(Chapter —Ten Minutes in Dallas)

(Diego Garcia; Dallas, Texas—2015)

Elita threw herself into learning everything she could about Earth and their place in it. She didn't consider herself a diplomat, but that was what she quickly had to become, since it was natural for a junior Prime to serve as a diplomatic envoy. Once again, the United States was gripped by election fever, but with four years having passed since the Battle of Chicago and people being more used to them being around, the Autobots managed to stay out of this one.

That didn't mean Elita was able to avoid the Washington whirl. She was accepted more or less as a Princess or First Lady in exile, with all the romance and drama that surrounded such a person. She was surprised to find that, although the Americans had no royalty of their own, they were eager to adopt other people's.

Elita fit right in with the scouts, who were in need of an experienced leader. They became Black Team, and they began searching for the still-unaccounted-for Decepticons. With information from Nightrender, who was being held at Edwards, now able to be confirmed with Brakedown and Corona, they determined that there were still six on the loose.

Scalpel was considered the most threat to humans, an opinion that Sam fully endorsed after his experience with the minibot. He was small enough to be hiding anywhere, since it would be very easy for him to avoid energon detectors.

Stormracer was a seeker who had flown with Starscream in Chicago, but took off when her leader went down and hadn't been seen since. Given a seeker's need for the open sky, they felt sure that she was hiding in some foreign military's air force.

Deepstriker favored ocean-going alts. He probably had hit the water as soon as he landed in DC. He too had been a conscript and didn't have a history with the humans, so Optimus hoped to recruit him if they could find him.

Firefist was a former Kaon gladiator. He had tangled with Ironhide a number of times over the vorns. Quiet hadn't really been his old adversary's style. Ironhide wondered if the big mech hadn't taken a bad hit in the Mall skirmish and offlined somewhere. It was anyone's guess what else might have kept him out of sight for four years.

The other two were potentially the most frightening. Like the late and unlamented Alice, Masque and Mirror were pretenders, able to take human form. They could be hiding in plain sight anywhere. Finding them immediately became everyone's top priority as soon as Brakedown told them that they existed.

Elita spent a lot of time sifting through the Internet for leads to the missing 'Cons. All of them could use the Internet, but Elita's training dated from the early days of the war, when much of the fighting had been in cyberspace. Sifting through the massive amount of information was her specialty. Late one evening in May, she sat on the couch doing that while Optimus was reading a report on the construction of the Moonbase. The tunnels had turned out to be quite stable, but anything built inside them would be subject to damage from the quakes. As a result, they were building the base to "float" on large shock-absorbing springs, so the whole thing could move as a unit during a quake.

::Optimus, do you know a Maggie Madsen in Australia?::

::Yes, she's a computer specialist who worked with us for a while. Why, did you run across her?::

::She found one of my spiders, recognized our code, and checked to be sure it wasn't one of Soundwave's. She sends her love and gave me some leads to check out.::

::There are still Soundwave's spiders loose on the Internet? Wouldn't they have deactivated when he was offlined?::

::Not always. Independent spiders would continue to function very well as long as the computer they're based on is working. If they're backing themselves up to the cloud and restoring themselves, they could be around as long as the net is. His shadow wouldn't still be there…::

::Elita?::

::There were legends of old meisters who voluntarily left their frames and sparks to become ghosts on the web. I thought it was nonsense, just stories the old scouts liked to tell, preferably before your first night shift. Then they'd sneak back in and make weird noises and slam doors to scare the slag out of you. I mean, how could anybot live without a spark? But the humans do just fine without one, don't they?::

Optimus thought about that one for a whole klick. ::The operative word there is human.::

::An intelligence floating loose on the web couldn't really be said to be a Cybertronian anymore, could it?::

::If you slam a door at two o'clock tomorrow morning, my first thought won't be Soundwave's ghost,:: Optimus laughed.

::I never said it would.::

::Bee offlined Soundwave. I saw what was left of him myself. He was too busy conducting an execution to put himself on the Internet. At the very least you'd need a fast hardline connection, wouldn't you?::

::I don't know, Optimus, if I were glitched enough to think that was immortality—I'd already have done it. I'd have my ghost self ready and update my backup frequently. I'd just have a failsafe to broadcast an activation code when my spark went out. Then I'd move to a mainframe somewhere far away and shred every trace that could lead you to me.::

::And if you did meet such a ghost out there on the net?::

::I'd probably just think it was somebot's shadow. At least, I think that's what it would look like.::

::Could there be a danger of a ghost possessing you?::

::Optimus, that's what combat on the net is. After my team was killed, I cored the Decepticon scout and flew their ship into a star.::

::Jazz never told me.::

::We're assassins, love. Not many bots want to know what we do or how we do it. They want us to work in the shadows and keep the details to ourselves so they can recharge at night. But you're not like that so I don't know why he didn't say anything.::

::He was Jazz around us. But on the net, or out on his own, he was Meister. I suppose he didn't want his two lives to intersect.::

Elita said, ::Meister...you didn't get that nickname from other scouts unless you were the best of the best. I only knew one other and I was just an apprentice then.::

::He was risking his life every time he went one-on-one with a Decepticon scout. He never even hinted that there was a risk.::

Elita shifted on the couch to lean into his embrace. Aloud, she said, "I probably wouldn't have either, if you didn't share every risk I take. He was a scout, it's the way we were trained then. Why worry bots who can't help you? If we'd been a little less insular, we might have been more effective. But that's all ancient history now." For better or worse, they were all simply Autobots now. Scouts had once been almost a separate subculture, like seekers or miners were, identified more by specialized modifications and programming than by frame type. No longer, and in some ways that was just as well.

"What of this spider that Maggie found?"

"I'm not sure yet. I don't think it was one of Soundwave's. Dutch has one of those and this one is different. It probably belongs to one of the pretenders. Pretenders are scouts, but they usually aren't hackers. They don't have enough onboard memory to multitask enough protective programs if they run into opposition. Their skill set leans more towards physical infiltration. This one is probably using a computer."

"What are they searching for?"

"We're not sure yet. Maggie lost the trace somewhere in Russia. We're trying to pick it up again. I've got a call out to Dutch, but it's going to his voice mail."

"Wait a minute, Dutch has one of Soundwave's web spiders? What is he doing with it?"

"Studying it. It's just code unless you run it, but it's some really interesting code," she answered, distracted by whatever esoteric search routines she had combing through the Russian underworld. "Well. Our pretender has brass, I'll give her that. She's skimming from the Russian mafia. I lost the money trail at a Swiss bank, and I won't be picking it up again from there."

"You're admitting a human programmer has you locked out?" He teased.

"I'm admitting I'm locked out of a Swiss bank," she replied. "Whoever wrote this code is a fraggin' genius, no matter what race they are. Excuse me for a moment, Dutch just PMed me."

Optimus said, "I know when I'm crossing somebot's line of fire. I'll leave you alone, keep me informed."

"Yes, Prime."

It quickly got around Ops that the hackers were on the hunt. An hour passed, during which time they got clearance to network Maggie in.

Eventually it was Dutch who got lucky. He found set of stolen credit card numbers, one of which had been used to pay for a shipment of electronic parts which Ratchet confirmed a pretender could use to build a substitute for a damaged subsystem. "The shipment is out on a truck right now for delivery to an address in Dallas." He pulled up a map.

Will brought along a fire team in case someone had to run interference with humans. Mearing had been going to send Sam, but when Kaela went along as the medic she sent Carly to run field ops.

They loaded up the C-130. Carly gave Sam some last-minute instructions for some medicine that Danny was taking, then an airman ran up with a question about her gear. Her training took over and she was all business.

She and Kaela ended up next to each other, Russ had saved them seats so he could sit next to Kaela. That got them teased unmercifully by the rest of the team.

The plane was crowded, but this was the one Optimus usually used. Elita and the three relatively small scouts all together weighed less than he did. There still wasn't much room for anyone to move around and Elita didn't have room to transform at all. She had most of her attention back on Diego Garcia in mission planning. The rest of them got in some recharge time while they had the chance.

They planned a route from Dyess AFB in Abilene to Dallas that would allow them to avoid the network of energon detectors. That required them to take back roads much of the time. Elita had scanned a bus as a secondary alt, she used that to be able to transport the Nest troops without attracting attention.

Lennox played driver, so she wouldn't have to bother with generating a holoform. From talking to Ironhide he knew most bots hated using secondary alts. Bots with more than one primary alt, called double-changers, had once been relatively rare. Now the miners, who all had the same digger and ore carrier alts, apparently made up a majority of the survivors of their entire race. Secondary alts were different, a mostly cosmetic transformation of a primary alt. A secondary needed to be nearly the same size and shape as the primary, but its appearance could vary creatively. Scouts were known for their ability to use secondary alts to disguise themselves, usually they were scanned as needed then the large scan file would be deleted when it was no longer useful. Secondary alts required concentration to maintain, and so did holoforms.

The five-man fire team, Kaela and Carly were all asleep. No one expected to have too much trouble grabbing one or two pretenders, not if the one Kaela had killed at Sam's college had been any indication. Will just thought it would be a good idea to have some humans along in case the pretenders started screaming that they were innocent bystanders being kidnapped by giant robots from outer space. Texans would definitely come to their assistance if they did.

Later Will was to curse ever thinking there could be such a thing as a routine mission where Decepticons were concerned.

The address they were looking for was across the Trinity River from downtown Dallas. A cluster of small businesses stood in the shadow of one of the many bridges. Beyond that, construction equipment towered over a new, much larger bridge that was taking shape.

It was the office of a small privately owned moving company. Their truck was parked beside the small warehouse. All the bots could detect faint traces of energy.

Elita said, "They're almost certainly in there, and it's both of them because I'm picking up two separate traces. Will, how do you suggest we handle this? Are there any humans inside who might be endangered?"

"I don't think so. Why don't you guys surround the building, and we'll go in. They'll run, we'll chase them, you just grab them when they come out. No muss, no fuss, no property-damage paperwork for me to fill out."

That was as quickly done as said. But then things went south. Just as Will opened the door, one of two pretty girls in delivery uniforms screamed something in Cybertronian. The other one stomped a panic button and shutters came down, separating the office from the reception area. Everything was bathed in a strange blue energy field that seemed to pass through the walls as though they didn't exist.

Will ordered, "Breach that door!"

Russ had the shotgun, he blew a door open. They found the office empty and the back door open.

At that point, something about a block away made an almighty rumbling noise. They had all heard enough buildings collapse in Chicago to know what it sounded like. And Bee was outside the door nearly frozen.

Comms were down. Will figured out it was that same paralysis ray that Shimmer had been hit with in Chicago. He cursed. "Carly, stay here with the bots. The rest of you go find out what the hell that was. Those two can't have got far."

In fact, they hadn't. He found them a block away trying to hot-wire a car. When they saw him pointing a rifle at them, they obeyed orders to get on the ground, crying hysterically and begging him not to shoot them. He cuffed them and marched them back to the others.

Carly had a look around the office and found the paralysis device. She figured out how to reverse it, then took it with her and ran outside to check on Black Team. They started to shake off the effects as Will marched his captives up the alley.

Russ led the NEST fire team to the bridge. At first, all they could see was a collapsed section, some cars whose drivers had abandoned them to run away, and a crashed school bus. Russ sent Kaela to check on the school bus and see if anyone needed medical care.

He and the others approached the edge to try to find out what had happened. Then they heard the unmistakeable sound of transformation. Kaela had her back turned so nobody ever knew exactly what happened next. She heard shooting and the explosion of a heavy shell.

By the time she got out of the bus, Russ and his team were lying scattered like broken dolls. The only movement was Firefist, who was heading toward the bus.

Mikaela watched Firefist's slow but inexorable advance on the school bus. He was a giant, thirty-five feet tall and massive. She guessed his alt form might be a construction crane or something like that.

She took two steps towards Russ' body, then a third, and bent to pick up his rifle. She switched it to single fire and raised it to her shoulder. One after another, she squeezed off explosive rounds, pausing to steady her aim after every trigger pull. Each one slammed into the giant 'Con's battle mask. Each one brought him closer. Each ponderous step shook the ruined bridge. Each shot loosened the armor plate. Firefist laughed at her and pantomimed crushing her in his fist. Mikaela never faltered. The magazine ran dry. She ejected it, found another and slammed it home. One shot more. Two. The battle mask went flying. Another shot, dead on target. The huge mech collapsed virtually at her feet, paralyzed, but still alive, several stranded cars crushed under his massive bulk. Ice water ran through her veins as she deliberately climbed his arm, walked out onto his chest plates, and emptied the magazine into his spark chamber.

She jumped six feet to the rubble-strewn off-ramp, heedless of the shock of pain up her legs, and threw the rifle down.

She walked back to Russ' side, and that was where Black Team found her when they got up there.

Elita motioned her team to see to the wrecked school bus. They did what they could to tend the children until more human authorities could arrive to reclaim their own. Elita knew there were no words, she just knelt and sheltered Mikaela with one gentle hand and kept vigil with her under the blazing Texas sun. She reported the whole thing to Optimus, no evasions, no excuses, damning herself for the loss of five good men.

::Elita, you could not have known. Find out if those two glitches knew Firefist was there.::

::Yes, Prime.::

Elita left Kaela to Carly, then turned on Will's prisoners. "I am Elita Prime. You will tell me everything you know of this. NOW!"

Both of them dropped to their knees, shackled hands on the pavement in front of them. "Masque, and my sister Mirror, Prime. We were just minding our own business when that man opened the door and I smelled energon. We knew there were a lot of you and we just ran."

"What was that you hit us with?"

"We stole it from Nightrender during all the confusion on the Washington Mall. It's harmless, I swear, we got caught in it several times ourselves while we were were figuring out how to counteract it. The energon cell only lasts a few minutes, then it would have just worn off on its own."

She indicated the fallen giant Decepticon. "How did he fit into this?"

Mirror stared at Firefist's corpse. "We don't know!"

Masque screamed when Elita took a step towards them. "I swear to Primus, we don't know where he came from! We haven't seen him since the space bridge. We saw our chance in all the confusion on the Washington Mall, and we just ran. Sweet holy Well, you have to believe me, we haven't had anything to do with the any of the Decepticons since!"

Will took a deliberate step between the two pretenders and Elita. "They're my prisoners, Prime. Please. Stand down." He spoke quietly, but there was steel in his tone.

Elita bowed her head in respect for that kind of courage and honor. "If they're telling the truth, they have nothing to fear."

The National Guard flooded the bridge, securing the scene, getting the passengers off the bus. The driver was beyond anyone's help. The kids surrounded Kaela, crying and thanking her for saving their lives. She hugged as many of them as she could, then watched in stunned shock as the Guard led them away.

They stood vigil over the dead until ambulances came to take them away. Only then did Mikaela break down in Carly's arms.

They were directed to a National Guard armory, where they could regroup and get Mikaela looked over by a medic. Bee took Kaela and Carly. Will climbed onto Elita's primary alt for the drive to the armory. Shimmer took the prisoners.

Elita told him, "Dutch got into the surveillance cams. It appears that the pretenders were telling the truth. Firefist was a construction crane working on that bridge. When the pulse went off, he panicked, transformed and ran. Someone in one of those cars posted cell phone video on You Tube of him running across the bridge. It looks as though that section collapsed under his weight."

Will said, "If that's how it went down, this was nobody's fault but Firefist's, Elita."

"I would not have done anything to those pretenders, Will."

"Bad situation, Prime. In the Gulf…let's just say bad situations can get a whole lot worse. An officer I respected a lot went to prison for shooting a prisoner. I wasn't there when it happened. I'm sorry for thinking you might have done anything like that."

"I was angry. Angry people do foolish things. You were perfectly right to remind me of my duty."

They pulled into the armory an the gates closed behind them.

The medic checked Kaela out, and after a while came out. "Excuse me, Colonel, ma'am. Who exactly is Banes' commanding officer?"

"I am, at present," Elita said. Mikaela was Med Team but she had been seconded to Black Team as a field medic.

"Could I speak to you for a moment, ma'am?"

"Of course." They moved off to the side. "What is it, was Mikaela injured?"

"No, ma'am, it's nothing like that. But I did give her something to make her relax. Procedure is, before we give anything to a female, we run a pregnancy test, and, well, she's expecting. I don't know if she even knows yet, but I figured if she did she wouldn't be out here in the first place."

"You're probably right."

"What I gave her is safe. She'll sleep for a few hours, and then you can take her home."

*-T-F-Rising*

Nothing was that simple. Mikaela took Russ home to his beloved North Carolina mountains, where he was laid to rest beside his father. She barely heard the old Baptist preacher's sermon in the overly air-conditioned funeral home. A man from the church sang Go Rest High on That Mountain. At the cemetery, Will placed the flag in his mother's arms. An honor guard from the VFW fired the salute. The gunshots, and the Taps played by a young ROTC bugler, echoed from the mountains. Later they gathered at a farmhouse up a hollow for the funeral supper. Afterward, while the young people gathered around Shimmer, the adults talked on the porch. Kaela tried to fix all their names and faces in her mind. These people were forever her kin now, bound by blood through the child she carried.

The matriarch of the family hugged Kaela. "You always have a home here now, girl. You and my grandbaby come home anytime."

"I'll try to come for a visit the Christmas after the baby's born," she promised. "Will talked so much about home, he told me about so many places that he wanted to show me. I want to take his baby to all those places."

One of Russ' sisters hung a flag with a gold star on it on the porch. A dog sniffed Will's hand and whined for attention. He obliged until a young boy called the dog.

They would have stayed in a motel, but Russ' family wouldn't hear of it. Will insisted he would be fine on the couch. Russ' sister gave her her bed and made herself at home on an air mattress on the floor. Flustered, Mrs. Michaels was embarrassed to have to offer Shimmer her choice between the carport and a large barn.

Shimmer listened to the wind in the trees. "I think I'll stay here in the carport, if that's OK. It's so quiet and beautiful here."

Russ' mother indicated a faded old kitchen chair beside the back porch step. "Right there is my favorite place in the whole world. When he was a little boy I can remember lots of times Russ played right here while I sat in that chair, crocheting or shelling beans or something. I'd set there and read his letters after he joined up. He loved his job, and he loved that girl in there."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Were you there when my boy died? Did he suffer?"

"No, ma'am, I wasn't there when it happened, but I was there right after. It all happened so fast, I don't think anybody even knows who shot first. He didn't suffer."

"Did you get the bastard who killed my son?"

"Kaela did. She shot him with Russ' rifle."

"Good. He can rest in peace then."

"Yes, ma,am."

"Do you need anything?"

"No, thanks. I'm fine."

"That's my bedroom right there. Just wake me up if you want anything."

Kaela and Russ' sister Amanda ended up crying themselves to sleep holding each other. Will sat up long into the night with the Michaels men. By the time the whiskey was gone, they'd heard enough stories of Russ' years with NEST to know they had a right to be proud of the hero their grandson, their brother, their cousin had been.

There were two other funerals before they went home, the last two had considered Diego Garcia home and left directions to have their ashes returned there.

The last ceremony was on the beach at sunset. A Navy chaplain consigned their ashes to the deep. Once again the rifles echoed, and Taps sounded for the American soldier, then a piper played The Flowers of the Forest for his SAS teammate.

Kaela went to Medbay for lack of anywhere else to go. Ratchet knelt beside her and held her, surrounded by his gentle servo. "Kaela, I am so sorry. There are no words."

"He never even got to say goodbye. I was in the bus taking care of those kids and...he was just gone, that fast."

Ratchet said, "It was their time."

"There was nothing I could do."

"You survived, Kaela. You avenged him. You protected his child. I know it doesn't seem like much right now, but that wasn't nothing."

Kaela said, "I don't know what I'd do without you, Ratchet."

"You're my apprentice. To us that's the same as a daughter. That baby will be my grandchild."

Kaela found herself surrounded by the NEST families. Everyone watched her to make sure she ate right and got enough rest. In due time, the wives threw her a baby shower. Carly brought down Danny's bassinet and things that he had outgrown. Christmas passed and there was a luau on New Year's Day, 2016. Kaela found herself sitting between Shimmer and Carly, sipping a virgin piña colada and laughing at the little twins trying to do the hula. It felt funny to be laughing, but she knew Russ would have been laughing his ass off. She felt the baby kick, and laughed and cried at the same time.

On February 5th, Russell Ryan Michaels-Banes was born. The two Russes might never have met, but the newest clansman had a large family around to assure him he would always know who his father had been.

(A.N.: I wrote a lot of this chapter on September 11, 2011. I couldn't believe it worked out to be this of all chapters. To all our military, all our first responders, everyone who serves or has served, thank you from the bottom of my heart. To those who have left us, we will never forget.

The next chapter will be up in a few days. I'm getting slammed by real life right now, and ran out of finished chapters to post. /A.N.)