Ten
Diego Garcia
The sky was darkening from twilight to pure night as the lone C-17 carrier plane cut through the warm air. Hundreds of thousands of feet below, the Indian Ocean seemed to stretch endlessly for miles, seamlessly melding into the sky at the horizon. Above the carrier, the sky had begun to reveal the stars, glittering orbs in the unreachable heavens. The world itself, it seemed, was for once at peace with itself and its inhabitants.
Lucas couldn't say the same about the interior of the plane.
We're going to need another plane or two, he thought gloomily from his seat in the C-17 cockpit. The prime yet secret reason was that he would be able to split his team up and lessen the amount of arguments flying between the unwilling teammates. The reason he'd given his copilot, an energetic woman named Kina Skye, was that the specs he had on the vehicles they'd be picking up included a Peterbilt-semi, a GMC Topkick, and a H2 Hummer, the three 'giants' of the eleven vehicles in question. Tobias had called again as they were about to fire up the C-17 in New Jersey to warn Lucas that the other vehicles included a silver Stingray and a Chevrolet Volt, two very fast, very expensive vehicles. Then there were three motorcycles, all belonging to a set of triplets who would not appreciate any dings to the bikes. The last three were a yellow '09 Camaro and two smaller Chevrolets, one red, one green.
Lucas wasn't worried about the possibility that the cars were under high security. He had that all taken care of.
"Sir?"
Lucas turned in his seat to face Mark Dennison, their navigator who was still wearing the same sour expression he'd had since they left. Lucas knew why he was here… ever since departure Mark had repeated his dire warning about impending arrest for such an unlawful action. He had been the one in New Jersey who scared the hacker Glen Whitmann by first mentioning arrest, leading Glen to start having daytime nightmares about the FBI interrogation room. "If you're here to warn me about death or prison…" Lucas began warningly.
"I wasn't, but I guess I will since you just reminded me. Don't forget, assuming we live through all this, I am very sure we'll get arrested for this," Mark said crankily before adding, "You are also 0.5325 degrees off course. Such an infinitesimally small number can mess up the whole run. If you don't alter your course now, you're going to miss the runway for sure."
"Didn't you already say that?" Kina Skye asked from her seat without looking away from the window before her. The microphone near her mouth had amplified her voice, and Lucas could see from his position that she was scowling. She was still a little sore from having lost the argument with him over who was going to be piloting, especially since Lucas did discover that he did need more refreshers before attempting to pilot.
"No, I said that we were 0.5001 degrees off course, you two just made it worse," Mark retorted crossly.
"Are you going to start telling me how to do my job now?" Kina asked in the calm voice that always preceded the storm.
"Nope! I don't want to go to prison," Mark said, turning on his heel and walking back into the cabin. Lucas shut the door behind him and then returned to his seat, and then sat down beside Kina, silence once again reclaiming the cockpit. He glanced at his copilot, who he hadn't seen in four years. The last time he did see her, she was only a lieutenant keeping a rein of some sort on Aliskevicz. In fact the last thing he'd seen before leaving Area 51 that morning was Kina, Alexis, and Ari all huddled together on a F-22 wing as they awaited for some kind of news. The immediate days after Oroville had been full of either false news or no news. After he'd left the squadron though, Lucas never knew what happened to each pilot.
Well, they still had time before arrival.
"So," he said casually to catch Kina's attention. "Keep in contact with anyone over the last few years?"
"Yeah… whom do you want to hear about?" she asked as she carefully adjusted the C-17's flight pattern. She hesitated, and then explained, "Mr. Keller disbanded the Four-oh-first two years ago, months after Mission City. Everybody got scattered, so it was harder to keep track of where everyone went."
"Okay then," Lucas said, sensing that details weren't going to come easily. "Your two pals first. How about Aliskevicz?" he asked, remembering the bright-eyed troublemaker when she first signed on. Thankfully, he'd only been cursed with one year with her… anymore and he would have had to go to extreme measures to make her cooperate peacefully with her teammates. "Still knocking around?" he asked, glancing at Kina.
Kina nodded. "Sent me a sixteen-page, double-sided letter in February ranting on and on about Autobots, London, and a case of motorphobia, so she's still alive. Alexis and I have been keeping more regular contact, and she said that Ari has a bad case of policophobia," she said, checking a few monitors.
"Polico… what?" Lucas repeated the odd word, knowing it was a fear but of what he didn't know.
"Policophobia, fear of the police," Kina clarified. She leaned forward and adjusted something else. "Apparently, the first encounter with this particular officer also happened to be the one day I wasn't paying attention to Aliskevicz."
"How about Preston?" Lucas asked, struggling to bring up the face of the pilot in question. Having arrived a year before Aliskevicz, Preston proved to be among the quietest of the team members. At first, she appeared to him as one of those people who wished to remain safe in the background, but with a little coaxing, she soon became one of the sharp-tongued members. This only resulted from having Stanley Wassermann as a flight partner. Lucas never blamed Alexis for that because Stanley didn't get along with most of the women on the squadron. The first conversation he'd ever had with Preston was when Kina had been showing the ropes to her, and had dragged the young pilot over to their table in the mess hall. That took place six months after Preston had arrived.
Kina was quiet as though thinking her answer over. "She's doing good…I'm going to see her when I go back to DC after this mission," she replied. "Alexis doesn't know it yet though, so it'll be a nice surprise."
Before Lucas could speak again, the door to the cockpit opened and Mark stuck his head in again. "Whoever is piloting is doing a crappy job… we're now 0.3224 degrees off the mark," he snapped crossly.
"The next time you make some remark about my piloting," Kina warned, turning around in her seat, "I'm going to take that calculator of yours and toss it out the window if that's what it's going to take to get you to knock it off." She turned to Lucas and said in a strained voice, "Please let me handle the flying before you crash into the ocean and kill us all."
"I would do as she says," Mark added in an ominous tone.
"We're coming in to land anyway," Lucas said, glancing out the cockpit window. "Skye, take the controls. Mark, sit down before you give her an opportunity to cause harm," he ordered, flipping the appropriate switches as he eased the C-17 out of autopilot and began to guide it towards the darkened landing strip.
Mark didn't walk away like he should have. "I sincerely hope that you have the appropriate amount of bail money," he warned before walking away. At that moment however, the whole plane jerked violently, closely followed by a thump and a yelp. "What the hell was that for?" Mark shouted from the cabin.
"That was turbulence genius!" Kina shouted back. "If you had been sitting and were buckled in like you were supposed to, it wouldn't have affected you!" She made a growling sound before muttering, "Besides, I thought backseat drivers were just a common annoyance in the car, not a plane."
"I have a challenge," Lucas said as he focused on the light-lined runway to Diego Garcia. "How about you refrain from any further arguments for the duration of the trip?"
"I won't start anything for the duration of the trip," Kina clarified, bracing herself as the C-17 bumped as it came to a landing on the strip. The pair remained silent as they slowed the plane down, as they got closer to the base itself. "How do you plan to do this?" she asked as the plane finally came to a stop outside the few buildings. "I'm a little worried that we haven't been caught by security yet."
"I'll explain in a few minutes," Lucas said as he took off his helmet and unstrapped himself from his seat. "Just do me a favor and don't question what I say," he added as she stood up from her seat, having undone her own harnesses before him.
"Sure," she said before picking up her small pack from its place near her seat. "What do you plan to do once we arrive back in the States?" she asked as he pressed the key activation code for the C-17's ramp to lower down.
"I don't know, I'm sort of making this up as I go along," Lucas admitted as he left the cockpit with Kina close behind. He grabbed a small black case on his way out.
The rest of the 'team' had assembled on the landing strip by the time Kina and Lucas had left as well. Mark was still scowling and rubbing a spot on his head, Maggie Madsen from Rand Corporation was soothing Glen Whitmann's worries about the FBI finding out about this, Max and Gabriel were still balancing the crate on the SmartCart, Riley Mackerson, the voluntary Jeep passenger, was peering inside the crate as though to get a better look, and then finally the British paramedic Rose Connelly was watching Lucas, her face devoid of any emotion. They were all wearing dark gray uniforms, an attempt to blend into the shadows of the night better.
"Okay guys," he said, capturing all of their attentions. "So, in order to minimize the risks of getting caught," he began to say.
"This should be good, seeing that we're already doomed," Mark muttered loud enough to be heard, but Lucas chose to ignore him.
"As I was saying, in order to minimize the chances of getting caught," Lucas tried again, "We should split up. Max and Gabriel, you two are going to take the crate and come with me. Miss Connelly, I would appreciate it if you came as well." After receiving some kind of acknowledgement from the aforementioned people, he said, "Kina, you're going to take Riley, Mark, Maggie and Glen to gimmick the security cams in the control room or whatever and establish that as a kind of operation center. If necessary, warn us of any approaching personnel. Now, are there any objections?"
"How come I can't come with the action group? You wasted my talents already by making me the communications guy. I was bored the entire trip since there was no one to talk to!" Riley said, ignoring Kina's scowl. "You guys have only four people!"
"We have five, trust me," Lucas assured the irate pilot. "Besides, I need you to find another C-17 to commandeer, the one we have isn't going to be enough. We may even need a third, I'm trying to spread out the eleven vehicles we're picking up," Lucas explained, ignoring Riley's stunned expression. "We'll hopefully get some more pilots who will be able to assist you and Skye."
"We're doing Grand Auto Theft from the military?" Glen asked, obviously panicked at the thought. "We'll get thrown in for life…"
"If we don't get caught, we should be fine, like Roxbury said," Maggie interrupted.
"Miss Madsen, I already told you on the way here that our warrants have been signed and sealed the moment we agreed to come along," Mark said, looking unamused. "Do I need to tattoo it on my forehead to help all you dimwits remember?"
"Why did you come then, Mark? If you are so convinced of the outcome, then why did you come?" Lucas snapped.
"Because I was unaware of the team roster when I signed up," Mark said stiffly. "But, seeing that no one is listening to me, I suppose I will be quiet for the remainder of the trip."
"All right, everyone has their mission objectives… Riley! Get back here!" Lucas shouted when he spotted the wayward pilot investigating some of the shadowy shapes of the other jets on the base.
"Sorry Roxbury, just wanted to see what kind of hardware they had here other than C-17s," Riley apologized, walking back to the group. "They've got not only F-22s, but three SR-71 Blackbirds, three C-17s not including ours, and a Black Hawk. Betcha they've got more too. They're armed to the teeth here," he added as he began to follow Kina and the other four members of the group. "Hey, next time you have this sort of thing, can I go with the action group?"
"Careful what you wish for, you might just get it," Kina warned as they rounded the corner into the side entrance. Lucas shook his head and gestured for the others to follow him.
"Come on, we've got work to do. Careful with the SmartCart," he said before walking towards the main complex. His group held the passwords for the complex that would get them in because Kina's group had the two hackers.
This was going to be an interesting operation.
Neither Lucas nor Stanton was aware of the other party within the same building. While he was there to spring some people out illegally, she was about to attempt the same thing albeit legally. The hallway was barely lit as Stanton walked calmly through towards Galloway's office. He had provided the route description to Diego Garcia, and then to his office. Lansford, watchful as ever, trailed her behind, scanning the shadows and walls carefully as though expecting a trap. He needn't have worried about Stanton pulling something on him; the time zones were finally beginning to take their toll on her and she was working to stay awake. If Galloway were feeling merciful tonight, he'd let her sleep a bit before talking.
"What the hell?" Lansford suddenly yelped, jumping back. Stanton whirled, pulling her gun out in the process and aimed it square at…
"A toy truck?" Lansford asked disbelievingly as he looked down at the remote-controlled vehicle that was zipping around their feet now, making the high-pitched whining sound that had initially startled Lansford. "I thought you said this was a military base, not a child's playhouse," he said, narrowing his eyes at Stanton.
Stanton knelt down to examine to truck better, which stopped right in front of her. "I don't think that's a toy, but more of someone's idea of a good joke," she snarled, an ill feeling rising in her gut and encountering the exhaustion. "Which is why they have two seconds to back off or I'll have something for target practice," she said coldly while standing up and looking down.
The truck, or the guy operating the truck, took the hint and speedily left the hallway.
"I do not understand everything that is going on here, but I'm just going to go along with it," Lansford said, his menacing personality dropping for a few moments. He looked at the colonel quizzically and asked, "You still want me to believe the Autobot story, don't you?"
"That would be nice, make things a hell of a lot easier," Stanton grumbled as she walked towards the office door, listening to the surrounding environment. For a military base housing giant aliens, it was oddly quiet. She kept listening even as she knocked on Galloway's door.
"Come in," came a tired voice from inside.
Stanton opened the door and walked inside, Lansford sneaking in before it shut completely. Stanton raised an eyebrow at Galloway's appearance.
He was exhausted, and was rubbing his head. His glasses were out on the table, and he was using a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. He had a plain, unadorned office room, with not much on the desk except for a computer, a telephone, a globe, a microscope, and a few other miscellaneous items, including pencil cups. He looked up and smiled tiredly as she sat down without being invited, and asked, "How have you been Toni since the last time we spoke?"
"Okay I guess," Stanton said, thinking back three years or so. "It could've been better, such as not being shot at, exiled, demoted, gone for an impromptu swim, um, I think that about sums up all the things that shouldn't have happened. How about you?" she asked, mentally noting Lansford's change in position so that he was now standing respectfully near the door. It looked like Galloway wanted to talk after all. "Shouldn't you be asleep now?" she asked.
"Too paranoid to sleep right now. Why were you shot at?" he asked, his eyes taking in the long, faded, thin scar running down the side of her face. "What happened to your face?" he asked somewhat bluntly.
"A pilot of mine wired my car to blow up in my face. Turns out he was double agent. As for the assassin, well, I was poking too close to Sector Seven's business in the aftermath of Mission City. They 'woke up' one of their sleeper agents so he could kill me for them, and it just so happened that the agent was one of my own, Navy Commander Cornelius Randall. That was an interesting turnout in the end," Stanton said, her tone flat and emotionless.
"Bummer, I thought he was a nice guy that one time we did meet about three or four years ago," Galloway said, and Stanton knew it was the mutual exhaustion that was making the exchange interesting in its own weird way. "Not much for me except the new post in President Obama's administration, and I learned the hard way that you have to pretty much be unafraid of heights to be in special operations in any branch of the military."
"Even if it was because of a fake engine problem, parachute drops aren't that terrifying. In fact, one of the pilots I used to work with loves doing them. She would've been jealous," Stanton said, looking at her friend complacently. She was mindful however that this was the part of the conversation that was going to be risky.
"There is a reason I knew I wasn't going to join the Air Force or Army, and that is parachute drops," Galloway said with a slight irritation in his voice.
"I joined the Air Force because I didn't want to run the risk of having to swim in the ocean at any point in my career, yet I'm sure you heard I got dunked recently anyway," Stanton countered, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, I did hear about that," Galloway said, smiling faintly. "You've always reminded me of cats, colonel. Ferocious and full of personality, yet hydrophobic all at the same time."
"I'll let you know when I'm offended," Stanton told him, a faint smile flickering around the edges of her mouth. "Galloway," she said, sobering then. "Release the two Air Force personnel; they are Thayer's responsibility, not yours. The Army participants also have their own general to answer to. You don't have the authority for this…"
"They were a part of NEST, under my command," Galloway interrupted, narrowing his eyes. "They disobeyed orders to disband."
"To hell with your orders," Stanton hissed, her voice low now. Meeting at three in the morning wasn't one of Galloway's best ideas. "If you have such a problem with that, then take it up with the Secretary of Defense and the President. You would've lost your own life if the Autobots and NEST hadn't used their own judgment to do whatever it was they did."
"They disobeyed orders…" Galloway began.
"No. They obeyed you, 'disbanded' and then each individual made a conscious decision to place you in safety so that they could help out at Jordan since they chose to go to Jordan," Stanton replied, sensing an opportunity. "It just so happened that each individual made the same exact decision. So forgive, forget, and move on."
Galloway sighed when she finished her brief tirade, and then seemed to work on focusing on her as though to resist the temptation to look elsewhere. "No," he said after a moment's hesitation. "What if it had been you in my place? Besides, the longer the Autobots are here on Earth, the longer the Decepticons stay, endangering everyone… including your children," he said, leaning forward on the desk.
"You leave them out of this," Stanton said coldly, narrowing her eyes slightly. So her attempt failed. Fine then, she wasn't going to answer his question about her being in charge just to spite him. "If it wasn't for this trivial act of disobedience, we would all be dealing with a literal Dark Ages here. Go back to the capital; they are trying to figure out their next move with so many Decepticons running around…"
"Optimus told me that there were only a few or so, not 'many'," Galloway interrupted.
"Well, you never know!" Stanton said, her voice rising slightly in frustration as she swept her arms out at the same time without even thinking about it. There was a clatter as the microscope and a pencil cup landed on the floor, having been swept off by the force of her hands.
"How many does Keller think there is?" Galloway asked as he and Stanton both bent down to pick up the fallen objects.
"If you had been at the meeting, you could've asked yourself. He said there were three accounted for, but wants to speak to Optimus anyway to get a headcount on the possible survivors," Stanton explained as she carefully placed the microscope onto the desk. She examined it and said, "Talk about a piece of tough equipment. Not a crack in sight."
"It's from my college days," Galloway explained dryly.
"All I have from my college days is an old sweatshirt that my oldest daughter uses when she's working," Stanton replied. "It's probably covered in paint by now."
Galloway laughed softly. "I suppose that Thayer and Keller would want me to release the Autobots as well, and calm down after all," he said exhaustedly, leaning back in his seat.
"Yeah. So, why don't you?" Stanton asked, suddenly aware that Lansford was no longer behind her or even in the room. She gave no indication to Galloway however that something was amiss.
"I wanted to talk to you right away," he said, leaning forward in his seat. "That's why I had you come here immediately instead of waiting until morning to talk."
"Okay," Stanton replied slowly, sensing that the subject had been abruptly changed. "Um, you talk about how threatening the Decepticons are, and I guess you saw the aftermath in Mission City and Shanghai, but have you ever actually seen one yourself?"
"No, but I've seen and heard enough," Galloway replied while taking his glasses off so he could rub his eyes. "Now, although his methods were somewhat… questionable, do you ever wonder if Ross Lynch was onto something when he said that the Autobots attract unwanted attention from Decepticons? If there are really so few of them here, then why haven't they've all been annihilated already?" he asked, once again focusing solely on her.
"Wouldn't Optimus know the answer to your second question, and, well, I don't know about Lynch, he was too much of a psycho for my taste so we didn't associate much," Stanton coolly replied, getting a suspicion as to what his next words were.
"What if everyone you held dear was threatened by the Decepticons, specifically by Megatron?" Galloway asked, careful not to rile her up further.
Stanton narrowed her eyes at him.
Lucas learned early on that Connelly could work magic.
At one point after entering the base, Gabriel and Max had consulted an aged copy of the facility blueprints, having claimed that they knew a friend who knew a friend who knew the descendant of one of the initial architects of the base. Lucas had been on the verge of calling Tobias again for directions, all the while knowing he would be ridiculed for doing so, when the crate's passenger had begun to have a claustrophobic attack. Rose had knelt to face the passenger, and then was able to divert the attack by talking and distracting the passenger. Then they learned that as long as Rose stayed within eyesight of the passenger, all future claustrophobic attacks were to be diverted.
"Wait here," Lucas told the others, and then descended down a long ramp into the detention center of the base. He had a flashlight out in one hand, using the lamp to guide his way yet keeping it handy in case he needed to use it as a weapon. The ramp itself was unusually long, but he tried to dismiss it as a part of his imagination. The longer he stayed at this base, he realized, the more creeps out he was getting.
Something wasn't right.
He froze when he got to the bottom and found two guards standing at the entrance, both bearing the distinctive NEST insignia. Lucas tensed, wanting to get by them but unwilling to cause bloodshed so early in the game. When they didn't react, he cautiously walked forward a few more feet.
Nothing.
Lucas jerked in surprise however when the two guards finally did move; he had assumed that there was the possibility of them being statues of some sort. He watched as they both fought back yawns and pretty much ignored him despite there were only five or so feet between them.
That was when it occurred to him that the officers were ignoring him on purpose; they knew why he was down here. As NEST officers, they would've disagreed with Galloway's jurisdictions but would have kept their complaints to themselves since a free man could do a little more than an imprisoned one.
Neither of them stopped Lucas from walking past the entrance.
Lucas actually didn't need to look for Tobias. It was past three in the morning and Tobias was bickering with the man in the cell across from him. The subject of the argument was over who had actually pressed in the command sequence to create the engine trouble in the C-17; both men wanted the credit, but only one of them had actually done it. "You know," Lucas said, interrupting Tobias, "You two are the only two who want credit for doing the act that got you into trouble."
"It was prompted after Galloway arrived back here to Diego Garcia," Tobias said, his voice coming from the darkened cell. "I think we'd all just had enough of him at that point."
"And he didn't even stay for more than twenty-four hours," Lucas said, looking for the simple lock pick he'd stowed away in a pocket from the C-17.
"I've got the keys," Tobias said, tossing a ring of keys out from his cell. "Apparently the guards were concerned about losing them."
"Sure you didn't pickpocket?" Lucas asked as he began unlocking the door.
"Yeah, we're sure," Tobias's companion, James Belroy, said from the other cell. "Going to let me out or not?"
"Yeah, just be patient," Lucas said in a pacifying manner. "We've got Autobots to spring still, so don't forget."
"I thought you didn't know about us," Tobias said, the lock clicking as it came undone.
"Tom told me to be careful with that sort of info, so I lied over the phone," Lucas explained as he turned around to unlock Belroy's door. "Where are Major Lennox and Epps? Or did they not get in trouble?"
"Actually, Epps was able to say that he had no idea what Lennox was doing, and Lennox explained that he was merely following protocol. We said that we honestly thought there were engine problems, but at that point, our luck ran out," Tobias explained as Lucas undid the handcuffs on Belroy's wrists.
"But we sort of confessed right when Galloway started yelling at us. He was a wreck, covered in dirt and holding a pair of cracked glasses," Belroy added, rubbing his wrists where the cuffs had rubbed against the skin. "I think we got the twins going with our argument too, remember? Took Galloway an hour or so just to get their attention…"
"Twins?" Lucas repeated, looking up at Belroy.
"Belroy, he only knows that NEST works with the Autobots, he doesn't know their designations or anything," Tobias reminded his partner.
"Roxbury?" Kina's irritated voice came from his walkie-talkie. "If you're alive, contact please," she added.
"That voice sounds oddly familiar," Tobias observed as Lucas took the radio and pressed the button to talk.
"Roxbury here, what's wrong? Is Dennison continuing with the Doomsday messages?" Lucas asked, gesturing for Belroy and Tobias to follow him back towards the exit. Lucas also noticed that the two guards from earlier were now gone.
"All the external cams here are on the blitz, and neither Madsen nor Whitmann can fix it. On top of that, we've just found that Galloway has a certain special guest right now, someone we all know and love."
"Let me guess; Mr. Keller or Mr. Thayer is here to knock some sense into him," Lucas guessed as he, Jackson, and Belroy joined the others waiting at the top.
"You again?" Tobias asked, drawing to a stop in front of Rose Connelly, who looked just as surprised to see him as he was to see her.
"Charmed," she said in a dry tone, raising an eyebrow at his bedraggled appearance.
"No, it's Stanton here to knock sense into him. Remember her?"Kina asked, and Lucas could almost see the grin on her face. While he was forever careful to stay on Stanton's good side the entire time he'd served, Kina more or less flipped between the general's good and bad side during her years of 401st service. The highlight of that time had been when Ari had gone a tad too far in one of her pranks, and Kina had found the courage to step up and challenge the general's authority in order to prevent Aliskevicz from being discharged completely. Whether the general had some new respect for Kina or not after that had been one of the central points on Lucas's thoughts for the next few years.
"Leave Stanton alone, she has her reasons for being here, and it'll only rile her up now if we do something drastic," Lucas said as both Tobias and Belroy began to lead the group to their final destination, wherever the Autobots were being held.
"Right. We'll be so quiet that even you will forget we're here," Kina replied in a slightly sarcastic tone. Then there was a click, signaling that she'd signed off altogether.
"How much longer?" Max suddenly asked. "This crate doesn't get any lighter you know."
"Soon," Tobias assured them as they rounded the corner, and Lucas wasn't sure what to think when he saw no guards standing outside the door to apparently what was another hangar. "Come on, we're almost there!" Tobias said, sensing the group's hesitation. "I solemnly promise that there aren't any surprises on the other side of the door," he added before sliding the lock open and walking into the darkened room. There was a click as he flipped the light switch.
He was right. There was nothing surprising at all at the sight of eleven vehicles all lined up on one side of the wall. Rose made a small noise when she saw the thick chains that had been used to create a sort of impromptu barrier while doing a pitiful job of immobilizing the vehicles. The Autobots seemed sort of small in that instant, small vehicles rattling around in a large, empty gray hangar.
"Don't worry, America doesn't treat her heroes like this, it just so happens that Galloway has this persistent belief in the exceptions. That belief's always driven even his bosses crazy," Tobias said, walking up to the giant yet silent Peterbilt semi. "We humans always believe that there are exceptions to every rule." He knelt down and began to examine the chains.
"Is it just me, or is he talking to the truck?" Max whispered to Gabriel as they set the crate down off the SmartCart.
"Nope, he's talking to the truck. I see him doing it too," Gabriel muttered back as Rose stepped forward.
She silently walked over to silent yellow Hummer and knelt down as well, examining a padlock while speaking softly, too quietly for Lucas to hear. Finally she stood up and turned to face Lucas. "There has to be some way to do this without the key!" she said, pain slightly laced in her voice. She looked desperately at Tobias. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you have to have some kind of plan!" she said.
"He doesn't, but I do," Lucas said, pulling out the anti-riot rifle from its hiding place. Rose narrowed her eyes but backed away slightly. Instead of opening fire on the chain links like she assumed, Lucas turned to Gabriel and Max, who both backed away once the weapon was pointed in their direction. "Gentlemen, when I say so, you will open the crate," he said as he fished the keys to the Jeep from his pocket. "All right, open it," he said, tossing the keys to Belroy, who caught them while wearing a frown. "Now Belroy, just jangle the keys in front of the crate," Lucas said as Max carefully undid the clasp and chain that had held the carrier door in place.
Twitch, ruffled, irritated, still nauseated from the flight yet very much alive, crawled out of the crate and unfolded himself from the pretzel-like position he'd been in for several hours now. He straightened his T-shirt while looking resentfully at Lucas, who was careful to keep the weapon out of sight the entire time. "Whaddya want with me now?" Twitch finally asked crossly.
"To make amends for the past ills," Lucas explained. "All you got to do is undo the chains, and you're good to go." He kept the rifle handy; all he would use it for was to slow Twitch down so recapturing him would be easier. Twitch on the other hand glared suspiciously at Lucas; that is until the nearest vehicle caught his attention.
"A GMC Topkick!" he squealed, reminding Lucas of a child on Christmas morning. Twitch ran over and began running his hands over the truck's frame in an adoring fashion. "It's so, so, beautiful," Twitch breathed, seemingly unaware of the grimaces from Belroy, Tobias and Rose. "Eek!" Twitch squealed again, climbing over the truck over to the next vehicle in line. "A silver Chevy… and it's all mine," Twitch said with glee as he examined the silver hood. Lucas watched with slight amusement as the three motorcycles snagged Twitch's attention. He turned away however when Tobias walked over to him.
"You might want to call him off real soon; Ironhide's patience with human idiocy can only last so long," Tobias warned as Twitch clambered over the motorcycles to fawn over the Hummer. "We'll be looking at a pile of smoking ash if he isn't called off."
"Twitch is sort of a necessary evil. Besides, I thought Autobots didn't target humans," Lucas asked, turning to face Tobias.
"Back in '08, we kinda cleared the mission-hindering humans and the troublemakers and made them open for target practice. Then again, when Aliskevicz came here, we had to take troublemakers off the list; she wouldn't have made it through the first week if we didn't," Tobias explained, looking back at Lucas. "We were getting trouble all over the American southwest when we were hunting Barricade, that's what prompted the change in rules. "When Galloway came, then we knew that mission-hindering humans had to be taken off the list too," he added as an afterthought. "Besides, would you like to be an Autobot and have some random stranger run their hands all over you?"
"No thanks," Lucas said as he watched Twitch begin working furiously at the padlock on the chains; thankfully he hadn't needed prompting to do the task that Lucas had had in mind for him. The chains themselves, although somewhat ineffective in the end, were crossed across the vehicle hoods and around the motorcycle tires. They all connected back to the wall, threatening to bring the walls down should the Autobots attempt to break free. "I have a question," he said to Tobias, who nodded in acknowledgement. "If you were chasing a Decepticon, would you worry about the guy who 'died' trying to steal the Decepticon or go after the Decepticon itself?"
"I'd shoot the guy first to make sure he really was dead and then go after the Decepticon," Tobias replied without hesitation. He looked up when there was a loud clatter, and then asked, "Jeez, how the hell did he get through that lock that fast?"
"Give him good enough incentive, aka the cars, and he's putty in your hands. Now we can honestly say we didn't free the Autobots, merely provided transport for their escape," Lucas said as Twitch completed more of the work for them by eagerly yanking the chains off of the vehicles. They watched as Twitch reached Ironhide and pulled off the last of the chains.
In that moment, the Autobots seemed to come to life, as though they'd been patiently waiting for Twitch to finish his work. Ironhide was the first to transform, his black armor plating folding back and providing ample room to finish the transformation process. Lucas stepped back as a single large cannon formed from the Autobot's hand.
"MOTHER!" Twitch squealed in terror the second he realized what had just happened, and then there was a multi-colored blur as he ran as fast as possible back to his crate. There was a clang as he slammed the door shut and locked himself in. Gabriel and Max stepped back several paces as Rose, unafraid of the Autobots, approached Ironhide.
"Ironhide, what is it?" she asked quietly, and then Lucas could see that there was a measure of agitation in the black Transformer's posture. Rose seemed to have sensed it too, and cautiously approached Ironhide. "What's going on?" she demanded, but Ironhide didn't answer, only continued to scan as the other Autobots began to transform. Only three, the Camaro and the two smaller Chevrolets were still in vehicular mode, one waiting patiently for the leader while the other two seemed to be engaged in an activity that looked similar to bumper cars. Max and Gabriel both managed (albeit barely) to pull Twitch's crate out of the way just as the two cars collided near the humans. Lucas stayed close to Tobias the entire time; Tobias, Belroy, and Rose were the only three people who weren't fazed by the sudden activity.
Still aware of Ironhide's agitation, Rose turned to look at the red-and-blue mech who had transformed from the semi, and then asked, "Optimus, what is it?"
"They're here," Ironhide said in an ominous tone as Optimus joined him. Rose and Tobias were the only two who looked worried at the warning, while Lucas could only wonder what the hell was going on now.
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A/N: I love finding websites with the phobias listed. There are these long lists with two columns, one being the phobia name and the other being the explanation. I enjoyed the site more when there was a phobia for 'fear of phobias'. Anyway, the character of Kina Skye belongs to Nanoe, and is used with permission. The character of Rose Connelly belongs to BlackwingRose and is used with full permission. Both characters require the permission of their owners to be used elsewhere.