Lennox's Point of View:
Abruptly, the atmosphere in the room changed. Everyone tensed and my eyes flickered around the ceiling, searcing for cracks and weak spots that could bring it down; thankfully I found none.
"Gentleman, they know the cubes here." Keller stated solemnly, not that we needed to hear it from him to know that. The tension in the room was palapable and I saw the civillians huddle closer together out of the corner of my eye, finding my eyes lingering on the eldest woman before I looked away again in an attempt to focus. How much did they know that we didn't? Simmons and Dubanacheck looked at one another and the room began bustling, various voices shouting and feeet stampeding outside. Dubanacheck slammed a hand down on the intercom and began demanding to know what was happening. Well, time to take action and do what I do best.
"Do you have an arms room?" I questioned, stepping up by the man I assumed was some sort of Director here. He nodded, moving to the door and banging on it to get them to let us out. The eldest civillian woman let out an audible sigh of relief and once more I found my eyes passing over her once more - she was undeniably good looking. She was keeping a close eye on the two teens as we began jogging after the Director, who was calling back something about them taking down our generators...whoever they were. There was so much we still didn't know when it came to fighting these things; things that maybe the civillians knew. I tried to imagine what they could have been up to today to look so...dishevelled.
Epps had spoken to her, informed us she was actually quite friendly and that the civillians were here because they'd actually bought one of those robots thinking it was a car. She was ballsy to and after hearing what she'd said to Simmons, seeing the ferocious look in her eyes I could tell she was tough. We had emerged from the corridor and were moving towards a large room holding two massive tanks I assumed were part of the hydro-electric power plant they had working here.
"Get everyone to the N.B one chamber now!" the director ordered, voice echoing off of the walls as we took off after him again, easily keeping pace with him while the civillians trailed behind.
"Sam this is exactly why you failed football tryouts, keep up!" the woman snapped. A small smirk crawled up onto my lips but I quickly pushed it down again, hearing Epps chuckle a little beside me and shake his head as we burst into the armoury. Simmons directed us to 40mm sabot rounds and we quickly grabbed some guns each and some ammo to go with it, setting ourselves up for the firefight we knew was coming. I could still remember our last firefight with one of these alien things...we'd lost Fig and I wasn't keen to go through that again, but I had no choice in the matter since these orders were coming from higher up than any rank in the USAF went. The woman was arguing quietly again with her brother and I took my chance to look them all over and evaluate how useful or useless they might be to my team. The young female teenager looked uncomfortable and uncertain, like she wasn't quite sure why she was there but was rather...chesty, for somebody so young. I quickly scored her off the list and assumed she wouldn't be in the fight. The boy was the tallest, looking strikingly similar to his sister only his eyes were more grey than green when you looked close enough, little sparks of frustration flashing in them as he tried to level with his sister.
His sister was rather short in stature, with a willowy hourglass figure and beautifully sun kissed skin. Her hair was the same shade of dark brunette as her brothers, stray wisps of it hanging out of a loose braid that flowed down her back between her shoulder blades. She wasn't dressed to impress like her female companion was with nothing more a plaid overshirt and khaki cargo shorts, black converse giving her enough traction on the floor for her to run faster and keep up with us. If I had judged them right (which I was 99.9% certain I had) then she was more than likely willing to step up and help us out if she could. Her brother approached Simmons and began to demand his car be given back to him while she rolled her mesmerizing green eyes and shook her head, heading over to back him up since her no nonesense attitude would get the job done quicker. As I loaded my gun I kept my eyes on her - something about her was enthralling and I was determined to find out what when this was all over. There was another bang and dust floated down from the ceiling as the lights flickered again, only serving to add to the tension that was already steadily mounting as we prepared for war. My eyes roamed over her once more, her fierce glare, her stance oozing with self-confidence and anger. I saw Epps smirk at me a little,
"Stop being so obvious man." he chuckled. Rolling my eyes I turned my back to her, focusing intently on putting together my weapon when I heard shouting, and I couldn't resist turning back to see what was going on this time. Simmons and the woman were at it again but she was clearly losing all patience with him. I didn't blame her either because from the moment we'd arrived he'd been nothing but condescending, yet I doubted he would be doing half as much as we would be within the next few hours to save the world.
"Well unconfiscate it!" she cried incredulously, jabbing a finger at him before throwing her hands up exasperatedly. Simmons scoffed, eyes wide,
"No! I don't know what will happen! I mean you might know but I don't!" he retorted.
"So you're just gonna sit back and wait to see what happens?" the boy demanded, pacing behind them.
His sister was staring at the man before her as though she couldn't quite believe he existed, as though he might be one of the aliens. Simmons got right up in the boys face and I saw the furious expression cross her features, guessing it was a bad move. She seemed pretty protective of her brother and I had quickly come to the conclusion that it would be best to try and steer clear of asking any favours of him to save time and trouble.
"Listen kid-" Simmons began sharply but she was quicker, throwing herself at him and pinning him against the side of the car with a loud bang that I was hoping shattered bones; I was rooting for her if that wasn't obvious.
"No, you listen! Take him to the fucking car now!" she snapped, glaring down at him venomously. I was sure if looks could kill he'd be long dead by now. Simmons was starring at her in shock, his face had paled considerably and I chuckled slightly at the rather amusing scene of him trying to stammer an excuse,
"No way! How do I know that it won't cause more-" She cut him off again, voice rising in pitch and volume as she jumped down his throat,
"Because I'm standing here telling you it won't and you won't listen goddamit! Do you think if he wanted to hurt any of us we'd still be standing? He's on our side, he'll know what to do with the cube!" Simmons was still shaking his head and I decided to step in with a slightly more radical solution in an effort to save time. Stepping up beside, her I aimed my gun at his head,
"Give the kid his car." I insisted. Behind us the clattering sounds of my team relieving the Sector Seven boys of their weapons made her jump, but she remained undeterred,keeping his body pinned to the car with hers.
"Drop the gun soldier." he ordered calmly, barely sparing her a glance anymore as he noticed my glock hovering dangerously close to his face. She scoffed,
"If he does I'll be the one shooting you." she promised, giving me a look that all but begged me to keep it up. I nodded imperceptibly, my hand unwavering as I simply stared at the man I was threatening to shoot.
There was a tense silence for a moment before Simmons tried again,
"I am ordering you under the excecutive jurisdiction of Sector 7-"
"Sector 7 doesn't exist remember?" she cut in. Nodding my head I exhaled sharply,
"Yeah and we don't take orders from people who don't exist." I piped up. This close I could see the beads of sweat forming in her hairline, it was damn hot in here and all this running around had done her no favours but mixed in with the smell of sweat was a plesant vanilla fragrance. Shaking the thoughts out of my head I focused back on Simmons, admiring the woman's ferocity and strength from the corner of my eye. She was getting a little distracting if I was perfectly honest. Did she know how hot it was to watch her man handle Simmons like that?
"I'm gonna count to five." Simmons said evenly as I cocked my sideam and pressed it against his chest,
"Yeah, well I'm gonna count to three." I retorted heatedly. Simmons remained silent and for a daunting moment I thought I'd actually have to shoot him. Then, Sec-Def spoke up,
"Simmons. I'd do as they say, losing isn't an option for these boys...and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." he smiled a little and I briefly thought he looked a little bit to cheery considering our current situation. Simmons stared at him in disbelief.
Looking back at us, he scowled and flicked his gaze between us both. She was smiling triumphantly and let his shirt fall from her fist, arms crossing over her chest as she gave him the room he needed to straighten up.
"Okay." Simmons agreed. "Okay, you wanna rest the fate of the world on the kids camaro, fine, go ahead." He sat up as I moved my gun, "But don't think I don't know what's happening here. You teaming up with your little boyfriend." he stated, smirking as though he were the cat that got the cream. Boyfriend? I'd have to take her to dinner first. She huffed,
"Oh fuck you already!" she exclaimed, throwing her fist into his nose. His head snapped back and a sickening crack sounded, his hands clutching his nose as blood poured from it, seeping between his fingers while he sank to the floor with a moan. My eyebrows rose a little but I was secretly cheering for her, he'd had it coming for a while. She rolled her eyes and stared around the room, "Well? Who's taking us to the camaro?" she asked with a voice so sharp it could of cut through metal. Three of the Sector 7 men were scurrying forward to do her bidding, but the Director waved them off and lead the way instead. She was walking briskly beside me, her brother calling her name behind her. Apparently her name was Ellie, something that had to be short for something but I didn't have time to wonder what. She merely glaced over her shoulder, silently asking what he wanted from her.
"Where the hell did you learn to do that?" her brother demanded, breathless as he jogged to keep up with us. My team had come to walk with us too now and I caught the appreciative glances they were sending her way, silently warning them to back off with my eyes.
"What? You think mom slugged Trent when he almost KO'd you last year? That was all me little brother." she retorted dryly.
"I'd hate to be your enemy." I remarked. She glanced up at me with those mesmerising green eyes, a small smirk twitching her lips up and a playful glint entering her eyes,
"Great, so you wanna be on my team?" the joke was weighed down a little by the severity in her voice but it still made me chuckle.
"I'm the one giving the orders around here." I replied with a hint of sincereity. I needed her to know that from the start because I couldn't have a wild child running around in the middle of a military operation, however good she looked while doing it. She nodded, looking distracted as the Director opened up a huge door for us.
Her gasp was audible as we walked into the room, her little body surging forward as she shoved one of the technicians spraying some sort of gas at a large yellow robot to the floor.
"Want me to spray it in your face?" she threatened, that deadly glint back in her eye again. Yep, that was definitely hot. Her brother was talking rapidly to the robot who had rolled to his feet now and was aiming huge guns at us, instinctively I'd aimed mine back at him but Ellie came and pushed my arm down, her grip firm but gentle. "He won't hurt you." she promised, her voice holding such conviction I believed her.
"I can take you to the all spark." the boy promised. She watched carefully as I furrowed my brows,
"Why's he listening to your brother?" I asked curiously. Her green eyes met mine and she tilted her head slightly, looking intrigued by me. I wondered if she was finding me as interesting as I was finding her before I pushed the thought away and focused on her answer,
"Bumblebee's his guardian...we've been through a lot these past twenty four hours but Bee's pretty much here to protect Sam..."she trailed off, glancing back at her brother. "I know you can't promise me anything, but please, try and look after my brother." she pleaded, her eyes suddenly turning large and puppy dog like. A lump formed in my throat and I had to swallow to force it away. I wanted to say yes so badly, just so she'd stop looking at me like that - her eyes were becoming a bit of a weakness for me. But I couldn't promise her anything, so using all of my training I schooled my features into an indifferent mask, something I had perfected after serving for so many years.
"You're right, I can't promise you anything." I said finally.
She nodded a little, looking disappointed but understanding. She took a breath to collect herself and focused her attention back on the huge robot before me. It was a damn strange sight, seeing a twenty foot or so robot standing before me and knowing he was an allie of mine in an alien war.
"You okay Bee?" Ellie asked softly, looking up into the glowing blue eyes. A soft whirring sound echoed through the air and then a clicking sound. Suddenly the radio was on, a variety of voices, both male and female, deep and soprano came through it,
"I've been...better...sugar." the robot answered. She groaned,
"Oh come on! Just because Jazz calls me sugar doesn't mean you can too!" she protested. Sam smirked,
"But you're so sweet." he ruffled her hair and she jabbed him in the ribs. The petty sibling rivallary (though childish) was a welcome distraction from the thought of our possibly imminent deaths. But my team were relying on me, I had to get them through this like I always did, get them home for those flat beers and football games they talked about loving so much. "Come on, we need to get Bee to the all spark." Sam said finally. We all followed them down to the huge cube again and waited with baited breath for the robot to do something. The other teenager was waiting beside Sam, her hand interlocked with his and I noticed his sister had spotted it to, smirking a bit as she watched the robot stare up at the cube. If it was possible, I could have sworn I saw wonder in his eyes. Then, he reached up with both hands and touched it. There was a thunk, the sound of air hissing and escaping and Epps muttering beside me,
"Here we go, he doing something." Blocks began to pull back into the cube, the top crumpling as it folded in on itself and shrunk.
I felt my eyes widen, the wonderous sight before me stealing my breath for a moment as we watched the cube shrink down until it was the size of the average christmas present. The radio clicked on again and the robot said,
"Message from starfleet captain...let's get to it." his voice went deeper at the end and I found my curiosity come back with a vengence. How did it change channel fast enough to talk through the radio like that? Snapping out of my trance I looked at Simmons and the Sec-Def.
"He's right, if we stay here we're screwed, especially with Megatron in the next hangar." I thought aloud. My mind reeling with ideas I scrambled to think of a plan, finally coming up with one I didn't think was all that bad even if it was a little reckless. "Look, Mission City is twenty two miles from here, we take the cube and hide it in the city until we can extract it and get it into safe hands." I suggested. Keller nodded a little, and I continued, "But." his face fell at the world, "We cannot make a stand without the air force." I insisted. We'd need air support if we were going to have a hope in hell of holding off these so called Decepticons. I didn't know a lot about these aliens but I sure as hell knew that much.
"You must have a radio link of some kind, shortwave, CB?" Keller pressed and Simmons, who was looking pale and had bloody tissue stuffed up his nose, had another one of his outbursts. Ignoring them completely I mobilised my team towards the convoy we would take into Mission, ordering Sam to get in the car as I did so in an effort to keep him safe. Ellie moved to slip in after him and his girlfriend but I grabbed her arm, feeling a strange and tangeable electricity pass between us. Her skin was warm and soft to the touch. With more strength than I thought she had she jerked it out of my grip and spun around (ready to give me a tongue lashing no doubt) before she stopped, realising I wasn't Simmons.
"I want you riding with me, I need you to tell me everything you know about the robots and how best to fight these things." I commanded.
She bit her lip slightly but reached back, banging on the hood of the car so that it'd shut it's doors,
"Okay." she agreed, suprising me slightly. It couldn't be that easy could it? "But when we get to Mission City I stay with my brother." she bargained. That was one thing I couldn't deny her so I nodded and lead her towards the car we'd be driving. Epps sat beside me in the passenger seat, grinning back at her,
"Hey stranger." he greeted. She chuckled and greeted him cordially,
"Epps." she rolled her eyes a little but couldn't keep her face straight. It was then I realised she was following my orders but didn't have a clue who I was. Clearing my throat a little as I brought the engine to life I introduced myself,
"Captain Will Lennox." Her eyebrows rose a little,
"Ellie Witwicky, it's nice to meet you." her polite tone was incredibly different to the angry one I'd heard her using at Simmons for most of the day, and I found I rather liked the sound of her voice when she wasn't being so cold and snappy. Pulling out, I lead the convoy out into the boiling sun, heading straight towards the freeway so we could go straight to Mission City. The wind whipped past us, the speed mixed with the fact that this little scrambler buggy had no doors made the engine deafening and I had to shout to be heard over it,
"Start talking! What do we need to know about these things!" Ellie pondered it for a moment before she began yelling back at me; it must have looked pretty odd to anyone looking from the outside.
She gave me a whole list of things to know about, clearly very knowledge about these robots already. The chest armour was weakest when attacking from below, behind it was their spark, their power source. If we could hit that it'd be smooth sailing I imagined but the fact we had to negotiate our way past their weapons before we could even think about getting past their armour was the problem. They were sensitive to heat (which we already knew thanks to our desert meeting with one of those things - hence our sabot rounds) but there was also another interesting thing; EMP's wouldn't work. She'd watched an autobot (as she called them) walk straight into a powerline and pretty much just get high off of the shock, so any electrical based attacks were out. On the horizon I saw a glimpse of silver, and squinted to get a better look at it. They were the pipes of a truck, a huge red and blue truck coming towards us, leading a convoy of it's own behind it, they were coming towards us at rapid speed and I felt a uneasy feeling wash over me. Ellie leaned forward eagerly, looking relieved and maybe even a little excited.
"Captain, meet the cavalary!" she declared, smiling as the truck spun it's tail 180 to join us. All of the other cars joined it except for one little Pontiac Solstice, that sped alongside us with its headlights flashing. "Jazz! Wrong side of the road pal!" she laughed. The little car just honked it's horn at her in reply and I felt my eyebrows escape into my hairline.
"You know that car?" I called back, don't tell me she had a guardian aswell? This whole thing was getting a little crazy, cars shouldn't be able to communicate with us but here we were. She nodded her head a little with a small grin on her face that proved to be infectious. The radio began blasting from the car next to us and sugar, oh honey honey was echoing suddenly through the Nevada dessert. She blushed beetroot red and said, "He's a little flirty." My eyes rolled, wonderful, a flirtatious robot. Part of me sincerely hoped she wouldn't fall for it before realising I was concerned about one of the most unlikely and ridiculous things I'd ever heard of. Passing between the crevice of two rocks gave us a brief and welcome moment of relief in the shade before we were back out in the boiling sun. The freeway was looming on the horizon, shimmering in the heat haze and I braced myself for what I was certain would be a long day.
A/N: Hello guys,
I know I've been updating pretty regularly since I published this story but I feel it's only fair to forewarn you yat I might not be able to do that anymore. I will still aim to update at least once a week but to update every few days as I have been won't be possible now I'm starting sixth form. Next week is enrolement and they gave me summer work to get a jump on some of my A-Level subjects that I need to organise between now and then, after that I officially start and my studies have to take priority I'm afraid. So, I'm still going to update this story, but I may not be able to do it as regularly, that's all.
Also, thank you to Guest who has left two reviews since I started writing. I don't want to sound desperate but if anybody else wants to drop a comment and let me know how I'm doing it would be much appreciated, I love hearing your feedback!
Best Wishes,
Jess
