A/N: This chapter came out really dark. I apologize about that. As always, I do not own Transformers or claim to any rights by them, etc… I only own my OCs.
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It was the mention of her military past that did it, that brought the ugly memories back to the surface. The landscape of her dreams shifted and blurred, and no amount of screaming or denial on her part could stop it. She fell backward into the darkness, whimpering as it twisted and morphed around her, becoming the inside of an F-22 fighter. She could feel the tight fit of the mask across her face, the near claustrophobic rush as the G-forces slammed her back against the seat.
And though she knew it was a dream, even as she fought to pull herself out of it, her hands worked the control stick with an almost effortless grace. Mission City loomed in the near distance, smoke rising from what could have only been massive explosions or multiple impacts. Her eyes watched in disbelief as the top ten stories of one of the skyscrapers collapsed in on itself. It looked as if something had cut through three stories right in the middle of the building, taking out the support of the upper half.
Phoenix was a seasoned military pilot. She had seen terrible things before, had been forced in the name of duty to commit some of those bad things, herself. Those deeds haunted in her in ways that she would never begin to express… but none of those could compare to what she had just seen on American soil. Demolition of whole buildings with people still inside just didn't happen in her country. It just couldn't.
Yet she was watching the whole thing with her own eyes.
"Oh god," she whispered.
Even from her distance, she could make out the tiny black dots that had to be people leaping from the destruction to their deaths. People falling from ten and twenty stories up. It was all silent, all dulled by the rush of wind blasting past her canopy. But that did little to blunt the horror.
"Raptor, raptor, do you copy? We've got friendlies mixed with bad-guys. Targets will be marked."
"Copy that," she said into the mic, training kicking in and forcing her personal feelings aside. It was time to put her game face on. She flicked a glance across her instruments. "ETA is one minute 30 seconds. Stand by."
"You have any idea what we're going up against?" this from Eclipse, the pilot flying to her right.
"Don't know, don't care," answered Spiral, his southern accent marred with anger. "Whatever dipshit started this fight is going to pay. Nobody blows up a city on my watch."
"Cut the chatter," their captain reprimanded them sternly. "Squad One takes the first pass in thirty seconds. We follow up with recon and circle around for the next volley. Bring your A-game, boys. Sabre rounds have been confirmed. I repeat, Sabre rounds have been confirmed for this run. Time to bring the rain."
Phoenix didn't need to actually hear the gasps from her fellow pilots. The silence on the comm. was enough. Sabre rounds could melt tank armor like it was butter. And they had just been authorized to fire such rounds into a city filled with people. The guns on her F-22 alone could fire one bullet for every square inch of its target zone. If they were authorized to use maximum fire, the concrete and brick buildings wouldn't even begin to offer safe cover to the people below.
There would literally be no place to hide, no place to seek shelter. Every shot had to count. Every single one.
"Targets marked. Still waiting." Came the marine's voice over the comm..
"Time on target – twenty seconds." Answered Squad One's captain.
Again, she pushed aside her own revulsion, focusing instead on how to make sure every shot she took hit exactly what it was meant to hit. Squad One took point, lining up for the first run and kicking into mach speed. Her squad maneuvered in behind them, falling back to watch and report the success or failure of the first attack.
"F-22's. We're still waiting!" This from the marine again, voice beginning to carry an edge of desperation.
"Weapons armed. Status Green!" Squad One's captain replied… and his squad opened up on the target.
"The hell is that?!" Spiral screamed, and Phoenix had to admit the question had been on her lips as well.
The target was some kind of… mech-like thing. Black, towering over the city and its people as if without a care to the destruction it caused. One arm had a set of rotating blades on it, spinning as fast and as lethal as the main propeller of a Blackhawk chopper. The… thing… was advancing on two other giant robot-looking things, which looked as if they were locked in a to-the-death wrestling match. It was like watching a sci-fi/horror movie brought to life, like Wes Craven and Michael Bay had gotten together and decided to direct the most terrifying thing to cross the silver screen since Friday the 13th.
Only this wasn't a movie. Real people were dying.
Squad One let go with all they had, blasting into the giant black robot with missiles as well as sabre rounds. The Marines on the ground took that as a sign and opened up as well. The battle took less than a second, and the giant mech fell backward in the road with enough force to shatter windows in the nearby buildings. Cries came through the comm. then, the sounds of Squad One rejoicing over their victory.
"Second wave on approach," her captain said.
And now it was Phoenix's turn to cry, and not in victory.
"NO!" she screeched into the comm., knowing what was about to come. "NO! Captain, we need to fall back! Starscream is coming! We have to fall—"
No one seemed to hear her, the entire squad of four F-22s lining up for their attach run. Even her fighter lined up like a lamb to the slaughter. There had been no way to know what was coming. No one could have predicted that the fifth approaching F-22 had been an enemy. Spiral had been the first to notice that the plane behind them had suddenly sprouted arms and legs.
"What is that? Take off!" he screamed.
It was the last thing he would ever say as Starscream ripped the dorsal fins off the back of the fighter. Spiral, the easy-going southern gentleman that had been fast with the drink and even faster with the poker rounds, slammed into the top of the nearest building and exploded. She'd done everything she could to turn around, to get out of the way of the enemy. By a split second, she was able to execute a barrel roll and evade the hail of bullets Starscream sent her way.
Eclipse wasn't that lucky. His fighter disintegrated in mid-flight under that stream of death. There would be nothing left to bury, she recalled. His widow had hugged an empty casket before it was lowered into the grave.
"DAMN YOU!" She screamed, grabbing the control stick and trying to wrench the jet into attack range.
The F-22 did not respond. It continued steadily on its course… as it had that day. Squad One was screaming across the comm., relaying information and attack vectors, trying like all hell to get to its sister team. Phoenix knew they would never reach her in time. She watched in muted horror as Starscream leapt through the air and landed on top of her fighter. One wing ripped free as if the jet was made of tissue paper. That would have been enough to kill her, however Starscream had gone a step further and fired a round right into her fuel system.
Sparks exploded throughout the canopy, flames jetting from behind her and across her right side. Her helmet splintered under the hail of metal as the cockpit began to tear itself apart. EJECT! EJECT! EJECT! shrieked the computer. She screamed as she reached for the eject handle…
~*~*~
Lydia came up off the sofa with a start, hands grasping the Sig Sauer automatic pistol off the coffee table. Breath heaved in and out of her lungs, sweat rolling down her face and into her eyes. It took her a few moments to shake off the dream, to realize that she wasn't falling to her death and that she was safe in her office. She was safe on the Diego Garcia military base, surrounded by more Autobots than any person had a right to be. Starscream was nowhere near her. He couldn't hurt her anymore.
That thought did little to still the jackhammering of her heart.
She closed her eyes tightly, hands gripping the gun so hard that they shook. "It was just a dream," She whispered. "It was just a dream. Let it go, Lydia. Let it go…"
Let it go, she thought bitterly. Yeah, right. Might as well tell the moon to let go of the tides while she was at it. There was no way she would ever forget or let go of what had happened to her, to her friends. Spiral and Eclipse had been like brothers to her, the two men in her life that she could have counted on for anything. They'd survived tours in the worst stations across the world together. They'd survived air raids; aerial dog fights the likes of which made most pilots piss themselves. Always as a team. Always strong.
Now she and Captain Eddard were all that remained. Angrily, she swiped the sweat from her face.
Lydia forced herself to put the gun down, staggering over to the little bathroom she'd had built into her personal space. Sweat soaked her clothes, making them stick to her skin in ways she just didn't like. It reminded her of her own blood, of how it had felt as it congealed in her flight suit. Hours had passed after she had ejected before the medics had found her. Or what was left of her, that is.
She tried not to think about that as she turned on the shower, but her mind wouldn't turn away from the memory. Her left arm had suffered first degree burns from wrist to shoulder, the thick scar tissue there the reason why she always wore the long sleeved shirts. After all she had been through; the last thing she wanted or needed was for people to gawk at her scars.
Likewise her left eye had been damaged beyond repair. Metal shards had been embedded in her skull, in her chest. Both legs had been broken during her descent by parachute. The doctors had given her less than twenty-four hours to live.
Lydia gazed at herself in the mirror. Once, both eyes had been a beautiful creamy jade green. The implant in her left eye socket ached from time to time, as if her body tried to reject it over and over. But it was a permanent part of her, wired into her optic nerve in a cutting-edge surgery, and it granted her perfect sight once more. Not perfect enough to fly again with the Air Force, though. No amount of physical therapy or retraining would grant her that privilege again. She'd been shoved behind a desk—honorably of course—and told her use her degree in Financial Accounting to help serve her country.
As if that wasn't bad enough, no one had been able to explain to her why the implant couldn't be made to match her natural eye color. Surely if they had the technology to replace an eye with a robotic counterpart, they should have the technology to match the coloring.
Dr. Edgars, formerly of Sector Seven, had gently stated that it was impossible. She was lucky to have an eye at all. Just as she was lucky to have the implant in her heart to keep it beating, and the implant in her left arm that allowed full use of that limb again. She shouldn't look the proverbial gift-horse in the mouth.
Lydia snorted, frowning darkly. If she had known that the parts inside her had been reversed engineered from NBE-1, she would have flat out rejected the operations. Any sane human would have run screaming from anything that came from Megatron.
The choice had not been hers. And now she harbored the secrets, her file accessible to only the Top members of the staff to keep the Autobots from finding out. The powers-that-be had severe reservations in letting the Autobots know just exactly what they had reverse-engineered from Megatron, especially given how tight-lipped they were about their weapon systems and technology.
Lydia wasn't so sure. After her conversation with Ratchet earlier, she had the feeling that she could trust him. He might not like the fact of what she had inside her, however, he didn't strike her as the type to fly off the handle about it and insist on ripping them out. She shook her head, stepping under the spray of hot water. That was not her problem at the moment. Getting over the nightmares was…
~*~*~
Optimus Prime climbed to his feet the moment he heard the shower activate. He had been passing through the area when he heard her distress. Fearing for her life, he had broken the rule and peered in through the door. Autobot hearing was very precise in normal circumstances. Living with humans had only increased that sensitivity triple-fold. It made it easier to avoid stepping on their allies, among other things.
Things like listening for the increasing heart-rate as a human proceeded to tell a lie. He had not underplayed the human art of lying when he had spoken with Ratchet. It was a trait that disturbed him greatly, and yet there wasn't anything he could do about it. Humans would, in time, grow out of such dangerous habits. Until then, he had to make due with what he had.
And what he had on hand was a mystery in Lydia DeMarco.
Optimus turned and headed for his office. As he walked, he replayed the murmurings from her dreams. She had distinctly said the names of Mission City, of Squad One, of Spiral and Eclipse. And, disturbingly enough, the name of Starscream.
