When Stars Collide

by MakeYouNotice

Memory is an interesting thing and important too, since it makes us who we are. Doesn't it? The Autobots are about to find out just how important it really is when one of their own crash lands on earth with new memories, a new family and a whole lot of new secrets. She's alone in figuring out who she is as the clock ticks on earth's sun.

17. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Head Above Water

"Head above water, gotta fight from going under, even when it feels useless to wish, you're gonna get through this"

"Citizens of the human hive, your leaders have withheld the truth. You are not alone in this universe. We have lived among you, hidden, but no more. As you have seen, we can destroy your cities at will, unless you turn over this boy. If your resist us, we will destroy the world as you know it." Then all the screens worldwide cut to black.

0o0

Sam wasn't really sure where they were. All he knew was that Bee had been driving for hours and that the Chevy twins had been sent to them at some point. Sam wasn't sure when, wasn't sure what time it was or what city they were in or anything else that could possibly be important. Mikaela was handling things for him, making sure they were warm and had food and everything else because she was awesome like that and he could barely convince himself that he was still breathing. His mind was still in that forest turned battlefield in New Jersey and they all knew it. Bee knew that look, knew that those blank green eyes saw nothing but energon and he respected it because Sam could function through it, so Bee didn't say anything and tried to fight back his own demons that were called up by the dead look in Sam's eyes. Mikaela saw nightmares in the way Sam sat, they way his shoulders stayed turned slightly to the door or a wall and she saw the soldier he was making himself become and she respected it because she was doing the same thing to herself and planning to join NEST soon. Even the twins saw a weary intelligence in Sam that they only ever saw in their commanding officers and they respected that because it was where their orders came from and they were soldiers. Gabriel saw the same twitchy hands his dad had, caused by too long living on nothing but adrenaline and fear and instinct because Gabe's dad had toured for long years in Iraq and Afghanistan where his life was always on the line and Gabe respected it because Sam had to be resilient to live long enough to develop a twitch like that. Only Leo, pampered, Florida raised Leo, didn't see anything, too wrapped up in his memories and soon to become nightmares to look at anyone else differently.

Are we in an empty lot or a clean junkyard? It was kind of hard to tell with the cement and bricks walls on one side and the fence on the other. There was trash blowing around-when did it get so cold?- and the streetlights that lined the place gave enough light for them to see. Leo stood a little further down, watching something on his phone and was he really that stupid? And he called himself a hacker. Sam leaned against the wall and watched Leo, frustrated and angry with himself and Leo to a lesser degree. "Hey, bro, you gotta listen to this, man. You gotta check this out." Leo walked over, a panicked look on his face as he grabbed Sam and shoved his phone at him, showing the newscaster talking about some traffic camera picture of him. "They have a picture of me man. We're dead, bro. FBI, CIA, we are wanted fugitives now! I just need you to focus for one minute man."

"Just stop," because Sam needed to focus and Leo was not helping. He leaned his head against the wall and concentrated on the cold, closing his eyes. They needed a plan.

"This thing has blown up to a whole other level, all right? You-"

"You know what? Give me this thing," Sam grabbed Leo's arm and took the phone from it, swiftly taking it apart with all the skill he had learned and checking for bugs. There hadn't been time to plant any but with Cybertronians, he had a right to be paranoid. "They can track us. Do you see this?" And he proceeded to crush it under his foot because they were all smart enough to put a trace on the phones and he had left his at the dorm and Mikaela's was in her bag which was also at the dorm.

Leo looked almost sick as he followed Sam back to the middle of the lot where Bee was parked with Mikaela sitting on the hood and talking quietly. "What? Like, satellite track us? Okay, I'm not even with you guys! Technically-" Sam just tuned him out and kept walking, a little relieved when the twins distracted him. He turned to his car and girlfriend, hoping for a little comfort to sooth a lot of hurt. It wasn't the first death he had seen and not the only to die for him and he was sick of it. This is why he went to college alone, to get away from it, but it just followed him like a lost puppy. Sam sat on Bee's hood and it immediately warmed, his friend's way of giving him a hug without actually doing anything. Mikaela scooted away from the windshield and wrapped her arms and legs around from behind. He grasped her arm and smiled a bit.

Leo had to ruin his almost calm moment by walking up, still babbling away and Sam was pretty sure he hadn't been this bad. "Listen, Sam, I know what I'm gonna do, man. Look, I'm just gonna go to the authorities and tell them the truth. Like, I had nothing to do with this, so I'm not an accomplice."

Sam's head snapped up and he glared at Leo. Did he really think things could be so simple after all this? "Hey, hey, you wanted this, right? You wanted the real deal? Well, that's what this is." Sam stood up, shaking off Mikaela's arms and stepping up to Leo. He looked almost scared. "Wake up! You're in the middle of it! You want to run? Go ahead. No one's stopping you. So either stop complaining or take your ass to the out of the loop morons you think are the authorities." With that he turned and faced his girl and his car and prayed that they wouldn't leave him too.

0o0

The plane touched down at Nellis and they were told to disembark and everyone on board was beyond pissed. The pilots had just dropped Prime on the tarmac like trash. Their fallen comrades were not trash and he was the least of those who deserved such treatment. The second they stepped off the plane they were surrounded by humans that looked very intent on keeping them in one place. While all of them knew that they could take the soldiers, armor damaging weapons or not, they also knew that they wouldn't harm the creatures. Prime may have been dead but they were not going to tarnish his legacy by going against orders so quickly. They pulled their weapons though, to keep the humans at bay and Sideswipe yelled out, "What is the meaning of this?"

Ironhide spun, pointing his charging cannons at the tanks and lines of men, "You dare point a gun at me? You want a piece of me? I'll tear you apart!"

"Drop your weapons! Drop your weapons!" One of the soldiers had a bullhorn, as if him repeating himself louder would help any at all. The NEST soldiers who had flown with them ran out, trying to get their comrades to lower their guns.

Lennox ran up to the man with the bullhorn saying, "Tell them to lower their weapons!

"Tell them first."

"Tell them to lower their weap-"

"Major, there's nothing I can do. Talk to him." The officer said, pointing to Galloway getting out of a Jeep behind them.

"Your NEST team is deactivated, major. You are to cease all anti-Decepticon operations and return to Diego Garcia pending further orders." He walked like an organic peacock, all ignorance and arrogance and Strikezone was quickly learning to dislike him as much as the others seemed to.

The major almost smirked as he said, "No, we take orders directly from Chairman Morshower, sir."

"Well, I'll see your Chairman and I will raise you a President of the United States," the man pulled a pile of papers from his suit jacket and held them up for the speechless soldier. Lennox couldn't say anything to the presidential seal on the executive order and Galloway was the one smirking now, "I have operational command now. An alien blood feud has been brought to our shores for which our soldiers are paying the price." He stood toe to toe with one of those soldiers and Galloway saw no fear there, not of death or himself and it only made the liaison angrier. As he spoke, he stabbed a finger into Lennox's proud chest, wanting to deflate him a little, "The secret is out! This is our war now. And we will win it as we always have, with a coordinated military strategy."

The NEST team and Autobots looked at each other, Ratchet voicing their common thought, "This fool is terribly misinformed."

"You're gonna need every asset you've got," Lennox said as a very smug Galloway stepped out of his personal space.

"What we need is to draw up battle plans while we explore every diplomatic solution."

"Like what, handing over the kid?" Please say no because even he couldn't be that heartless. Sam Witwicky was just a boy that got pulled into this because of who he happened to be related to. Please say no.

"All options are being considered." It was such an emotionless answer that Striker wondered just how bad humanity could get. He was really considering, by his tone had already decided to hand over this child to their worst enemy. She didn't want to believe it. But this species was so much like her own, so why couldn't they sink just as low into depravity?

One of the British allied soldiers- he'd introduced himself as Graham on the flight before wisely leaving her alone to wallow- stepped forward a little. He seemed unable to hold his tongue any longer. "Whatever the Decepticons are after, this is just the start." Perhaps all humans weren't stupid.

"There is no negotiating with them." And Lennox proved that they could learn.

"I'm ordering you to stand down. You won't be needing this anymore," he said, tearing off a patch from Lennox's well kept uniform. He didn't even flinch. "Get your assets back to base! And take that hunk of scrap metal back to Diego Garcia. Let's-"

"That hunk of scrap metal was your last hope, Mr. Galloway, so I suggest you pay him a little respect. And I have operational command of the Autobots now, so I suggest you pay me a little respect as well because I am nowhere near as noble as my predecessor, nor so loyal to you and your government. I'm sure there are plenty of other countries that would be happy to shelter us. Do not assume you can treat us like your organic dogs simply because we are not human and you are xenophobic. Just like your dogs, we have teeth and claws and time has taught us how to use them. We'll go for now but tread lightly Mr. Galloway because, as you humans say, you are on thin ice." Strikezone watched Galloway for a moment before dropping the wheels on her ankles, turning her back on them and skating over to the body of the Prime. As grief stricken as she was, as they all were, she was not about to let that slight go unpunished. Perhaps she was harsher than necessary, but it got the point across. She could see it in the way that his shoulders slumped for just a second that he knew that hers was not an empty threat. Striker nodded to herself as she knelt before Prime and began repairs, patches to make him presentable for the funeral she knew that the rest were planning.

The triplets rolled over and knelt as well, Chromia and Flareup working on his legs and Arcee across from her. Striker hadn't realized that the military men had dispersed and that the rest of the bots were free to roam for the moment. Flareup took out an old set of welders and wire cutters- Striker had forgotten that the other femme had been a medic before the war- and started to work, talking without looking up, "We'll help you. Elita would have wanted it. And he deserves it." She just nodded to the normally quiet femme and they worked in silence.

It wasn't long until there was a call for all of them to meet in the hanger to get ready for transport. She and the triplets stood and sighed; they had gotten quite a bit of work done and he could be in recharge but for the hole blown in his spark chamber. They had ignored his windows. They hadn't been whole since he upgraded to form that had them. Ratchet and Ironhide moved closer to the plane they were taking, the medic seeming tense and worried. "Ironhide," he said, "we should leave this planet."

The old mech just looked at they grayed frame of his charge and said, "That's not what Optimus would want."

"From what I've seen and been told, Optimus loved these creatures and gave his protection freely. We should honor that in his memory," Striker said.

"For how long, femme? You've seen how quickly they turn on us."

"Until we rust, Ratchet. We will guard them the way our race never was because he saw us in them. He saw Cybertron in this Earth and protecting it so fiercely was him making up for the planet we lost. They don't understand that and let them wallow in their ignorance but we know better."

Ratchet's blue optics widened and narrowed again before he nodded. "You've gained wisdom in your absence, Strikezone. And new scars." H was the one to kneel before the massive frame this time, examining the chest. "I can fix this. I have the tools for it with me." And he set to work.

0o0

"There's nothing you could have done," she said because Mikaela was smart like that and knew not to ask if he was okay. There was no way he could have been okay after this. Not Sam, not anyone.

He didn't reply. He couldn't because Leo was gone God knew where and his best friend was mourning the death of his mentor and NEST had been decommissioned- Lennox had texted him earlier- and Megatron was alive and Optimus Prime was dead and every last bit of this atrocity, these horrifying two days had been his fault. So all he answered with was, "You okay?" which was code for please be okay because I'm not and I won't be.

"Yeah."

So he turned to his friend, "Bee, if you hate me, I understand." Because I killed your brother. I deserve your hate. Bee rolled forward just a bit and make a painful sounding squeal and Sam understood it was supposed to comfort but all he could focus on was, "I messed up. I'm sorry."

The radio clicked on, switching channels quickly as the scout looked for the right words. "Young fella, you are the person I care about most in my life. If there's anything you need, I won't be far away."

"He's dead because of me. He came here to protect me and he's dead." The mantra that had been repeating itself in his head for the last day, however long it had been, he wasn't really keen on figuring it out.

With all the wisdom of a soldier that might have been fighting too long, the radio said, "There's some things you just can't change. So his sacrifice would not have been in vain, hallelujah!"

"I'm gonna make it right. I'm gonna turn myself in." But would it really be right?

"We- we've got to stick together!"

Mikaela shook her head, "You're not gonna do that."

"Yes, I am."

Gabriel stood, he had been sitting on the ground and leaning against Bee's back tire almost completely out of sight, and moved toward Sam slightly. "And how are they gonna make it right Sam? How are a bunch of idiot police gonna make it right when they don't even know the big guy existed? Why turn yourself in when it will do nothing but make this whole thing worse? You're just runnin' scared and now is not the time for that. Everyone involved in this war is a soldier in their own right and soldiers of your caliber don't back down, Sam. Ever."

Bee rolled forward, his headlights flashing in an alarmed way. "Everything we worked for will be wiped clean in one day!"

Wiped clean… Sam had heard that somewhere in the ranting in his head (in his dream, Nova was particularly volatile, growling, "We were wiped out by that scum.") but he couldn't remember what they were talking about. It all so often ran together into something unintelligible-

The symbols (Beta was loudest, sighing sadly and saying "No one can read them now, since he wiped it all clean…" but then he woke up and remembered nothing), they had to have something to do with it. Megatron said it would lead them to the energon on the planet. And since Bumblebee had been around through everything and hadn't said anything, he rounded on the twins, hoping they could be useful for something. "You two." When he got nothing but mumbles, he walked closer, almost yelling but he was so hopeful, "Hey, you know the glyphs? These, the symbols that have been rattling around in my head." He rolled up his sleeve, showing them the mark that had burned itself on his forearm at Mission City. It wasn't the same as the others but he knew it was the same form of Cybertronian and if they could read the one on his arm, then they could read the rest of it.

Skids- he didn't wonder how he could tell the glitches apart- leaned forward and widened his optics. "Whoo, that's- that's old school, yo. That's- that's like… that's Cybertronian." No scrap, Sherlock.

Mudflap joined his brother, "Oh, that's some serious stuff, right there."

"They gotta mean something, like a message or a map. Like a map to an energon source. Can you read it?" Sam was frustrated because he knew they meant something, just not what.

"We… No. We don't really do much reading. Not so much." Mudflap actually looked a little sorry about that fact.

Gabe mumbled something like 'I can tell' from Bee's hood and Sam blew out a frustrated breath. Another dead end. "If you can't read it, we gotta find somebody who can."

"Look who came sashayin' back." He wondered if robots could be ADHD because he thought these two might be.

"Hair growin' like a chia pet, look at him. Look at that." How did they know about chia pets? On second thought, he didn't want to know.

Leo glared at the twins before turning to Sam, "Look, I had a bit of a mild panic attack earlier, right?"

"That's 'cause you a pussy." No one wanted to know how they knew any of this stuff.

"I think I'm allowed that, considering what I've been through. I heard you have a problem. I think I know someone who can help."

No one wanted to mention the fact the all Leo had done was walk through a park filled with rainbows and butterflies compared to the minefield their lives had become in the last two years so Sam just raised a skeptical brow, "Who?"

"Robo-warrior."

0o0

The drive to New York was better and worse than their frantic flight from New Jersey. Gabe was silent, sitting in the backseat with his knees pulled to his chest and not even trying for small talk anymore- he didn't seem to like Leo much. Mikaela was watching Sam like a hawk and holding onto that box still- what was in it? Leo was in his own little world and Sam was trying to get a hold of himself. He wasn't sure how long the trip was, his mind was still sort of lagging, and he didn't care. Calm, he told himself, I need to be calm to do this, to help them. I need order. And like it was the magic word to a well-trained dog, it all stopped. The chaos of the All Spark slowed to a near stop, the Primes quieted their frantic, fast-paced arguments in a language that sounded more like enormous brass church bells than modem beeps and the repeating symbols slowed to a halt, perfectly lined up for his perusal.

"This guy, Robo-Warrior? Everything about anything alien, he's supposed to know. One time, we revenge-hacked his site and maybe I saw some of your… alien symbols." Sam nearly cursed at Leo's rambling. It broke his concentration and the half translation he had was gone. His mind was still but the symbols were gone again. He kept up the rambling as Bee pulled up to a deli and Sam hadn't even noticed when they made into town. "This is it. Yep. Deli. Good front." He stepped out of the car and leaned in, not noticing the annoyed look on Sam's face as he said, "All, right, wait here. I'll give you the go-no go, all right?" Then he was gone.

Sam's hands spasmodically clenched on the steering wheel, "Bumblebee, please, please, tell me I was never that bad." A laugh track playing was all the answer he got.

"So, this dude really expects us to stay in the car like a bunch of little kids? Does he even know this guy?"

"Gabe, I thought you had gone to sleep." Mikaela twisted around in her seat and smiled, "I agree, by the way."

Sam rolled his shoulders and popped his neck. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going in. No way in hell am I gonna stay cooped up in here any longer. No offense Bee." His door still swung open a little harder than normal and Sam ran his hand along it, murmuring, "Damn, sensitive car. Still worth that four thousand." And when the door slammed shut, both Sam and Mikaela laughed. Gabriel was allowed a more gentle exit and handed Mikaela her box.

The glass doors had an annoying bell attached to it and the deli was close and stuffy with people milling around and yelling at each other in heavy New York accents. "Robo-Warrior. It's him! It's him! That's the guy, right there! That's him!" Leo's shout cut through the crowd and drew their attention. All three of them stopped dead, facing one man they hoped never to see again.

Seymour Simmons looked over and sneered at the three of them, fear of his own in his eyes as he said, "You."

Sam slid the hat and sunglasses off, closing his eyes and wishing for it to be a hallucination. "No."

Simmons turned to the rest of his customers, angrily shouting, "All right, meat store's closed! Everybody out!" As the people began to file out, grumbling and arguing Leo looked between them, finally noticing the tight expressions on their faces. "Wait a minute, you know this guy?"

"Old friends," Sam mumbled.

"Something like that," because Gabe had sincerely hoped to never see the man again.

"Old friends? Your case was the one that shut down Sector Seven, got the kibosh disbanded. No more security clearance, no retirement, no nothing. All because of you and your little criminal girlfriend. Look at her now, so mature. And you, Gabriel Armstrong, are the spiting image of your father. I'm sorry to see you hanging around troublemakers like Witwicky."

Gabriel had to stop from launching himself over the counter at the man. "Don't talk about my father. Ever. You didn't even deserve to breathe his air. My father hung out with a lot worse than Sam. Like you, for example."

Mikaela stepped forward, pushing that damned box into Gabe's chest to back him up. "Guys, enough with the pissing match. We had a reason to come here, right Sam?"

Simmons's eyes turned calculating, "They've got your face all over the news, alien boy."

"Yeah, I know."

"NBE-One still kicking, huh? How did that happen? How did that happen? Don't answer. I don't know what you're hiding, but I don't want anything to do with it. So, good-bye. You never saw me. I got bagels to smear. Vanish." Simmons brandished his butcher knife at them. As if that could scare them now.

"Can you give me five seconds? Look, I need your help." It obviously pained Sam to say that and Simmons took joy in it.

"Really? You need my help?"

"I need- look, I am slowly loosing my mind, okay? I had a little crab-bot plunge a device deep into the soft tissues where it started to project the symbols I've bee seeing and my memories like a freaking home movie! On top of that, I'm a wanted fugitive! So, you think you've got it rough?"

"You said it projected images off you your brain?"

"Yeah."

"Meat Locker. Now!" and he turned to lead them down into it. The room was freezing like all meat lockers were and it smelled something fierce. The others sounded truly grossed out but Gabe didn't mind because it reminded him of his grandfather's pig farm in Texas. Simmons reached a door at the back, partially hidden behind the rows of dead pigs hanging from the ceiling. He turned to them with a hand on the handle and said in an overly serious voice, "What you're about to see it top secret. Do not tell my mother," and opened the door.

The room was small and warmer than the last, walls covered in various news clippings and pictures of old vehicles from military planes, to T-Birds. There was a case in the corner with a little Cybertronian head in it and Sam tried not to vomit as he realized that it was Frenzy. What was left of him. "Okay, files, files… We're talking about symbols- Hey! Still radioactive. Hands off." Leo froze at the shout and quickly pulled his hand back from the case Frenzy's head was in. Simmons pulled the file he was looking for and laid it out on the little folding table. "Okay, cube-brain, are these the symbols you saw?"

The ones I'm still seeing. "Where did you get these?" Sam was too surprised to notice that the Primes had quieted in his head as he looked at the old black and white pictures spread before him.

"Before I got fired, I poached S-7's crown jewel. Over seventy-five years of research, which points to one, inescapable fact. The transformers? They've been here a long, long time. How do I know? Archaeologists found these unexplained markings in ancient ruins all over the world. China, Egypt, Greece. Shot in 1932. These the symbols you seeing in your head?"

"Yeah." They were the parts of the legend that he could read, up until the picture of Egypt. It was the same list of symbols he had smudged, burned clearly in ancient rocks. He could almost read it until Simmons slapped another picture down, this one a car, a T-Bird if he remembered correctly.

"Same ones over here, right? So, tell me, how did they all end up drawing the same things? Aliens. And I think some of them stayed. Check this out. Project: Black Knife. Robots. In disguise. Hiding here all along. We detected radioactive signatures all across the country. I pleaded on my knees with S-7, but they said the reading were infinitesimal, that I was obsessed! Me! Can you imagine that?"

Sam could, but he wasn't going to tell the potential crazy person that was his only source of information that. "Megatron said that there was another energon source here.

"On Earth." Simmons sounded more than a little skeptical and more than a lot surprised.

"On Earth."

"Another source?" Maybe he was crazy with the way he was repeating everything.

"Okay and that these symbols, the maps in my head, would lead him there." But somehow Sam knew that even Megatron couldn't read them, so what was he planning to do?

"You talked to your Autobot friends about this?"

"No, no, no, the source is before them. Whatever the energon is, it predates them. It's before them." Sam was repeating things too but he working this convoluted puzzle out by talking. It helped him focus.

"So it comes before them."

"Correct."

"Well then, we're porked, unless we can talk to a Decepticon. I mean, I'm not on speaking terms with them," but he made this quick, nervous chuckle like he was lying to them.

"Actually," Mikaela said, looking almost smug as she lifted her bow onto the table, "I am." The box rattled, letting out a muffled, 'let me out!' as she worked on the chains wrapped around it. "This is going to be a little bit sad." Then she opened it.

A little bit sad was a serious understatement. The thing that popped out was obviously a Cybertronian, a very small one with one optic dark and scratches and dents all over its armor. He had to have been a scrap drone with the tiny, boxy frame and big eyes. He roared in an attempt to look scary before Mikaela jerked at the chain wrapped around his neck. Leo screamed, Gabe snickered a bit and Sam just shook his head because, really? Mikaela was probably the only one who could manage to do this crap. "I will have so many Decepticons on your butt!" the little bot yelled at her. She just jerked his chain again and told him to behave.

"What is it, a Decepticon?" Gabe said. He hadn't really seen one up close yet.

Mikaela nodded, "Yeah."

"And you're training him?" Sam said with disbelief in his voice.

"Trying to."

Simmons leaned in a bit and looked like he wanted to touch the little creature but thought better of it, saying, "I spent my whole adult life combing the planet for aliens and you're carrying around one in your purse like a little Chihuahua"

"Huh? You want a throw down, you pubic 'fro head?" Apparently, this little bot had a worse mouth then the Chevy twins. Which was sad.

Mikaela leaned down, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about your eye but, you know, if you're a good boy, I'm not gonna torch your other eye. Okay? I'm not gonna torch it. Just tell me what these symbols are. Please." She slid over a picture covered in them, smiling sweetly and Sam wanted to shiver. So that's what had happened to his eye.

"All right. Oh, I know that. That's the language of the Primes. I don't read it but these guys…" he pawed through the pictures, laying the ones of vehicles out, lingering over the planes, "where the frick did you find photos of these guys?"

Sam tapped the picture of an old Blackbird, "Is this them?"

The scrap drone nodded, "Yeah. Seekers, pal. Oldest of the old. They've been here thousands of years, searching for something. I don't know what, nobody tells me nothing, but they'll translate those symbols for you. And I know where to find them."

"Show us."

"Yeah." He activated his holo projector and pointed it at the map Simmons had hanging on the wall across from him. There were dots all over the US, showing different locations of deactivated Seekers. Simmons studied it for a moment, pointing to one, "Closest one's in Washington."