from around her cousin and went to take Soundwave's place in the back seat.
Starscream grumbled and twitched indistinctly, frightfully warm when Megatron shifted him into his lap.
"Soundwave?" Megatron murmured in a low voice as the other man slid into the driver's seat beside them. Not wanting to alert Starscream's half-conscious brothers in the back seat that there may be something wrong, he pressed a hand to the young man's forehead to demonstrate his concern.
The intelligence officer frowned and reached over to press the backs of his own fingers to Starscream's cheek before twitching aside the portion of bandage that Johar had peeled loose from his neck that afternoon.
"No swelling or change in color on the wound. He's fine," Soundwave declared.
"He's barely reacting to us," Megatron returned, picking up one of the Seeker's hands and letting it drop limply back into his lap.
"Exhaustion," Soundwave shrugged. "It takes humans quite a while to recover from such extreme blood loss, and Starscream has not exactly been taking it easy the past two days. I'm sure he'll be fine if you just let him sleep. Get some rest yourself while you're at it."
Megatron sighed and leaned back into the seat as they pulled out of the gas station, letting the Seeker's familiar weight settle into him. He only hoped Soundwave was right. The last thing they needed was another hospital trip further delaying their departure of this Primus-forsaken country.
"So, you're trying to tell me," Director Galloway began, closing his eyes as if this would somehow help him see the picture more clearly. "That you want me to go to my superiors and demand they give us… What was it? Almost four million dollars of resources to prepare for a Decepticon invasion that Optimus Prime has a strong feeling is going to happen?"
On the other end of the conference table,Corporal Marissa Faireobrn resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Just barely. When she'd first heard what Major Lennox had done to the Director on their way to Egypt, she'd had doubts about her commanding officer's judgment, but after sitting through just this one debriefing meeting with the man, she wished she could push him out of a plane herself.
"Sir, it's more than just 'a strong feeling,' okay?" Lennox insisted. "This Matrix thing—we don't really know what it is, but it gives Optimus some sort of connection to the rest of their species. Sort of like a mainframe on a super computer or a key to the back door of the whole Cybertronian wireless network."
"Would that be the same wireless network that told him the Decepticons were going to be in India, then?" Galloway wanted to know. "The one that cost us a couple million dollars to airlift your entire team to a garbage dump? Where you found exactly nothing?"
Fists and jaws clenched around the table.
The India debacle had gone down before Marissa had joined the team, but she'd caught the tail end of Galloway and his superiors' displeasure about it nonetheless. They had almost decided not to spare NEST the money they'd need to add another member to their team, and Marissa had had to go with Lennox to argue her case in front of a room full of ten decorated generals who'd all stared at her like she was as alien as the Autobots themselves.
Well, it was better than being dismissed out of hand like the old days, Marissa supposed, but still. Aliens was what it all came back to, wasn't it? As if the military didn't flush tens of billions of dollars down the drain every time they crashed one of their test planes. What right did they have to dispute a corporal's salary except rampant bigotry of one kind and another.
"We suspect, Director," General Morshower was trying to be a voice of reason, "that the Decepticons may have found some new way to disguise their signals. A lot of new folks showed up in Egypt. Some of them with abilities that could potentially have allowed them to escape our notice. We're talking about a species that can resurrect itself from the dead. Is it too far out of the question to think that they can avoid detection at a whim?"
"And that's another thing, General," Galloway sighed, tapping his pen on his notepad in a pointed staccato. "You folks brought us Optimus Prime's corpse a while back, only to drag him off to Egypt without permission and come back to proclaim him magically resurrected? Sir, these are… Well, they're machines. If one of your men had done the same thing with his desktop computer, would you still let him use it for classified work?"
The end of his sentence was almost drowned out by the cacophony of angered shouts that rang up around the table from the NEST representatives. And while Marissa didn't have the same bond with Optimus and the rest of the Autobots as many of her comrades, she could understand their offense. The idea that a soldier, let alone a decorated and well-respected major, wouldn't recognize someone he'd fought beside for over a year was just deplorable.
Marissa spun her hat round in her hands beneath the table while Lennox silenced his team with a single gesture.
"Galloway, I don't know how many times I have to say this before it'll sink into your thick skull—"
"Major," General Morhsower muttered in warning.
"But they are not just machines!" Lennox punctuated each word with a blow to the table. "That's Prime out there, sure as I'm breathing! He remembers us—all of us—and all the royal shit—"
"Major!"
"—we've been through while you sat around on your fat ass—"
"William!"
Lennox stopped short and slowly sank back down into his chair, which he'd been rising out of as he spoke. There was a collectively stifled groan of disappointment from the other soldiers around the table.
"What I think the Major is trying to say," General Morshower continued to a stormy-looking Galloway, "is that we have already gone through ample means of verifying Optimus's identity and that the person restored to his frame by Sam Witwicky is, beyond a reasonable doubt, the same one that inhabited it prior to Megatron extinguishing his spark."
"Right. Riiiiiight…" Galloway muttered, shifting through his papers. "Well, it's still tricky to justify any of these costs when you don't have an enemy to fight."
"Why?" Epps spoke up. "Y'all manage to make up reasons to fund the rest of the military every year. Why not toss some dough to the people who are actually doing something for once?"
Galloway looked up from his papers to give the Lieutenant a condescending little smile. "The rest of the military doesn't work in close conjunction with an alien force whose questionable presence in our country was conditional on their support against an opposing alien force in the first place," he pointed out. "And this isn't like the last time when we beat Megatron and the rest of his gang kept popping up all over the world. There's been no Decepticon activity whatsoever for almost two months now. Face it—you won. I'd say it's about time we tested Prime's promise to leave if we ever asked him to."
"The Autobots don't just help us fight Decepticons, Director," Lennox pointed out, like he was trying to explain something complex to a little child. "We have other reasons to want them to stick around."
And now Galloway turned that stupid little smile on Marissa.
"Oh, of course. That's why you brought the girl today, isn't it?" he chuckled. "How's it going, sweetie?"
A ringing silence split the room, and Marissa felt heat that was more than just anger threatening to rise up in her gut. But every single eye was on her.
She shoved it down and forced a sickly sweet smile of her own.
"Better than your dick will be if you ever call me that again, Director," she told him.
Galloway's reaction wasn't quite as satisfying as she'd hoped for, but the bark of laughter that Major Lennox let out made it worth it.
"I thought the military didn't stand for this kind of insubordination," Galloway said stiffly, pushing his glasses up his nose as he turned to General Morshower.
"And I really thought you weren't an idiot, Galloway," Morshower returned.
Which was probably why the meeting concluded with Galloway informing them that if they needed to go to New York so badly, they could drive there on their own time and their own dime.
"If you don't like it, try and get someone who turns into an aircraft carrier next time," he'd told them.
The entire group was still ranting about it when they returned to the Autobots' residential hangar a half-hour later, except Major Lennox, who had been walking at their vanguard in silence. From her position, Marissa couldn't see his face, but she could see the tightly balled fists swinging at his sides.
"It costs more'n my ma's rent to fill Prime's tank!" one of the other corporals despaired.
"I thought your ma finally moved outta the trailer park, Leblanc," Epps remarked.
"Yeah. To Tuscaloosa, sir. Her rent went down $200 a month."
"Well, I know where I'm retiring to next time," Marissa muttered.
"If you're plannin' to die of boredom, maybe," Perez added from behind her.
"Hey, ain't my fault if ya never learned how to party Tuscaloosa style, Cap," Leblanc returned. "We ever get a vacation, I'll show you how it's done."
"As fascinating as a tour of Tuscaloosa, Alabama sounds, Corporal," Lennox finally spoke for the first time since they'd left the conference room, "I'm afraid we're gonna be spending our vacation days in Yankee territory this year."
They came to a pause, partly because they had reached the hangar entrance and had to wait while the major entered his credentials to open it and partly because they were trying to process what he had just said.
"What?" Perez finally broke the silence.
Lennox tapped his clearance card to the door terminal and turned around, a broad grin stretching his features.
"We're going to the big apple, kiddos," he announced as the door started to lift up behind him, releasing a fanfare of engine growls and the clank of metal reverberating in the open space beyond to accompany the declaration.
"Lennox, we ain't got the money," Epps reminded him.
"Come on, guys," Lennox scoffed. "You think we don't have enough fuel in our emergency stores to get a team of Bots up to New York and back? We'll just be—"
His next words were cut off by the roar of an engine and squeal of tires as a bright red Lamborghini skidded to a halt mere feet from the door.
"Watch it, Sideswipe!" Lennox snapped as the Autobot flipped into a transformation sequence inches behind him. "This is a military base, not Tokyo Drift!"
"Sorry, Major!" Sideswipe blurted, systems humming with excitement. "What's the word? Are we going to get the Cons, or no?"
"Yes, yes, we're going. Now scoot so we can get in, please."
Sideswipe let out a whoop, accompanied by a horn blast that left Marissa's heart racing faster than was acceptable, and went cartwheeling off to find his twin, no doubt.
"Just like that?" Epps wanted to know as they followed their commanding officer across the hangar toward the Autobots' own commanding officers clustered in the far corner. "We're just gonna pack up and head off on a road trip to New York?"
"Why not?" Lennox shrugged. "Galloway didn't say we couldn't. Just that he's not paying for it. Attendance is not mandatory by they way, guys. You'll have to use your Christmas vacation time if you come, and I don't want anymore of us sleeping in the dog house at Easter than necessary."
Not that anyone in NEST ever would have said no to anywhere that Lennox asked them to go.
"Wasn't planning on going anywhere anyway, sir," Marissa shrugged. And if she ever had, it would have been in the same direction anyway.
"Not my business, but we can totally egg your parents' house while we're up there if it's that kinda thing," Lennox offered.
"Forget eggs. Let's just drop some Decepticon ass on it," Leblanc chortled.
"It wouldn't be the biggest bomb I've ever dropped on them," Marissa conceded.
"Sweet. Got two on board," Lennox grinned while Epps rolled his eyes. "Go spread the word while I talk with Prime: NEST is doing Christmas in Times Square this year!"