It almost sounded like a lie. Although none had spoken it aloud, the death of Optimus had shattered any frail illusion of safety. The Decepticons wouldn't allow them to live.
The knife's edge of indecision, again. Direct combat would only obliterate them faster, and leave the humans unprotected. As much as an afterthought the well-being of the humans should be, Ironhide also knew that his war had been foisted on their entire species without involvement or choice.
Starscream's rogue attack was only the trickling start of the dam breaking. Now, it was fracturing. Ironhide knew, with no unflinching certainty, that the ending was coming. He just prayed to Primus it would be a better one than the bleak one that tormented him now. There was little point in him lingering in the empty Hangar, now. All that remained of value here was Optimus's broken vessel.
He deserved so much more than the indignity of being sealed away on that barren slab in a human building. Ironhide ruefully stared at the doors to Optimus' resting place, and shook his head. Later, later, when the hell had stopped, and the threat was slack enough, he's see his friend's dignity restored.
Until then, his remains were as safe as they could be. The walls were thick enough to withstand an attack. Moving him now would require extensive Autobot and human cordination. Ironhide also knew that the sight of a convoy hoisting the massive Autobot into the air would be hard to miss by their enemies.
It was yet another cruelty foisted upon his uncertain shoulders. But, keeping vigil over a corpse was pointless. And, if Optimus were to be brought back,it would be best if his body remained intact as much as possible.
Ironhide stared at the vacant walls again, still unwilling to leave. He mentally reviewed all that he had done in the last few hours, looking for any uncompleted task.
The surviving Autobots were all located, and in hiding. A few were close enough to the Hangar to warn of any Decepticon movement. Lennox, Sam and Michaela were now at the military compound, and on high alert. Bumblebee was staying with them.
Ironhide took a few moments to scan the last traces of all he had cobbled together. The location of the Tomb of the Primes, the grain of sand, the maps, everything.
And, after a moment of hesitation, he accessed the code that opened Optimus' tomb.
The shimmering metal walls unfurled like wings again, the tracklights on the soaring ceiling hummed to life, and washed the whole place with blinding brilliance.
Taking a steadying breath, Ironhide forced himself forward.
The harsh glare of the overhead lights served no purpose to to show the fatal wounds in all their brutality.
The gaping hole in his torso. The crushed helm, and the wilted eye socket. The mandible still twisted in agony, the limbs still contorted in the death thoes.
The old stench of burnt energon that still filled this place.
It was still just as sickening now as it was when they had first lay him to rest, if this was what it was called. Perhaps the one mercy in all of this was that the corpses of Transformers, having no organic matter, or flesh, did not decay. Their honored dead, unlike the humans, did not join the dust of the earth. Ironhide had been curious about the human's almost callous haste in burying their dead at one time.
Ironhide had questioned Lennox about the macabre practice of rushing through the disposal of the corpse after a lavish ceremony. Grief took a lifetime to recover from, surely the humans were aware of this?
Lennox raised his arm, and tapped a finger over the crook. "Ironhide, we're meat, not machines. You know that meat rots, right? So do we."
Ironhide stared at him in barely disguised horror. "You...decay?"
Lennox just hitched his shoulders in answer. "Our bodies do, yeah. The meat part. The rest...I don't think that it just stays in the ground."
Ironhide smiled softly at that. "I agree with you, Captain."
The conversation had given him an odd bit of solace, as he stared down at Optimus's remains. Perhaps it was only his intellect's intent to make it bearable-labeling what lay before him as the body, and not his friend. But, the strange sense of detachment was enough as he gently picked up the clenched, coiled fingers and held them between his own.
He did not drop the hand in shock of how cold it had become.
"Old friend, I don't know if you can hear me now. I've tried to keep our loved ones safe. So far, we've lost none, and I have a feeling that we have you to thank for that. I only hope that when we each leave this world, our exits are far more kind than yours. May you rest, Optimus, until all are one. Farewell for now, and forgive me."
He lay the hand back down at Optimus's side, and rose, feeling at peace for the first time what seemed so very long.
The peace was shattered with the whining hiss that rippled through the air, and then the roaring clang as something huge slammed into the roof of the Hangar.
Ironhide felt the building tremble from its depths at the force of the hit, and froze when he heard the heavy, dull thuds of footsteps on the Hangar's roof.
His sensors flared in warning, as he stood, stunned and rigid. There was another blow that rippled through the very concrete. Ironhide hastily scanned the area, and shut the mechanism off before it could alert any Transformer to his presence.
Ironhide knew it was a horrible risk to take, as he accessed the information storage on their collective archives. With a bitter snarl, he punched in the deleting sequence that would obliterate all traces of his scans, the Primes, anything that could be used to identify the frail plan. It took only a second, maybe less, for the archives to be offlined and erased completely.
Ironhide heard another horrific thud on the roof, and he froze, breath hitching. Shuddering, he accessed the final code for the massive shutdown sequence. He shut his optics as he keyed in the final order. The doors of the glittering room slid shut silently, as he forced himself to glide backwards into the massive room that housed his friend's corpse. It took only a few more seconds for the dull hum of machinery to abruptly halt into silence.
The doors slid shut with finality, the sliver of light was severed as the shutdown was completed. And, then, the lights themselves went out, leaving Ironhide sealed in the tomb of Optimus.
The Hangar Doors,for a while, were able to withstand the barrage of missle fire, of being shot at with cannon blasts, showered with fire and blows.
Ironhide flinched with each clang, each shout, each cackle as Megatron pummeled a fist against it. Apparently, Starscream had informed of them of the Hangar's location, and Ironhide had been horrifically wrong.
Primus forgive him for the mistake, even if he died rectifying it.
The rattling continued, and the groan of yielding metal was growing louder and louder, as the Decepticons kept hurling their weapons at the Hangar's entrance.
At least the rest of the Autobots were safe. Ironhide, in the fleeting time he had, had also deleted anything that the Decepticons could possibly use to glean information about the Matrix, or the Primes.
He had also severed any chance of the Decepticons tracking down the rest of the Autobots, even when it meant trapping himself in his own tomb, now. He could not call for help.
And with searing certainty, he knew that he would not, even if he had the choice.
Ironhide quickly entered the shutdown code into the little glowing panel, and shuddered inwardly when the entire place was swallowed in darkness.
His optics automatically adjusted to the heavy abyss. Maybe the walls and his own cloaking device were enough to keep from being detected, if they did actually break into the Hangar.
His own words came back to him like a haunted ghost.
Dead Transformers gave off the stench of decaying Energon. It had been his reason for sparing Starscream. Now, he stood in the darkness, with a battered corpse that practically reeked of it.
There was the thundering crack of an explosion that sheered the air. The enormous Hangar doors, completely severed by the blast, rickocheted through the Hangar and collided with the walls. Ironhide silently unrolled his cannons, and crouched into the far corner. The Decepticons had breached the Hangar.