Chapter 28:
After Epps had finally secured the SWAT team in the human brig, which had taken far too long for his liking as the SWAT team members were particularly vocal about being locked up, the Master Sergeant wearily made his way back to the barracks. He'd have to wake up Lennox, and he was not looking forward to it. At all.
Lennox had gotten very little sleep over the past week, with not only the past mission with the human woman and Barricade, but others before it as well.
Robert Epps sighed as he reached the barracks. He leaned against the old wooden door frame, his eyes closed, as he shook his head.
Waking up one of his best buddies would be, in another world, no big deal. In the world they lived in, in which sleep was considered the ultimate pleasure, he hated himself for what he had to do next. He took another deep breath as he stared upwards at the Arizona sky. The sun was already blazing, the UV rays piercing through the sky down at the scorched earth. The day was going to be a hot one.
He didn't even know what was happening in Ratchet's medbay and wouldn't until Optimus finally awoke from recharge. The Decepticon didn't even cross Epps' mind as he contemplated waking Major Lennox. The woman, more precisely her SWAT team, however, most certainly did cross his mind. Another sigh escaped his lips; a hand ran roughly across his face. He had to wake up Lennox.
Fuck.
Finally, he took the steps he had to into the barracks room they shared. It was sparse of personal belongings and decorative details; just two beds, two alarm clocks, and the two packs they had brought with them from Diego Garcia. Epps could hear Lennox snoring deeply before he had even opened the door.
He's going to hate me for this. Gotta do it, He told himself before he finally reached out and shook Lennox awake.
Unlike when Epps had awoken him on Diego Garcia, this time Lennox completely fell out of bed and onto the hard floor with a loud thud. His fall, and subsequent yells, nearly caused Epps to jump backwards into the door frame in shock.
"Dammit, Epps, what the fuck, man?!" Lennox scowled up at him as he scrambled to his feet, and Epps gave him a sheepish look. Epps rubbed his neck, shifting on his feet before speaking.
"Sorry man, but we have a situation."
Lennox groaned. "What now? Dammit, I just got to sleep!"
A smile grew on Epps' face. "You can go right back to sleep after I tell you this, if you want. We've got it handled. For the moment." The smile disappeared as he continued, "Look, Lennox, that woman's SWAT team stormed the base a little while ago."
The Major's eyes went wide, and his face showed the shock he felt. "They WHAT?"
Epps sighed, "Yeah."
Lennox shook his head and sat wearily down on his bed before looking back up at Epps. "Sitrep. Tell me everything."
After Epps had finished the entire story, Lennox was feeling a mixture of awe and intense frustration. He couldn't quite believe just how devoted this team was to McWilliams, to go to the trouble of crashing into a freaking army base just to get to her.
"What's the status on McWilliams?"
Epps rubbed his hands together, his eyes flickering to the window with nervousness as the sun rose over the sparse red landscape to the east. "She's not doing so hot. Lennox, this could get bad. I'm talking worst case scenario, we are FUBAR type bad. I don't even want to know how that damn team will riot if shit hits the fan."
"Shit," Lennox exhaled. "All right, keep her team in the brig for now. I need to get a few hours of rest, or I'll be a zombie on my feet. Keep an eye on McWilliams; I'll want a full report when I get up."
"You got it, boss," Epps quickly nodded his head, turned on his heel and left the room.
"Fuck my life." Lennox groaned as he fell back onto the bed. Just how much worse could this week possibly get? And how often would he have to ask himself that same damn question?
Maeve awoke with a startle, spasms rippling through her bruised body as she cried out, the nightmare fading beyond her eyes as reality swirled in front of her.
"No, Thundercracker, please!" She screamed, her eyes darting around, trying desperately to respond to the hellish threat that was no longer there. She didn't recognize where she was. Half-crazed and hysterical, she could feel his dirty claws digging in her flesh; hear her own voice screaming in pain. She was utterly lost in the trauma of her own memories.
Something, or someone, was talking to her in a deep voice, trying to soothe her. Vibrations rattled whatever the hell she was on, causing her to look about even more frantically. The world was a blur; her eyes struggled to focus on the world in front of her.
Still the claws dug in her flesh. She could feel something in her back, digging, biting, twisting. Pain. What was going on?
"Maeve?" A single voice caught her attention, her wild eyes twisting to her side. Metal. Up, and up she stared until she found four calming red eyes.
"Help." Her small and shaking voice surprised her.
"I'm always here. You're safe. He's never going to hurt you again." That same calm voice. The voice that brought her comfort.
Saved her.
Everything rushed back, memory upon memory twisting and crashing until she was overwhelmed. Sobs erupted and her chest heaved as she remembered. She felt like she couldn't breathe, a vise tightening ever so slightly on her heart and lungs. Panic erupted within her, her nerves screaming as flight or fight mode threatened to overtake her.
"Barricade, please. Make it stop." She pleaded with the mech holding her within his clawed hand.
Her twisted voice struck at Barricade's spark. He brought her to his chest, cradling her above his spark. He spoke no words but simply set her down; although his hands still surrounded her, giving her a cradle of protection.
Sobs broke through her, wracking her chest as hot tears streamed down her face. She tried to become as small as she could; equally trying to hide herself from her fear and from her shame at her behavior.
Barricade was silent as he scanned her. Something… was different. Something was off.
He pulled previous scans of Maeve from his memory banks and began to compare those with the scan he had just finished. A touch of alarm began to surge through him as he realized there was something off. He couldn't quite say what it was, but it was there, vaguely, just at the edge. A shimmering sort of wrongness.
Thundercracker had done more than just terrorize Maeve. A surge of white-hot anger rushed through him before he forced himself to calm. Maeve was already terrified and clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress and he certainly didn't need to exacerbate that.
Barricade quietly cycled his vents as he forced his systems to cool to a more manageable level as he looked down upon his charge. Maeve had finally fallen asleep again. He could tell just how restless of a sleep it was for her as she whimpered and tossed and turned.
Barricade mulled over the different scans. His spark twisted uneasily. There was something here and it was far beyond his capability to deal with. It dawned on him slowly that he would have to consult Ratchet.
He huffed in annoyance. The little human in his hands whimpered at the sudden sound, and he straightened. He'd tell Ratchet in a few hours, once Maeve had finally awoken for the day. He didn't want to disturb her anymore and even sending a datapack would send Ratchet into the medbay like a frazzled old woman. Still, worry and fear swirled within Barricade as he counted the minutes passing.
Nearly a day after they had landed, having finally escaped the nasty snowstorm in the Colorado mountains, Optimus woke from his recharge with a weariness that plagued his spark. He wondered how the human woman was doing, and a small part of him worried that she may have not survived however long he had been in recharge. He pressed a hand to his faceplate, a slight groan escaping him. How long had it been since they had returned from that Pit-spawned mission? He struggled internally as his systems seemed to take forever to sync.
The earth day that showed on his internal viewer shocked him. Surely, he had not been in recharge for nearly twenty-four earth hours? Surely, his system must be malfunctioning. He swiftly executed an all-systems check, which told him that indeed the date was correct. His spark immediately sorrowed and alternately surged with a slight anger. How could his Autobots have left him in recharge, when so much was at stake? Didn't they realize the enormity of the situation they were facing?
At nearly the same time, he realized that his Autobots were doing him a favor, and that something must have stabilized with the McWilliams woman while he was recharging.
Optimus Prime rubbed one of his metal hands against his faceplate as he rose from his berth. His spark still ached with worry. He had to know what was going on, immediately. He raised an open comlink with all the Autobots requesting a sitrep. Numerous voices answered him and what he heard, he did not like.
Barricade had told Ratchet as soon as Ratchet came out of his office that something wasn't right with Maeve. The grizzled old medmech groaned and rubbed his hand across his faceplate.
"What now?" He mumbled as he walked over to the medical berth Maeve was resting on.
Ratchet himself did multiple scans and also noticed the same shimmering thing in Maeve's back and how it was twisting and turning intelligently.
"We need to get that thing out of her right now!" Barricade demanded in a low firm voice.
"It certainly looks like we do but I'm not sure how considering it's intertwined with her spinal column. If we remove it wrong it could break her neck or her body and cause cerebral death." Ratchet shot back. He didn't particularly like Barricade being in his medbay telling him what to do.
"She needs it out. NOW!" Barricade bellowed as he felt her own pain in his back and it was becoming excruciating.
A light shimmer of blue began to show on Maeve's still form, above her left chest, and sigils began to shimmer along the dark bruise.
Ratchet and Barricade looked up at each other in amazement.
"Is that…" Barricade's mouthplate dropped open.
"That is Cybertronian symbols from the All Spark." Ratchet took a step back, in awe of what was occurring.
Ratchet and Barricade stared at the human woman uncomfortably as the shimmering blue sigils sent what looked almost like lightning all across her chest.
Her scans were becoming more and more unstable, and the bruise on her chest was beginning to move almost impossibly to her back. The black and blue bruise was beginning to move, covering her chest and crossing around her shoulders to her shoulder blades as she screamed and bolted up, her eyes wide as they could be, her breaths ragged and sharp.
Something was clearly happening, and they had no idea what it could be.
Suddenly there was blood, a cut around her spinal column and a dark metallic small transformer screamed as it spirited away from her, crawling and scratching the metal berth.
Rachet grabbed a wrench, exclaiming, "Oh, no you don't!" and went after the small thing with particular malice as he beat the wrench on the tiny transformer as it screamed pitifully before he finally destroyed it.
Maeve's back arched once, twice, three times before she was out like a light again.
Barricade and Rachet, after making sure the damned thing that had removed itself from her was truly dead, did more scans on her and discovered that their abnormal scans were finally normal.
The bruise on Maeve moved back to her usual scar on her chest. The shimmering blue symbols of written Cybertronian faded as soon as the bruise and scar were back to their usual place.
Barricade and Ratchet stared up at each other in awe. Whatever had just happened was something in Maeve that had protected her from whatever Skywarp and Thundercracker had done to her in a way that they did not quite understand but were quite grateful for.
"Ratchet, that bot you just killed is a mini seeker technology that is placed in the target and used for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering and has the ability to kill. What Maeve has in her protected her from the intrusion into her body from the foreign seeker bot."
Ratchet nodded in disbelief.
Barricade continued, his words low, "What she has in her is my mission. And to protect her."
"Already got that, boy."
Barricade snarled. "No, you don't. Maeve has what is left of the All Spark in her chest and it has been mutating inside her and keeping Maeve and itself alive for the protection of both of our species. Prowl and I were both given the mission from the All Spark itself at Mission City. Only a twin-bonded set of Cybertronians can contain the power within her and protect her from threats as it prepares itself to save our species'. It chose Prowl and I, as daft as that sounds, considering my being a Decepticon and he being an Autobot."
There was utter silence in the medbay until Ratchet dropped his wrench.
"You're being serious." Ratchet said skeptically.
"Yes, I am." Barricade said quietly.
Ratchet realized they had to tell Optimus immediately. And Barricade was going to have to be part of this conversation. Ratchet summoned Jolt to the medbay and told him to watch over Maeve and Prowl, who was still recovering.
"Barricade, we need to tell Optimus about this. Are you recovered enough to do so?" Ratchet asked, a worried look on his faceplate.
Barricade stood, looking down at Maeve, before he spoke. "Yes, I will speak to Prime."
"Then it is time."
Optimus arrived to the lead hanger and suddenly received a barrage of voices and yelling coming his way. He held his hands up to silence the group assembled before him.
"Please, quiet. One at a time." His deep voice rang out through the hangar.
Red Alert, Epps and Lennox stepped forward.
Lennox scrambled to speak before Red Alert. "Optimus, we had a security breach on the base. Maeve McWilliams' SWAT team decided it would be a good idea to breach the base looking for her. They are all now in the brig and behaving themselves, for the most part."
Optimus raised a hand to his faceplate and shook his head.
Lennox cleared his throat and Optimus looked at him. "Also, Optimus, sir, Red Alert had shot at the human SWAT team while they were in custody at the gate and there are now multiple holes in the gate and the fence line there and some repairs will need to be done on those as well as the pavement on the road."
Optimus began to glare heavily at Red Alert who cast his optics downward so he could not see how Optimus was looking at him.
"Red Alert." Optimus said his name ominously. Red Alert finally lifted his head and barely squeaked out a 'yes'.
"Red Alert, you are to take multiple soldiers and construction equipment and repair all the damage immediately. I do not want this base to be compromised because you shot first and asked questions later. Now, go."
Red Alert saluted and rushed away from the hangar. Optimus watched him go and then turned around slowly to the remaining Autobots and human soldiers, and to his utter surprise, Barricade was there as well, mostly standing but also leaning against a wall when he needed to. It was clear the police Decepticon was still in need of healing and recharge, but he certainly looked better than how he had looked on the alpine battlefield.
Ratchet stepped forward and waved to Barricade to step forward as well. Ratchet had to help him walk and keep him steady which certainly caused a lot of uncertain stares and uncomfortable looks between the other humans and Autobots.
"Well, Ratchet? What's going on?"
"Prime, we have news of the woman. She's alive and mostly stable, but something has happened that you must be aware of. Barricade, tell Optimus what you know."
Barricade leaned on Ratchet's arm and cycled his vents. This was not going to be easy.