Chapter 11

Bad Guys

"Gather up your loved ones, gather up your friends, cause this is when the bad guy, the bad guy wins, gather up you loved ones, gather up your friends, pray to whichever god forgives your sins"

Ironhide has always hated parachutes. Flying, he didn't mind, unlike that youngling of a Prime (don't think of him), it's just the fragging parachutes that the soldiers insist they use. Ironhide much preferred free falls. That was the only good thing he could see in his current situation. Thirty-five thousand feet up and told to jump from their carrier. No parachutes.

Another thing he's always hated is nets. Again, the soldiers insist on the things whenever they fly. It's to keep them from sliding around in the hull, or something equally inane. That's why he threw his off as soon as the pilots told them to drop and why he ignored Sideswipe cutting his net to shreds. Ironhide just stomped to the cargo bay opening and muttered, "Best let me off of this plane."

After that there was nothing but howling wind and colors flying past. He could have seen in all in perfect clarity but not knowing was nice sometimes. And once he landed, it was nothing but orders, plans of action and the sense of 'oh frag' he always got when ambushed by Decepticons.

It was going to be a long day.

0o0

Epps hated this part, the waiting part where he had nothing to do but pace and think until the scout said they could move in. Not so much think- it was more like stewing. And now, in the middle of this damn desert (didn't he swear he would never come back?) all he had to think about was two things: Sam and Prime. Neither of these things were pleasant. Neither of them would leave him alone.

He watched as Lennox gave orders, setting up a lookout and getting the big guy situated. Epps didn't look in that direction, not even when Graham ordered Prime's body covered. He wondered to himself why the British soldier had done it. He hadn't taken to the bots like some had and most wouldn't have afforded the boss bot the respect.

"Secure the village. Get those cases down here. I need snipers and Stingers up high." Lennox bark out orders like his old sergeant in boot camp to hide his fear. Epps knew his best friend well (it felt good to call him that again because there was a time when he thought that they would never see eye to eye again) and he could recognize his fear a mile away. He had hated the bots for the longest time while Will had quickly gotten attached to them. Good guys or not, it was hard to welcome them with open arms when all he associated with them was blood and death. It wasn't until he had a talk with the boss bot that he started to accept them.

And now the Prime was dead. It was always beyond hard when the giants died. That was what he was thinking when he sidled up to Lennox and said, "So, we just dropped off 10 tons of dead robot in the middle of nowhere. I hope this little kid know what he's doing."

"Yeah, me too," Lennox said quietly. He didn't look back at his friend, barely paid attention to the desert in front of him. They were all lost in their disbelief.

"Got a visual! Yellow team, four clicks!" one of the soldiers- one of the original Rangers, Adams- yelled from his position on the rooftop. Sam, Bumblebee and the twins were on their way.

"Pop flare!" Lennox called.

A lone Raptor, which was odd in and of itself but Epps wouldn't say anything because help was help, flew overhead and Epps turned on his radio, ready to give orders. That is, until he got a good look at the thing (and its alien tattoos) and realized that it definitely wasn't friendly. No Autobot fliers.

The bots had been relatively quiet until now, spreading out around the village they were camped in. Engines started roaring and they rocked back and forth on their wheels. The new one, a kick ass black Dodge Charger, shot forward from its- her, he thought he heard them call her a femme- hiding place and broke apart, standing up in the harsh desert sun. She only kept that form long enough to snarl out, "Starscream," before launching herself into the air and transforming again into a sleeker version of the Cybertronian tetra-jet that Megatron was and shooting off after the Decepticon.

So, maybe there were Autobot fliers.

At the same moment, Starscream let out a burst of something that left Epps' ears ringing. Lennox looked around, trying to figure out what happened. "What the hell was that?"

Epps suddenly had a bad feeling. He picked up his radio, "Anyone copy?" No answer.

Lennox reached up to his earpiece, turning it on and asking the same thing Epps had, "Anyone there?" Nothing answered him and he turned to the rest of the soldiers, wanting to know if any of them had working coms. No one did.

Epps tried one last time, "Copy?" Static this time.

"Radio's down," one of the soldiers called out.

Lennox ripped out his earpiece and threw it down, muttering to no one in particular, "It's dead. Comms are down."

"EMP burst. I see how this day is going in this godforsaken desert," and he pushed past Lennox to get to their makeshift base of operations in the shade of a burnt out building. If he was lucky, he might be able to get a patch job done to get the comms working again. When he heard Ironhide confirm that the bots' comms weren't working either, he just gave up. If even their comms were dead, he and the rest of the soldiers didn't stand a chance of repairing their decidedly weaker systems.

A burned out shell of a building with holes from mortar rounds and the tell-tale pockmarked crater in the ground beside it looked suspiciously familiar. He stopped and stared at it, trying to remember and just as well because he didn't really have a direction right then. Then he heard the soldiers yelling, loading their weapons and the bots transforming- getting ready for a fight- and something about the sound reminded him. Scorponok. This was the village they had first been attacked in before help arrived. He wondered it Will and the rest of the team realized.

Epps had been wrong earlier. This little slice of Egyptian desert hell wasn't just forsaken- it was more damned than Eden.

With that lovely thought in mind, he turned away from the reminders of the beginning of the end of his old life. A rusted out hunk of car caught his eye- a Bug that might have been bright blue at some point but was now as faded as the sun washed sky was wedged awkwardly between a wall and the edge of an alley. There was still a dark stain in the sandstone and metal made from Fig's blood. Even after two years, the man still had a limp.

Epps shook his head and turned on his radio again, trying different frequencies to see if he could find a signal that worked. He knew he wouldn't, though. And EMP burst that strong would've knocked out any signal in a ten mile radius. When he got back to Will and most of the others, he just shook his head again and murmured, "Nothing."

"Right," Will said because they all knew that they wouldn't be able to work around an EMP burst. He turned to his men, barking out more orders. "Go burn an SOS. Let the eye in the sky know we need some help. Pop some more flares so the kid can find us," he added as he walked away. Everyone was walking away today.

They set to work burning an SOS- Epps didn't even want to know what they were burning, but it smelled like napalm- and checking the weapons because they could all smell a fight coming on.

The Autobots were antsy too, revving their engines and rocking on their wheels. He could tell that they were talking to each other, he just didn't know how- their comm systems were down- but then he felt it. There was this low, subsonic, restless humming in the air and he realized that they were holding a conversation, it was just well below the range of human hearing. He had a feeling he knew what they were talking (it felt like an argument) about though.

Sam.

That was the second thing Epps couldn't get off his mind. The kid (he wasn't a kid anymore but Epps couldn't let go of the stuttering, nervous sixteen year old he had first met) was in the middle of this cluster fuck- again. Epps was pretty sure he was some cosmic trouble magnet or something. Probably more something than anything else. He had a cousin like that, Roman, who was constantly into something. Last Epps had heard, the other man was banned from Rio. Epps hasn't even bothered to ask.

"We've got incoming!" Adams yelled, pointing to the sky. Everyone looked up and watched the Cybertronian protoforms fall through the atmosphere. Then they started transforming. And then they started shooting.

Not friendly.

Will started herding everyone back into the ruins of the village, "We got a whole lot of fight coming our way!"

"How many?" Epps panted. That courtyard in the middle of the village was farther to run than it looked.

"About thirteen of them," Will said, distractedly checking his gun over.

Epps stood and hefted his own gun, looking over the wall they had hidden behind. "This ain't good. This ain't good. We about to get our asses whupped."

More orders were yelled out as Lennox rounded up the soldiers. He always was a strategist. "All right, those Decepticons are searching for Sam. Whatever he has, he thinks it'll bring Optimus back to life. So our mission is to find him and get him to Optimus. All right, we're gonna draw fire from the left flank. I need a scout team." Ironhide piped up, saying he was leading the scout team. Will nodded and continued, "Go up through the middle with Arcee and Ironhide. Right, when you see the precious cargo, I want you to pop green smoke and come back through those pillars. We'll have the ambush set. All right. Let's go. Move out!"

0o0

"I know sir," he said into the phone. He hung on for a moment longer before rolling his eyes and hanging up the phone. Morshower heaved a sigh and stared at his officers with tired blue eyes. "Well, that was our good friend, Galloway. He's less than pleased. How is it that we can't reach our men, but he can reach me, from some random Egyptian desert?"

The officers didn't say anything, not that he expected them to. "I can see from your blank, vapid stares that none of you know. So I suggest that you find out," and with that, he spun and left the conference room.

The halls were lined with bright fluorescent lights, contrasting with his dark mood. He followed the maze that was the halls of the first level to the command center. Rusty though he was, he could hack like the rest of them. Hopefully, he'd be able to patch a line with someone on the ground, even if it was the Autobots.

It wasn't that he disliked them, exactly, more like an inbred, automatic dislike of the abnormal. And those alien robots were the definition of the word. Morshower tried to hide his instinctive cringe every time he was near them but he had a feeling that they knew. Especially the big one, the Prime. But the Prime was dead now and his men were radio silent in the middle of some goddamned desert and their liaison had been pushed off a plane and the first civilian contact was being hunted like a dog by everyone.

He was too old for this shit.

He wasn't sure how long it was before they got a hit. Well, the hit got them, more like. He strode around to the main computer bank, saying to no one in particular, "Lennox's team has the latest in quantum crypto gear. Can somebody tell me why we can't establish simple radio contact?"

"We're hailing them on every frequency and mode in the book, sir," one of the petty officers said, slightly shaken by the General's stern voice.

"Ah, but our frequency isn't in the book. Sir."

Morshower turned to face the main screen where a twenty-something dark skinned female soldier sat in the cockpit of a plane. "Who are you?"

"New Autobot, sir. Designation Strikezone. I thought you and your men might like a sit rep right about now." Her voice was brisk and her eyes glowed the blue of their optics. That and the missing pupil was enough for them not to refute her claim. After all, what Decepticon would think to contact them?

"That would be nice," he said.

"Sir, yes sir," and the way she said it wasn't mocking, more reluctant, like she didn't like acknowledging superiors. Maybe she didn't. The Autobots seemed to have a healthy disrespect for authority. "Here are your missing soldiers. Recognize the area?" There was an image of a village burning, human soldiers and Autobots fighting what looked to be the biggest Decepticon threat since Mission City. Morshower didn't bother to ask how she had been able to commandeer both main screens for herself and the image.

"Oh shit, it's a trick. Commence Operation Firestorm. Send everyone. Get those Marines on the ground," he barked out his orders as he walked, paced, rather. This was not good. It wasn't until he risked another glance at the screen that he understood what the girl-she had to have been one of their holoforms- had been talking about. It was the same village from after the Quatar attack.

Not good at all. He deserved a very large raise after this.

"It was an ambush, sir. Decepticon Air Commander Starscream released an EMP burst and disabled all communications. I'm in pursuit of Starscream and Lennox's team is up against a team of thirteen shock troopers," the Autobot said.

"Why isn't a higher ranking officer telling me this?"

A dark brow raised and she smirked, "I am the higher ranking officer, sir."

Morshower watched her for a moment, just staring at the blue eyes that didn't really look like eyes. He wasn't sure if he was sizing her up or staring her down but either way, she never blinked. And maybe it was stupid to have a staring contest with a robot but he thought she knew what he was doing so he just nodded and said, "Okay."

0o0

Running through the desert is not fun. The people who ran through Death Valley for fun were fucking crazy. Just because Sam could have been a track star did not mean that he enjoyed running for his life through a war zone in the desert. The desert.

He was pretty sure his ex-cheerleader girlfriend and army brat friend agreed.

His legs ached, his lungs burned, his feet hurt and he was pretty sure he was developing sunburn. That was before he saw his parents get dumped by some Con in a ruined courtyard. Suddenly, he felt good as new as he ran to his parents and pulled them down.

The almost order he had managed was gone then, replaced by a mess of shouts in human and Cybertronian voices. There was nothing left in his head but shouts of pain and battle maneuvers in English and animalistic growls and slurs he should have never understood in Cybertronian. Then his mother screamed and the Con called his name and the world snapped again.

"Sam Witwicky."

Sight and the ability to speak was back as he stood away from the overturned car they had been using for shelter. "Don't hurt them," he held his hands up as a sign of surrender and slowly dropped one again to dig in his jacket pocket. It was probably the reason he was so damned hot. Sam shakily held the sock filled with a pixie dust version of the Matrix out to the red Con, "This is what you want. You don't want them."

The Con's optics lit a bright, sickening red that clashed with his rust colored paint job. Sam had never seen that color before and gulped as the mech shook his head and disagreed. His parents yelled, telling him to move but he ignored them. They were treating him like a kid and it made him mad but wasn't that what he had been trying to convince everyone of for the last few days? Hadn't he just been telling Optimus Prime (his fault and so unworthy) that he wasn't fit for this, that he was a college kid and not an ambassador?

College kid, Ambassador, All-Spark bearer or whatever else he was, he knew that he had to keep this one's attention off his parents and friends. His optics glowed a little brighter and he bounced forward on the monster drill tip he used as a leg (he used to be construction class, the All Spark told him) and looked at his parents. Then Bee whistled lowly to get Sam's attention. His guardian was back.

"Just don't hurt them. I know what you want," he said, thinking fast and backing away.

His dad wouldn't give up, though. "Just go! Just go."

Sam continued as if he hadn't heard the man, "And I know that you need me. Because I know about the Matrix." He took another step back. Come on, he thought, just a little farther.

Ron was suddenly desperate. "Don't do it, Sam, listen to me-"

"Please, Dad," his voice was world-weary and so serious. He looked like a man at that moment in a way he hadn't before. A man protecting his family.

"They're going to kill us all anyway!" desperation leaked into the older Witwicky's voice along with exhaustion and terror. He was too old for war.

The Con bounced forward, a vicious snarl on his lip plates. "Hey, hey, whoa! Here's what you want, right here,' he waved the sock like it was a red flag and the Con was a bull. The second he charged, Sam dove to the side and called "Bumblebee!"

The little yellow warrior jumped over the wall he had been using for cover and blindsided the Con. Sam scrambled back, trying to get his parents out of the way of stray shots and flailing tread-whips of the other mech. Mikaela and Gabe came dangerously close to getting crushed before Bee finally got a hold on the other mech and slammed him to the ground. Somewhere in the fray a black mech slammed down, kicking up a dust storm and slinking low to the ground. When it settled a little, it revealed a snarling and dust covered Strikezone with a tight hold on a feline shaped Decepticon, one of Soundwave's cassettes he had been told about, murmuring something in his audial. Sam couldn't hear over the noise but he did catch the words 'lightning' and 'alive'. Whatever it was, it made the feline- Ravage- stop struggling. Strikezone dropped the creature and watched it slink off as Bumblebee downed his larger opponent.

Blindly, Sam reached back and grabbed for his parents and Mikaela and Gabe, pulling them under some archway and away from more explosions. This was too dangerous for civilians. They ran through some tiny alleyway, constantly ducking debris from random explosions.

Time was a blur for him, just quick images and sounds sticking out. The way his mother grabbed his arm, the sound of his dad's voice and the look in his eyes. The sound of his own voice when he told his mom and dad to get in the car, he's gonna get you to safety. He remembered the sad way Bee honked his horn before speeding off with his parents. The fire in Mikaela's bright blue eyes and the venom in her voice. The conviction and confidence in Strikezone when she said she would cover them to Ironhide. Gabe's determined face and grim humor when he said he wouldn't miss this for the world. Even though it might cost the world if they didn't make it.

Then they were running again and Sam was taking off his leather jacket, wrapping the cloth one around his good hand and the sock. Gabriel ran a head and Mikaela kept pace with Strikezone bringing up the rear and shooting anything that got too close. Ironhide called his name and then Arcee rolled up on her one wheel. "Follow us to the pillars," she said, "and we'll take you to Optimus."

Then she and her sisters who were converging on them were shot in the back. Arcee let out a single scream as she fell, Ironhide and Strikezone both taking up arms against the ambushing Cons.

"Go, Sam! Get to the pillars!" and then Ironhide took a plasma blast to the chassis and Sam felt sick. Was everyone going to die today? For his stupid, half thought out plan? No. No, he wouldn't let them.

"Go! We'll hold them off as best as possible," Strikezone yelled, not once looking away from her target. And so Sam ran.

By some miracle, his companions managed to stay with him. As he knelt in the sand and screamed for Lennox's attention, he thought about how he was probably gonna die in the desert in the middle of an alien gunfight and he accepted that. It was the thought of everyone else dying- his girl, his parents, his friends, hell, his freaking car was risking his life- that was scaring him. It was that thought that made him run with the soldiers. They all looked so exhausted beneath their adrenaline high but they still did their best and fought to the end. He was proud to know Lennox and Epps, even Graham, the reserved British soldier, and Adams, the surly Ranger and everyone else who was part of NEST. It was his honor.

"Oh, look who showed up. You better have a good reason for us to be here," Lennox wasn't quite looking at Sam, but his eyes were narrowed and his voice was scathing.

"Where's Optimus?""because an explanation would be pointless and do nothing but waste precious time.

"He's right over there, across the courtyard," he said pointing. It was almost too good to be true. So close and so very, very far.

He was also proud to know the Autobots, proud beyond belief. He was proud to be able to call them friend and brother and sister. He was proud that they were his people now, his family. It was his honor.

Jetfire flew up out of nowhere then, sticking the landing and taking out a troublesome Decepticon with thick armor on the way. Scorponok was the next unexpected guest to their party behind a blown out house, exploding out of the sand and digging his claws into the old Seeker. He was a burrower by nature and Jetfire didn't stand a chance once those drills turned on. He managed to dislodge the scorpion shaped mech and slammed him down only to follow in the next second. He crushed the smaller mech's helm under his huge servo, coughed up energon and said, "I'm too old for this crap." And then his optics went out.

Sam didn't touch Jetfire, knowing without the All Spark that the mech was done for. He was well on his way to the retirement he deserved. It was an honor to know the crazy old Seeker, too.

Then there was orange smoke thrown way too close to them by Epps, an F-16 air strike coming and more running.

And Sam knew what Lennox said, knew he had been told to stay on the soldier's ass but he never was very good at taking directions. So he split off and ran almost perpendicular to the others, completely out in the open. It was okay, because he knew he had to do this, too. He heard Megatron behind him, running through the black smoke of the bombs and yelling something indistinct at him. He braced himself for the pain he knew was coming and ran even faster. Then there was a gunshot that clipped his feet and flipped him, another that caught him in the chest and one last shot to the back. He only heard the screams for a moment before he hit the ground and it all went peaceful black.

And then it wasn't anymore.

0o0

War is the very definition of chaos and it was a truth that Sideswipe had always known. It was chaos and shed energon and pain filled yells, metal rending and the smell of ozone and electricity. There was little difference on earth, just blood instead of energon and gunpowder instead of ozone.

And dead humans instead of dead mechs. He wasn't sure which was better.

Humans were squishy and so breakable but he was pretty sure that it just made them braver and more foolhardy. Either way, they were comrades and fast becoming friends, two things he had not had in a very long time. Just more people to push away. No one needed to get tangled in him. Sideswipe was both the invisible spider web and the spider that unintentionally said to come closer. The whole world was the fly and Sunstreaker was the one who always got caught. Sunstreaker was the one to get killed (but is he really dead? Don't think that. Wouldn't he have felt it? Don't believe it).

It was the silence that tipped him off. It wasn't exactly still, but it was completely silent. Sideswipe could count on one servo the amount of times a battlefield had gone so silent around him and every time, it was something life changing.

The first time was when Megatron and Optimus Prime clashed on the battlefield for the first time on Cybertron. It had marked the true beginning of the War in his processor.

The second was when the All Spark was sent off world. They weren't near the Temple at the time but it was like everyone could feel the loss of their primary life-giver.

The third was when Megatron died. The fourth when Prime died. This was the fifth, but what-

"Sam!" It was Mikaela's voice, rough and raw and terrified. Oh. Not what, but who.

The fifth time that the battlefield went silent (not still because it was still a battlefield and a battlefield never knows stillness) like the world was holding its breath was when Sam Witwicky died.

"Sam…" her voice was suddenly quiet, though it rung loud in the silence, "I loved you."