Combustion
Ok, I beg your apology for not posting for the last day and a half, but I've been sick as a dog. I think it's Karma coming to get me…
See, on Sunday night a bunch of us said "let's go see the new Harry Potter movie." Off we went even though I'd been planning to spend the evening writing. Anyway I was fine at the cinemas, fine for the first half of the movie, and then BANG! By the end I was sweating, shivering, dizzy… It's Karma's revenge for being weak willed and giving in to the Harry Potter craze :P
Anyway… I'm on a PC without internet access at the moment (yeah I know – what's THAT about!) so I can't access email or read any of the reviews so I don't know who to thank... I have a lousy memory! I suppose I could type this intro up once I have access, but then I'd have to wait to load it :)
I'm sure Dania has provided a great review as always :) as Morgan would have also. Thanks guys! (if you're reading this and you're not them – they're both girls ;) I just call everyone guys lol)
Anyway – I'm glad people liked the addition of Starscream and how I brought him in. I was a little dubious about the action scene as I wasn't sure I could do action that well (and I'm still not) but thanks for your positive opinions :)
Chapter 9
"Ms Madsen is here to see you again sir." The voice overrode the gentle scratching of a pen in the office, the final chimes of the clock on the wall announcing that it was a little after 1am in the morning. The occupant of the office had not left since the first meeting a little over three hours ago and consequently, dark rings now outlined the slightly drooped eyes, and small crescent dimples were apparent where the glasses rested on his nose. Both symptoms contrasted with the brilliantly lit, white walled interior of the room.
"Please show her in." He took off the glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose and his eyes before sliding them back on, standing up and shrugging into his coat again. The fluorescent office lights flashed off the white door as it opened, then off the blonde hair atop the person who entered.
"Maggie. I wish I could say it was good to see you again, but I assume you have bad news." The woman looked as poorly as the man, though a little blearier eyed, but both had a slight spring still in their step as they sank to the couch.
"I do, but you're not going to want to hear it." A small humourless smile crossed the man's face as he joined her on the couch, loosening his tie marginally.
"What else would be new?" He appeared to take in her dishevelled state and fatigue, before his eyes fell to a new yellow envelope clutched in her hands.
"Give it to me gently; it's been a rough night." The bulk of the seriousness left her expression and she let out a light laugh, passing over the package before indicating with a gesture if she could remove the substantial heels she was wearing. He nodded as the seal of the envelope tore, and her groan filled the office as the shoes were carefully slid under the coffee table.
"Did you manage to track them?" From the first picture in the bundle not a lot could be made out. It showed a fairly standard suburban landscape, darkened by night, but made viewable with infra-red, the picture painted with unusual bright and dark spots caused by cars, people and machinery.
"Unfortunately not." He looked over at her across the top of his glasses.
"You couldn't track a single car?" She shook her head while leaning back into the plush material.
"Knowing its size, weight, colour, passenger and point of origin… You still couldn't track it?" She smirked a little and the man relaxed, a slight twinkle appearing in his eyes.
"Ok. What happened?" She leant forwards and slid across the couch a little, pointing to the image on the front of the document.
"This is the last image our satellites caught." She met his puzzled gaze, flicking to the next page. It was blank except for a small string of numbers, followed underneath by the words 'Telemetry Lost'. The following page was the same, as was the one afterwards. She grabbed the corner and flicked it, skimming through the stack like a child's flip book, revealing nothing but white paper.
"All of them sir. Not just the one satellite, all of them. They all severed communication and stopped transmitting at exactly the same minute, down to the one hundredths of a second." The man sat silently for a moment.
"Then Section 7 managed to cover their tracks." She grabbed the stack of papers and turned back to the first image.
"Yes sir. But that doesn't mean they got what they want. We've been pouring over this one image for almost three hours trying to get everything we can from it." She pointed to a string of bright dots.
"Those are what we believe are the Section 7 operatives. They're all identical make and model of a Ford SUV." Ahead of them was another dot, this one slightly brighter.
"And that, we believe, is the Autobot Bumblebee and Sam Witwicky." The road ran straight towards the edge of the page, where it crossed a large gorge by way of suspension bridge and then left the paper's edge.
"So we have nothing else but this picture to go on? And you managed to come up with something?" The man's eyebrows were lifted towards his hairline and he dropped the pages to the coffee table and removed his glasses, holding them dangling from his right hand as it draped over the sofa's armrest.
"No sir. We got nothing from it except a direction, which may or may not have simply been an escape route of convenience. It did, however, give us a little more when we received a report from the field agents we dispatched, stating that the Joseph B. Strauss suspension bridge had been unceremoniously blown up." This time the man's greying eyebrows drew down, shading his eyes in a glower.
"Are you saying Section 7 blew up the bridge, the car and the boy?" She wiggled closer again, as though shrinking the distance between them would make it more discreet than the empty office.
"That was our first thought, but no, they didn't." She pulled a second envelope from inside her jacket and handed it over.
"These are the images captured by the field investigators before the local police arrived. It took them about forty five minutes to get down into the canyon, and then the same back up. We got them about an hour and a half ago." He glanced at the images of flaming wreckage and mangled steel.
"What am I seeing?" She leant away, crossing her legs as she poured a glass of water from the pitcher resting on the end table.
"What you're seeing is the wreckage of somewhere between six and twelve black Ford Escape light four wheel drives." The woman took a sip of water.
"Oh, and of course several sections of the bridge." She was watching him, evidently waiting for his reaction. His expression didn't disappoint.
"Are you saying that the autobot and the Witwicky boy somehow blew up the bridge and killed the men in those trucks?" Disbelief was almost tangible in his voice.
"No sir. Actually I'm not." Puzzlement replaced disbelief.
"The other autobots? That slightly crazy one… what was his name? Ironhide?" Her only response was a shake of the head and the man fell silent for a brief minute.
"Starscream?" She gulped the last of the water and placed the glass carefully on the table, running the tip of a finger lightly around the rim.
"Yes sir." The man's facial expression returned to an expression just as incredulous as it had been previously.
"I thought they were at war. Why would this Decepticon decide to help the two of them out? Are you suggesting that the two sides have reconciled and formed an alliance?" The blonde hair lifted slightly as padded shoulders raised in a shrug.
"I can't comment on that sir, all I know is what the facts and the data tell me." The photos were slid back into the envelope which was dropped on the table along with the man's glasses.
"Convince me." Her eyes lit up at the challenge and she leant forward again.
"There are three things sir. One, we know a signal was sent from his location only minutes before Starscream returned, and that this was the decepticon's destination. Two, analysis of the debris shows that the impact to the bridge occurred from an elevation of approximately fifty meters." She stopped and gave him an apologetic look.
"Sorry, about a hundred and sixty five feet." He nodded and gestured for her to continue.
"Three, we know that the signal was sent before anyone was aware Section 7 was after them. He was already there when Section 7 arrived. This wasn't a last minute escape attempt or a deal to save their lives." Although it was wavering the expression on his face still looked unconvinced.
"That's all very good Maggie, but it doesn't prove they're cooperating. For all we know he could have blown them up straight after Section 7, or may have just been passing through." The smile that crossed her face looked suspiciously like a cartoon cat, eating a canary.
"Perhaps sir. But there're two other things as well. The first is that approximately twenty minutes ago, just as our satellite system was coming back up, the USS Kitty Hawk, which is on exercises with the Australian and New Zealand navies near Micronesia, reported an F-22 flying overhead without escort." The man raised a hand and scrubbed at his eyes, evidently beginning to tire of the word play.
"Well that proves very little except that if they fought, Starscream won." The smile hadn't left her face at his signs of tiredness.
"What does prove more than just a fight is that the fleet admiral almost didn't bother reporting it, because attached to the underside of the jet was a yellow late model sports car." That evidently perked the man's interest as he sat up with new energy.
"In fact, he didn't report it initially, chalking it up to a prank or a faulty visual ID. He only sent through his transmission because about fifteen minutes later an Australian 'Collins class' submarine radioed through to him asking if he needed help with a search and rescue." Confusion marked the older man's forehead with wrinkles.
"What search and rescue?" She laughed lightly and ran a hand through her hair, sliding an elastic band off her wrist and tying the yellow strands back in a pony tail.
"That's apparently exactly what the admiral said. The sub was running on diesel engines along the surface when they saw an F-22 fly straight overhead. They thought it was part of the exercise and were preparing to submerge and hide, when the plane did a barrel roll for no reason, and then ploughed straight into the ocean at full speed." Determination crossed the man's face and he slid his glasses back on, standing up and cinching his tie.
"I'm going to state the obvious just in case you haven't already thought of it, but I assume there were no actual F-22's on assignment there?" She stood as well, brushing down her coat and sliding her feet back into the discarded shoes.
"No sir. The Kitty Hawk doesn't carry F-22's. In addition to that there was absolutely no wreckage at all; it was like the plane hadn't ever crashed there. There was also nothing seen by the submarine crew to indicate the presence of anything being carried by the jet, yellow car or otherwise, which probably means this most likely wasn't an accident or error either. And you have to admit that the location is a little convenient, if you know what I mean." His eyes were grim.
"I have an inkling, but confirm it for me anyway." She pulled out two final pieces of paper still hidden in her jacket pocket and held the first one out.
"First off, you'll notice that there are a string of islands across the area, plenty of places to drop off Sam and Bumblebee. Not only that, but the 'crash' point is also only a brief distance from the Marianas Trench. Where you guys tossed Megatron." His grunt was audible in the stillness of the office, before he strode over to the door and dragged it open.
"Sorry to keep you into these wee hours of the morning Doris, but I need you to get me the Joint Chiefs and have them assembled in," He dragged out the last syllable as he looked down at his watch, "thirty minutes." The phone was already dialling in the background as he closed the door behind him.
"Mr Secretary, shouldn't someone be waking the President?" He let out a bark of a laugh.
"Oh god Maggie, are you Australian's the only people left on the planet who don't realise the President's a moron?" He was sliding back into the chair behind his desk then, pushing the previously ordered papers into a rough pile off to the side.
"I'll let him know when it's all over and he can claim the credit for it. Until then let him stay where he can't mess anything up." She smiled and dropped the last piece of paper in front of him.
"Yes sir. Oh and as much as I don't want to believe it, there's one more item that points to the possible collaboration between Starscream and at least some of the Autobots." He picked up the page, looking at a thermal scan similar to the first one.
"When our satellites came back online, the Autobots were gone too."
Fin
Ok. A short chapter to balance out the long one previously :) No not really. I just wanted to end it there because otherwise it would be much longer by the time I fit in another bit with a main character in it.
Hope that's ok with you guys!
By the way – as a side note – while researching for this chapter I read up on naval forces and so on and needed to know about Australian submarines (as we just replaced them all a few years back).
Turns out that in 2003 during exercises, 2 (Australian built) Collins class diesel submarines managed to sink 2 Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarines and an Aircraft carrier…
Way to go RAN :)
Also – if you are out there checking my research – I'm aware that all our submarines are based out of Perth (ok, well I'm aware NOW), but I'm going to assume that for an exercise they'd come around to the pacific side of the country :)