Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Transformers franchise. I have taken some lines directly from the movie for the purpose of the story, but I don't own those, either.


2. Call for Help

Genre: Action

Word Count: 709


This was insane.

No, scratch that – it was more than insane. He should be home by now, catching up with Sarah, holding Annabelle. He should not be running for his life in some Arabian desert, shooting for all he was worth and yelling into a cell phone at an idiotic operator who was asking for his credit card number.

"I don't have a credit card! I'm in the middle of a war! This is frigging ridiculous!" Lennox made his way over to Epps. "Epps! Where's your wallet?"

Epps spared him a swift glance, and Lennox could tell his second thought he was crazy asking for a wallet in the middle of a battle. "Credit card," he grunted in reply to the unspoken question.

"Pocket," Epps rumbled, shooting at the giant mechanical animal bearing down on them.

Lennox glanced at his friend's pants and stared at the number of pockets that were sewn onto them. Who had this many pockets?

"Which pocket?" Lennox hissed.

"My back pocket!" Epps shouted, getting irritated.

"You've got ten back pockets!"

"Left cheek! Left cheek! Left cheek!"

Lennox felt in all the pockets at the aforementioned left cheek. "Come on, come on...yes!" He pulled out Epps' black leather wallet and flipped it open. Jackpot. There was the credit card. He pulled it out and turned his attention back to the operator, who was now, unbelievably, offering him a 'premium package'.

"I don't want a premium package!" Lennox bellowed. Good Lord, what did he have to do to get this man to understand? This was a life or death situation – not some sales pitch opportunity!

"All right, listen to me – listen to me!" Lennox commanded with enough force to shut the man up. "I'm a soldier, okay? I'm a soldier in the middle of a gunfight, and I need you to patch me through to the U.S. Pentagon now! Do you understand?"

The operator finally seemed to understand, and just about tangled his tongue trying to apologize.

"So sorry, sir, so sorry. I'll do it immediately, of course."

"Great," Lennox spat. "How about now, then?"

"One moment, sir."

Grating his teeth, Lennox waited impatiently while the call was fed through the trans-Atlantic line. Finally, a distinctly American voice answered, "This is Washington."

"Epps! Pentagon!" Lennox called, pressing the phone into the African-American's hand.

"This is Sergeant Robert Epps of the Army Rangers," Epps reported, dodging gunfire. "We've got a seven-man team in a small village five klicks northeast of SOCCENT Qatar base. We survived the base attack, but we're under enemy fire. We need air support and we need it now. Roll in strike package Bravo on unknown target. I authenticate Tango Whiskey at time 0300 Zulu."

"Stand by," the person on the other end replied.

Epps launched a couple of smoke grenades, releasing a thick orange smoke. He spoke into the cell phone again. "Seven-man team north of orange smoke! Attack direction west! You're clear and hot!" He turned and yelled at Lennox, who was covering him. "Lennox! The heat's coming! Laze the target!"

Lennox plucked a green laser torch from his belt and aimed it at the thrashing robot.

"Spook Three Two, use 105 shells. Bring the rain."

The air force pilots did just that, firing the requested sabot rounds at the robot, which finally went down. Lennox breathed a sigh of relief. At least their weapons worked against these things, whatever they were.

"Where's Fig?" he asked. The other members of his unit looked around and saw their missing comrade lying injured on the ground.

"Oh, God!" Lennox cried, rushing to Fig. "Fig! Get a medic!" he said to Epps, who was still connected to Pentagon.

"We need a medevac," Epps duly reported. "One man down. Patient care category urgent."

"Look!" Janson said, pointing at the incoming chopper.

Lennox waved his arms to attract the chopper's attention. The chopper touched down and the men scrambled in, carefully carrying Fig in with them. As the medics started working on Fig, Lennox collapsed onto a seat, exhausted. It was a ten hour journey back to the States – that ought to be enough time to pull himself together.

And yet, there were still so many things to do.

Lennox sighed. He knew this wasn't over yet.