Disclaimer: Again, there are several chunks of movie dialogue below, but I don't own it.
11. Hope Calls
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Action
Word Count: 1,578
The effort to stall didn't work. It bought them a few hours, but eventually Galloway forcefully ordered them all to get ready to leave for Diego Garcia at 2100 hours, and there was nothing anyone at NEST could do. But Ironhide did conveniently forget to recall Bumblebee, Skids, and Mudflap.
Still, it didn't seem like that purposeful oversight would accomplish much. Lennox had to forcibly restrain himself from lashing out at the smug-looking Galloway and shaking him until all his teeth were loose as he watched the Autobots prepping to leave. Ratchet, Jolt, Sideswipe, Arcee...Lennox deflated as he watched all of them fold into their vehicular forms to prepare for transport. He went up to Ironhide, who was the only one who had yet to transform, and placed a hand on the big robot's leg.
"I'm sorry about this, 'Hide."
"It is not your fault. You have done what you can." Ironhide half-smiled at his charge. "It has been an honor serving with you, William Lennox."
Lennox nodded and placed his fingers against his forehead in a silent salute, not trusting himself to speak for fear that the stew of conflicting emotions bubbling inside him might spill over.
Ironhide transformed into his Topkick alt mode and drove out with the other Autobots onto the airstrip, where a carrier plane was waiting to take them back to Diego Garcia. Lennox followed forlornly, still too numb to wonder what would happen to NEST.
"So, we're shipping them back to base." Epps crossed his arms, his dark eyes unreadable. "This is such a mistake."
An officer came out into the darkening twilight, calling, "Major Lennox, phone call!"
Lennox sighed, and turned back, taking the proffered cell phone. He couldn't help being reminded of the last time he'd taken a call.
"This is Lennox."
"Lennox, it's Simmons." Lennox recognized that name. Simmons? That ex-Sector Seven agent who had tried to freeze Bumblebee in cryo?
"I'm with the kid – the kid," Simmons continued. "You know, the one with the attitude, right?" Oh, he must mean Sam.
Wait. What was Simmons doing with Sam? And where was Bumblebee and the twins? Were they with him, too?
"Listen, we need the truck. The truck." What was with the repeat nouns? It was almost like Simmons was trying to...pass a message? "We've got a possible resurrection going on here."
Lennox did a double take. Did that mean what he thought it did? Hope began to rise inside him.
"You're not gonna believe where we are right now. Code Tut, as in King Tutankhamen. Back of a one-dollar bill. Coordinates for air drop: 29.5 north, 34.88 east. Write it down. Write it."
Lennox scrambled for pen and paper, then went to find someone to look up the coordinates for him, pausing only to motion for Epps to join him. He had an answer within a few minutes.
"Tip of the Red Sea. Aqaba," the soldier told him.
"Egypt?" Epps gave Lennox a look. "Are you serious?" He glanced at where Optimus' body was being loaded into the plane and lowered his voice to a whisper, even though the soldier had already gone back in. "Even if we could figure out a way to get Big Man over there, how is this little kid supposed to bring him back to life?"
"Look, I don't know," Lennox admitted. "But we've gotta trust him."
Epps didn't look convinced, but Lennox saw hope light up his dark brown eyes anyway, just as it had in his.
It was surprisingly easy to stage an engine malfunction. Of course, it helped that Galloway didn't know nuts about planes and that the pilots were NEST and thus only too easy to convince. Lennox found great satisfaction in Galloway's panic.
"Bailout? Bailout? Bailout? Bailout?" If he got any more frightened, he'd wet his pants. Lennox forced himself to act his part convincingly.
"All right, team, grab your chutes!"
Galloway was still sputtering. "Bailout, like bailout?"
Lennox turned to take care of him, plastering a fake look of concern on his face. "Are you familiar with the standard MC-4?"
"Of course not! I've never jumped out of a perfectly good airplane before!" Galloway's eyes were wild, his face betraying pure terror. Lennox had to stifle a laugh. "Wait a minute – is this really happening?"
"Yeah." Lennox began strapping the parachute to Galloway's body.
"Wait a minute –wait a minute. You're behind this, aren't you?" The liaison's tone was accusing, but Lennox played it cool.
"What are you talking about? You heard the pilot. These guys don't mess around. This is just standard procedure; I'm just following orders to the letter. Isn't that what you said?" He tightened the final strap, pulling a bit harder than was absolutely necessary.
"You just signed the death warrant on your career, Major."
A noise overhead accompanied by a bump had Galloway freaking out again. "What was that?"
"Oh, that's not good," said Lennox, enjoying himself immensely. "Come on." He pushed Galloway to the doors and began instructing him on the regulations of jumping out of a plane, making sure to talk very quickly and make things sound as complicated as he could without going overboard.
"Red's your backup, blue's your primary," he finished. "I need you to pull the blue. I need you to pull it really hard."
Galloway did just that, releasing his chute, exactly as Lennox had intended.
"Not right now – we're on the plane, you dumbass!" Lennox scolded, taking great pleasure in calling Galloway that.
Before Galloway had a chance to protest, his inflated chute whipped him out of the plane, into the air. Chuckling, Lennox made his way back to his team, who were already unfastening their chutes.
"Did he say goodbye?" Epps asked with a wicked gleam in his eye.
"Nah, he didn't say goodbye."
"What, may I ask, is the purpose of all this?" Ironhide's voice sounded from the Topkick's speakers. The tone was completely neutral, but Lennox could tell the black Autbot had enjoyed Galloway's dismissal as much as everyone else.
"We're taking a little detour," Lennox informed him. "We're going to Egypt."
A few hours later, Lennox wondered what he could possibly have been thinking, diverting the entire quadrant to Egypt and getting them right into the middle of some serious Decepticon shit. This was just like Qatar, only multiplied to be about ten times worse. Where the hell was that boy?
"Two civilians, two o' clock!"
Oh, thank God! Lennox thought, as he raced out to bring Sam and Mikaela to safety.
"You'd better have a good reason for bringing us here," he said as soon as they'd ducked behind a wall with Epps.
"Where's Optimus?" Sam asked urgently.
Lennox pointed with his gun at the cloth concealing the Autobot leader. "He's right over there, across the courtyard."
"I have to get to him right now."
Lennox shook his head. "Not with an air strike coming."
Sam held up a small, grubby cloth bag which Lennox assumed contained the whatever-it-was that would bring Optimus back to life. Lennox couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed. It looked so unimpressive – how would that possibly revive Optimus? "I have to get to him right now."
"I hope those F-16's got good aim," Epps said out of the blue. Lennox looked at him suspiciously.
"Yeah? Why's that?"
"I told them to hit the orange smoke."
Lennox glanced to his right, where orange smoke was blossoming dangerously close to them. "You mean that orange smoke?"
"It wasn't my best toss, okay?"
"Incoming!" someone yelled.
Lennox fired several shots in rapid succession, then turned to the two teenagers. "You guys stick with me, you understand? You stay on my ass." They nodded. "Go!"
The quartet ran across the sandy battleground. Epps reached cover first, followed by Lennox and Mikaela. Sam was too slow.
"Die!" thundered Megatron as he leapt out from behind a pillar, blasting his gun at Sam. The teen flew up into the air and crashed into the ground. Even as he, Mikaela, and Epps rushed to Sam, Lennox knew the boy couldn't possibly have survived that. He'd seen enough battles to determine at first glance whether an injury was fatal or not. And his heart plummeted at the thought of such a young life being taken away so brutally.
And yet, miracle of miracles, when by all accounts he should be dead, Sam lived. Lennox had seen for himself the absence of a pulse, heard the whine of a flatline...but Sam was alive. And in his hand was a wavy silver object with a glowing blue center. Lennox knew without a doubt that that would bring Optimus back, as surely as it had brought Sam.
Lennox watched breathlessly as Sam climbed on top of Optimus' unmoving form and plunged the object into the Autobot's chest. He watched as the light returned to Optimus' optics, as his spark fused and reignited, as his body healed and returned to functioning levels. And hope rose in him as never before, even with the Decepticons raging war all around them, even with the Fallen preparing to blot out the sun forever.
That hope diminished when the Fallen appeared to snatch the Matrix away before it could completely restore Optimus to his full strength, and then grew again when former Decepticon Jetfire sacrificed himself to give Optimus his parts. And when Lennox saw Optimus Prime fly into the sky to contend the Fallen, he knew all would be well.
A/N: Many thanks to my reviewers Kaprikorn, chloexo, and FlowerCrazy. I'm really glad you guys are enjoying this collection of one-shots.
