Chapter 13

=0=In the countryside, Czech Republic

They walked without making a sound, picking their way infallibly through the darkness. Night vision optics and sensors that could scan accurately for miles were their edge. For big mechs, some of them over twenty-five feet, they were incredibly silent. The coordinates that they were given had led them to a farmhouse on a dirt road.

There was a faint dampened sensor reading of Decepticons emanating from the vicinity of the dilapidated farm ahead. Lennox with night vision goggles on his eyes lead the soldiers down the middle of their spread out formation. Arcee was with them as Ratchet and Smokescreen circled around the western side of the ramshackle building.

They were attempting to encircle it but they were also very careful, probing the edges of the farm and its outbuildings, anyone of which could conceal their enemy. Low broken down wooden fences and brambling bushes were no obstacle to the bots but the humans struggled to clear them without a sound.

Overhead, a transport plane circled as Optimus Prime listened with intensity. He was pegged into the Ops Center on Diego Garcia, the quiet efficient voice of Prowl giving him updates on the entire mission in all its far flung places. He was concerned that this didn't feel right.

Millions of years of leadership and the overriding power of the Creation Matrix had enhanced his senses. Something felt wrong and he became sure that there was a missing piece to the puzzle. As the plane swung around heading back towards the location his team was currently working, he called to the airmen.

He was going down himself.

=0=London

The sound of footsteps made Bluestreak freeze in place. There was something big in the shadows of the buildings nearby him. He had circled around and made his way to a place where he could take a shot in at least a two hundred forty degree angle. The section of debris and piled up dirt he was heading for would allow him to lay flat and give him an almost unobstructed field of fire.

Turning slightly with his weapon positioned, sweeping the area with it ready to fire, he felt rather than saw something coming. Turning again, a blur with red eyes was covering ground faster than anything earth could construct so he sighted by instinct and fired. The blast of sound rendered their stealth a moot point as Ravage leaped from thirty feet out and landed on Bluestreak.

As the report of Blue's weapon reverberated, Ironhide rose and fired at the building before him igniting in a shower of shrapnel the pile of cinder blocks stacked in front of it. They ripped into the facade, tearing and peppered holes all along the structure. The sensor hit had been in that building and as he began to move to the cover of a stack of lumber, broken bricks and steel, Sideswipe rose and threw down covering fire.

Return fire erupted from the building, shots that streaked at Ironhide and barely missed him. Laser weapons fire continued as Sideswipe stood nearby shooting at the source of it, unconcerned that he was exposed.

When Ironhide rolled toward the trash pile, he fired at the house construct with both his cannons. The side of it erupted and exploded inward as cries of pain and curses of fury rang out from its confines.

Bluestreak who was pinned to the ground, his arm in the mouth of Ravage shrieked with rage and pain as he gripped the creature's tail, pulling on it as hard as he could. It disengaged its mouth and turned in fury toward Blue to try to grip him once more.

By that time Blue had gotten a foothold and scrambled upward as the beast whipped around hampered just enough by Blue's grip on his tail that he couldn't sink his steel fangs into the young mech again. A steady stream of energon flew from the beast, testimony to the accuracy of Blue's aim.

"Blue!"

Sideswipe ran toward the other side of the house aiming to reach a stack of lumber and a dump truck. He nearly made it, too.

=0=In the countryside, St. Denis

The soldier with Jazz was silent as a ghost as the two worked their way toward a muted Decepticon sensor reading ahead. A farmhouse with a stone wall as high as a tall man encircling it was the source of the signal. Jazz had sent everyone ahead to surround it as they moved in two-by-two teams, Autobot and soldier, each supporting the others together.

Springer, nerveless and immensely alert led his soldier around the eastern side of the complex overstepping a bramble-filled creek and hunkering down beside an old dovecote. His bulk wasn't very well hidden but something told him that it didn't matter.

He looked at his soldier who looked at him and shrugged. Springer nodded then looked to the left and right of his position. Jazz and a soldier were on one side and Hound and Sunstreaker with their soldiers were on the other.

Springer looked down. "Stay here and don't move. Keep down below the stone fence," he whispered to his soldier. The soldier nodded then watched as Springer rose and moved away into the shadows heading in the direction of Jazz. The soldier lay down on the ground and waited, his weapon ready and his heart pounding.

=0=Czech Republic

Optimus Prime landed, then cut his chutes loose. He scanned the area and quickly located his team. Then he broke comm silence taking a chance that he was wrong. :Pull back! NOW!:

It was silent, then it wasn't.

The flash was so bright that it off lined his optics a moment. Optimus Prime felt the blast wave and the heat of it, raising his arm to protect himself as his battle mask activated. He turned back from the heat, then turned again to move with superhuman speed toward the fireball that once was the farmhouse.

=0=Diego Garcia, Ops Center

The mechs in the Rec Room and pacing in the corridors were silent, frozen in place as the roar of bombs went off. The first blast was followed with another, then there was shooting and shouting. They stood together and listened as their comrades, friends and companions fought for their lives.

In the command center, Prowl was all efficiency, prompting mechs and humans back to work as the shock of the sounds erupted over the line. He was in contact with Optimus and he heard the battle with Ironhide but he had no contact with Jazz. He turned to Teletraan II and moved the mech aside sitting to turn to the controls himself.

Red Alert, stunned, glared at him then shook himself out of it, moving to the computer arrays next to Prowl to begin to sift for helpful information.

Prowl frantically keyed in data waiting with outward calm and inner panic as the satellite in space began to move into position, focusing its powerful cameras and sensors more directly over the continent of Europe. As he waited he commed Cosmos and told him to come down to Diego, pick up medical teams and to be ready to evacuate wounded. Cosmos pinged back and began a descent into an orbit that would allow him to make Diego in seconds.

Prowl commed Med Bay. "First Aid, gather med teams and report to runway four. Cosmos will be there to take you to evacuate wounded when we refine the situation."

"Affirmative, Prowl. On our way."

=0=Med Bay

First Aid felt deep pangs of cold fear gather within his circuits as he collected the emergency medical gear that was always kept waiting in a room off the main Med Bay. Mechs running down from the Rec Room determined to help rushed in to pick up tanks of emergency energon and the instrument case for emergency surgery kept there for these reasons, helping First Aid and the other medics carry all of it out the door and up the long corridor to the tarmac beyond. Other mechs too late to help hurried with them, their impotence turning into nervous activity.

They made it to the tarmac and headed out to runway four, hurrying with their gear as Cosmos touched down. The medical teams entered the ship, slowing to stow gear and drums that were hoisted hand over hand by the mechs on the runway. Then they stepped back and Cosmos rose up to disappear into the dark sky. They watched him until he was gone from even their sight.