The Diego Diaries: Home (Invasion) (dd4 21)
-0-Ops Center, Autobot City, Primal Colony of Mars
They sat together watching the monitors that still showed the point of view of all of the soldiers in Chicago. A shuttle was hovering along the shoreline of the harbor taking on the bodies and bits and pieces of the dead Insecticons. Sunstreaker was lugging the one on the shore toward the shuttle which lowered to allow him to slide the big mechanism inside.
Sideswipe along with Arcee bobbed to the surface of the water with more Insecticons. They pushed the bodies into the ship, then pulled themselves upward to board. Standing in the doorway dripping water, Sunstreaker helped the others move inside. The door closed as the ship began to rise into the sky. The humans watching, both civilian and official were silent as the vessel disappeared.
Beyond them many of the harbor's boats were lying about helter skelter as the aftermath of the fighting began to sink in.
It sucked.
-0-On the Thames River, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain
They swam down to the bottom and waited staring down stream through the dark water. Somewhere in the density beyond them were five Insecticons flying at speeds that could exceed two hundred miles per hour in this environment. They braced with their weapons in servo, their sensors linked and their resolve unyielding.
Then the bugs came.
-0-On a shuttle heading for Diego
They sat amidst the wreckage of five dead Insecticons. They were covered with grime and silt from their dunking. Sunstreaker's sour expression told it all as their vessel began to descend to the flight line of Diego Garcia. It descended, then hovered next to the spot on the tarmac where mechs with stretchers waited. When the ship settled the doors slid open allowing those on board to help off load the dead 'Cons.
The team shoved the bodies to the teams waiting on the tarmac, then jumped out after they were taken away to the Embassy. The remains would be transported through the bridge to Autobot City for analysis and burial. Sideswipe skated toward the Embassy with the others in tow. He was an impressive sight but had not been to the Embassy since his run in with a certain naval officer. Commander Fraser who had been transferred to another base in Europe following a disciplinary hearing which resulted in his demotion was nowhere to be found.
Frazer had not come out of the investigation into his behavior with a junior officer whole. It had resulted in a demotion and transfer to Italy. His victim was still on sabbatical in California, something that Sideswipe had made sure to monitor.
On the side.
Behind him came Arcee and Topspin, their wounds evident to all who saw them pass by. All of the team was injured, all of them limped. All of them looked grim and focused. All of them expected to go again at a moment's notice. They passed the groups of humans standing around without a glance as they entered the Embassy to get repaired.
"Look at the twins," a sailor asked as he lounged against the crate that Ironhide used as a seat when he was on base. "They were amazing in the football games. I have them all on tape."
His friend nodded, then glanced at Topspin and Arcee who followed the twins into the Embassy. "Who are they?" he asked.
"I don't know," the sailor said. "Just a couple of guys. Someone told me that the extra pictures on their arms or shoulders are unit designations. I heard that some of them are Elite Guard units or the Wreckers."
"Wreckers. Sounds so bad ass." The friend of the sailor looked around. "I wonder if Jolt and Blurr are still here."
"I haven't seen them," the sailor said. "Someone told me that they will be racing on Mars. I guess its their national sport."
"No doubt," the friend said as two others joined them. "I would love to see Blurr race."
"I heard that he breaks the sound barrier or more when he does," a newly arrived friend said.
"I would love to see that too," the sailor said as they stood waiting for Autobots to come and go. It would be busy afternoon for rubberneckers.
-0-In the muck of London
They saw them coming on sensors even if the thick brown river water made visuals difficult. They were coming fast so the Autobots would be met equally hard. Pushing off, heading with weapons toward the enemy bearing down, they came together silently as overhead a barge made its way toward the city upstream.
-0-Prime
He watched their viewpoint as the flashes and twists of the battle abstractly playing out before him on the big monitors. He could see the Autobrand before the swirling waters and flashing arms of the Insecticons covered them. He could see weapons in the boiling mass but who they belonged to was unknown. He turned to Ironhide. "Send a vessel with back up, Ironhide. I want them out of there immediately."
Ironhide nodded, then stood up walking to the rec room to send a team off to England. From lift off at the airfield and a short trip through a bridge, they would be there in minutes.
Prime sat back watching the swirl of figures in the cold liquid of an ancient English river. His practiced optic and analytical abilities made it reasonable to him to know how it was going. For the humans, it was more difficult.
-0-Morshower and Fulton
They sat in their safe house in New Jersey linked into the big picture through heavily encrypted laptops and phones to the Ops Center in Diego, the Pentagon center and Autobot City. The situation was in hand as the teams in all three places that included humans as well worked like clockwork to end the threat.
No one said a word. They listened to the commentary of the teams and those in support and watched the view point feeds of the soldiers in the field. It was enlightening even for the N.E.S.T. soldiers.
-0-In the bottom of a river
Hercy gripped his Insecticon who was rolling in the water trying to kill him with his piercing abdominal lesser arms. Hercy had magnetized his grip on the beast, a grip that put him over the bot's shoulder. The bug couldn't grip him because he was always behind his back.
Nearby in a boiling mess of swirling water Bluestreak and Tracks were attempting to subdue their own target. He was having none of it and was at the moment dragging them slowly along the bottom of the water as he reached back stabbing and attempting to grip anything he could. Bluestreak who had a gaping wound in his leg finally lost hold and fell away as Tracks tightened his grip around the bug's neck. With Bluestreak falling by the wayside, the bug had enough power and strength to rise upward and pierce the water. He rose into the air with Tracks gripping his neck. As they both did this, they exited upward nearly through the bottom of a boat that was passing at the time.
Three humans standing on the deck of a sailing yacht startled, then turned to see a shining mass of metal flying upward from what appeared to be the middle of their ship. Water cascaded down from the shape which was making ungodly noises bordering on fingernails on a steel chalkboard. They watched two writhing metallic 'things' rise up, then moved to turn their craft as the two came down again. They bounced off the teak decks of the sailing yacht before spilling over the side of it to splash with spectacular force into the water. They disappeared out of sight.
A man on board turned to the others as the yacht began to list to starboard. "GET ON THE RADIO! CALL FOR HELP! WE'RE SINKING!" he cried as he slid across the wet deck, then pitched over the side. He sunk from view as well.
-0-Down below
Bluestreak hit the bottom, then pushed up rising through the muddy waters to find someone or something to bash. As he did he nearly ran over a human who had inexplicably appeared in the middle of the very ferocious underwater fight. He grabbed the human, then continued upward breaching the surface in seconds.
The human in his servos gasped, then flailed as he tried to free himself from the grasp of something he couldn't even begin to understand. "HELP ME! MARION! CALL THE HARBOR PATROL! HELP!" he said, then he was jerked back underwater along with the demonic force that held him, pulled with power back into the dark swirling water.
Marion and the other man on his yacht stared at him over the railing of their damaged sinking boat. They screamed in horror, their cell phones forgotten in their shirt pockets.
-0-Underwater
Kup had his own private war going on as did Sandstorm. He didn't see Bluestreak fall away, nor did he see the youngster grab a stray floating human. Now that Bluestreak was back with the same human in servo gripped by an Insecticon himself, Kup was too busy with his TWO Insecticons to worry about a human in the middle of things.
Perhaps the human fell out of the sky. Who knew?
As Bluestreak sank to the bottom, then pushed up again, the human was nearly asphyxiated. He breached the surface after kicking the bug in the face, then turned on his back holding the human up from the river. Blue swam as best he could to the river bank nearby. Putting the human down, Blue watched anxiously as he staggered up, coughing, sputtering and soaked to the bone. "Are you alright?" Blue asked as he stood waist deep in the river with a throbbing leg wound seeping energon.
The human stared at Bluestreak incredulously, then nodded. "Yeah."
Blue looked relieved, then nodded himself. "Stay here." He turned, then dived again heading to the bottom where a war was being fought. The human watched him go, then sat down heavily. He watched his friends calling from his listing boat and considered what a mistake getting out of bed today was going to become.
-0-Down below
Bluestreak swam toward a dark mass of undulating body parts nearby, then paused to sort it out. Kup was in the middle of two Insecticons who were trying to stab him but succeeded only in stabbing themselves instead. He was moving very fast, faster than the two bots who were not slouches themselves.
When he saw his chance he took it. Subbing his handgun, he put it against an Insecticon's helm and pulled the trigger. A cloud of energon bloomed before him as the mech's helm came apart. He sank immediately freeing up Kup to handle one.
Nearby, Sandstorm was ripping the internals out of his own bot, enjoying it with more celebration than Optimus would be happy to see in his minions. Bluestreak at the moment wasn't that principled. That meant to his tally, four of them were dead with one more to go. Bluestreak looked around. He couldn't find that mech.
A voice sounded over his comm lines but it wasn't soon enough. A sharp piercing pain jabbed him so he turned with it. A bug was on him but not for long. The others almost as one jumped the Insecticon for his impertinence putting the behemoth out of their misery almost immediately.
A strong servo gripped his arm towing Bluestreak to the surface. They floated to the river side, then Hercy climbed out. He pulled Bluestreak out of the water helping the youngster to sit. He did.
Painfully.
-0-Ops Center, Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean, Earth
Overhead, above the water's edge a vessel appeared. Doors slid open as three big mechs appeared, then jumped into the cold water. They disappeared even as the rescued human watched in horrified amazement.
He wouldn't be the only one.
TBC May 10, 2014 edited 5-11-14