Chapter 1

"We're in position."

The NEST human strikeforce team, led by Colonel William Lennox, approached the derelict factory tentatively, guns raised. Collectively, they took a knee outside the entrance as they waited for base to acknowledge. Almost a minute later, the command came through.

"Proceed with caution."

Lennox signaled for the right flank to advance through the dilapidated garage door while the left flank went around the side, taking the longer way. Both flanks joined Lennox, who advanced solo, in the middle of the structure. They found themselves in a large room, mostly empty save for random furniture scattered throughout and chains hanging from the ceiling. What was left of the factory gave no clear indication as to what it once was.

"Sir, straight ahead."

Lennox glanced to his right as his SIC, Johnson, raised a handheld device for him to view the screen, which indicated energon was being detected approximately a few feet in front of them. Turning his head back to the room, Lennox scanned it before shaking his head. There was no place for a Decepticon, big or small, to hide. The energon detectors placed on the nearby streets indicated a faint moving presence that came to a stop at the building, but there was nothing to see here.

"Double check the scanner, Johnson," he said.

"I did, sir," Johnson replied. "It's not faulty."

"But there's nothing here-"

"Sir!" another soldier called out.

Lennox turned to face him, adjusting his grip on the trigger of his rifle.

The man – boy, really – stood a few feet ahead of Lennox in the clearing. Lennox didn't recall giving the kid the order to advance, but that was the problem of letting younger soldiers into NEST, which Lennox was against. He vouched for older soldiers more experienced in the field, especially considering their formidable adversaries, but one could only join NEST if they volunteered and have met the prerequisite of one year in combat. The truth was, NEST struggled to find anyone willing to join its ranks, despite their meager prerequisites and generous sign-on package, since the government ruled against drafting soldiers into NEST, citing its high mortality rate and considering the dangers they face on the field.

The boy – he was called Rodriguez, Lennox remembered – bent down and picked up an object off the floor. It was rounded, the size of a softball, and had a long, thin metal tube emerging from one end. Lennox moved closer to investigate.

"It's an optic."

The voice of Ratchet filled his ear. Lennox, along with all other soldiers in the taskforce, wore cameras on their person. It was standard procedure for missions such as this, when the risk was considered low and only the human team was sent. Lennox knew Ratchet, along with a few of the other bots, patched into his feed that was televised to his superiors back on base. Ratchet, Optimus and Ironhide always patched through to the human team, whereas the other bots only did so sporadically, usually when they were bored and itching for some action.

The energon reader's beeps increased in frequency as Johnson approached and pointed it toward the optic, confirming what they all now knew: the optic was the source of the energon reading. But there was no body.

The optic was planted.

This was a set up.

"Fall back!" Lennox yelled.

As soon as he gave the order, a large metal arm shot through the floor, gripping on to the ground as its owner hoisted itself up. A Decepticon between 15-20 feet tall emerged, growling, its one eye narrowed toward the humans, its socket still leaking fluids from where the optic was forcibly removed.

"Open fire!"

A rain of high caliber bullets emptied from chambers and into the metal behemoth as it roared in fury, launching its surroundings at the humans who frantically tried to dodge. The humans took cover and continued firing upon the beast, who transformed his hands into blades and began wildly flailing in an attempt to land a blow on the smaller beings.

A bit odd, Lennox thought as he scrambled to dodge a projectile, that he wasn't being shot at.

Through his sights Lennox took in more of the beast, noting its injuries, which seemed rather severe. It looked like it had been shot a while ago in the torso as dried energon was visible on its outer shell. It probably took part in the battle of Chicago almost a year ago. By the looks of it, it looked like it lost a lot of energon, which was probably why it wasn't using its cannons. Maybe it had come here to die, he thought.

Or maybe to go out in a blaze of glory.

The Decepticon transformed his right arm back into a hand and reached up, yanking on one of the chains from the ceiling, causing it to collapse. Jacobs and Lawrence – those were their names, thought Lennox, remember their names, remember them all – screamed as they were caught under the weight of the ceiling, disappearing underneath.

"Fall back!" he cried out again.

His troops obeyed and sprinted to the back of the room, furthest away from the beast. Lennox laid down cover fire as they did so, gaining the Decepticon's attention. With narrowed optics it focused on Lennox, rearing back its left arm to strike down and cleave the human in two.

Just then, in the corner of his eye, Lennox caught movement. Something was on the roof, visible through the part that was brought down on his teammates. Visibly humanoid, it took up a crouched position and aimed the barrel of a long gun at the beast.

The Decepticon cried out as a bullet soared through the sensitive cables on its neck, cutting an energon line. Still roaring, it turned to face its new adversary, who took the opportunity to shoot it its other eye, blinding it.

Lennox drew his gun away so he could get a better look at the individual on the roof, who stood to give him a better look.

"No way," he breathed.

"She's here," breathed one of his superiors through his earpiece.

With the Decepticon officially distracted as it scratched its eyes, roaring in Cybertronian, Lennox turned back to his troops. Two were being held up by their teammates and he could see a piece of metal sticking out of one of Johnson's legs. "Fall back to the perimeter!" he ordered his men, seeing that they weren't in fighting shape. "I need Sideswipe!"

On each of these human-only missions, an Autobot remained on the perimeter, far enough away to not interfere with the energon detectors but close enough to provide an assist, if needed.

"Coming your way!" he heard Sideswipe say through the comms.

Lennox raised his gun to once again face the Decepticon and was surprised when he encountered the woman instead. With her gun in her right hand, hanging down toward the ground, and the Decepticon still thrashing in the background, she raised her left hand and pointed to the retreating soldiers.

"Leave with your men," she said, her voice slightly muffled through the helmet that she wore.

She was known by many names to NEST. "Lady in Black", "Mystery Woman", "Bandit". There were sightings of her, both in-person and over CCTV footage, at 5 of the last 12 Decepticons NEST has encountered through their energon-detection program. It wasn't clear why she was there or how she knew where to go, or even what she was there for, but she was marked as a person of interest to NEST. If spotted, she was to be taken in for questioning. She wasn't known to carry any sort of weapon that was visible on her person, at least, but if she were to become violent to the taskforces she was to immediately be eliminated.

Now she stood before Lennox, long rifle in hand and a leaking Decepticon behind her. She wore her usual all-black ensemble, from her boots to her helmet which looked like a smaller motorcycle helmet with the shades down. The first encounter NEST has had with her in which she spoke to them, and she had the gall to issue an order.

Lennox tightened his grip on his weapon, rising from his crouched position and aiming at her chest. "Drop the weapon."

She cocked her head to the side as she watched him, studying him as he with her. "Lennox," she said.

"How do you know-"

Lennox was interrupted by the sound of a screech and something whistling through the air. The Decepticon hurled what looked like a wooden object toward the two humans. Lennox barely had time to dodge before it struck the ground in front of him, exploding on impact. A larger section hit his torso and sent him bodily through the air before he hit the wall behind him.

Two gunshots rang out and Lennox recovered in time to see the woman firing at the Decepticon's right knee joint. It screamed in pain before the joint collapsed under its weight and it fell to the floor. The woman turned her head to look back at him. How she didn't get hit Lennox didn't know, but as he moved to rise a pain in his stomach made him stop abruptly, hissing. Looking down he saw a jagged piece of the projectile sticking out of him. Grunting, he gripped it and yanked it out.

The woman was in front of him in an instant, crouching down. Quickly, he grabbed his knife and thrust it to her, not knowing her intentions and not appreciating her proximity while he was injured. In a smooth move she disarmed him and the knife skidded away from them.

"Dammit, Lennox!" she shouted.

She reached up, her gun discarded on the floor beside them both and removed her helmet. Despite this raid taking place at night, enough moonlight shined through to illuminate her features. Hazel eyes glared at him under thick, dark brows. Wavy brown hair crowned her face, short enough that it stopped at her cheekbones.

It may have been dark, but Lennox knew that face from somewhere.

"Cassie?" he asked.

Cassandra Witwicky, twin to Sam Witwicky, who dropped off the face of the Earth a little over 4 years ago, when their parents died at the battle of Egypt sat on one knee before him, surveying his injury.

"You're hurt," she said, jaw clenched.

Lennox was suddenly aware of the amount of blood on his fingers he was attempting to hold back and pressed into his wound harder.

"Twenty seconds out," Sideswipe reported.

"What are you doing here?" Lennox asked.

Cassie's eyes shot up from his wound to meet his own and for a long moment, they just stared at each other. Suddenly, she placed her helmet back on her head and stood, offering him a hand up. Begrudgingly, he took it and came to rest on his feet. "You need to leave," she told him. "I'll finish this."

She picked up her gun and raced back toward the Decepticon, out of his line of sight. He heard a few more gunshots and the sounds of a struggle as he attempted to limp around a storage container, desperate to help his old friend, when the sound of splintering bricks to his left made him pause and brace himself.

Sideswipe drove through the brick wall and transformed midair. Once transformed, he quickly glanced down at Lennox to his right then jutted his head back up to the Decepticon on the ground a ways in front of him. With his cannons out, he wheeled himself over to the prone form and studied it. He kicked its head. "He's down," he declared. "Target eliminated."

"Where is she?" Lennox called out. He made his way to stand by Sideswipe and looked around. "Where did she go?"

"Who?" Sideswipe asked, performing his own scan of the surroundings.

"Cassie."

"Cassie was here?" Sideswipe asked, his eyebrows raised. He looked around again. "I'm not picking up anything."

"She was here," Lennox argued. "She was right here."

"I'll look around," Sideswipe declared, giving the dead Decepticon one last look before wheeling out the hole he created in the wall to circle the building.

"She was right here," Lennox whispered, mainly to himself. He drew back his bloodied hand to take a quick look at his wound before replacing it and looking around the factory again.

But he couldn't see her. A report from Sideswipe indicated the same.

She was gone again.