Transformers-Revenge of the Fallen

by Alan Dean Foster

  “I am Captain L. W. Wilder, commanding the U.S.S. Roosevelt. I repeat—identify yourself. Who is this, what are you talking about, and how did you get on this frequency?”

  “You telling me no one knows what’s goin’ on here but me? That I’m the only guy on the ground talking to you?” A brief pause, then, “Okay, listen up. This is Agent Seymour Simmons, Sector Seven! Never heard of it? There’s a reason! Now you wanna have a verbal throw-down about my lack of clearance, or you wanna help me save about a gazillion lives!”

  Wilder struggled to digest what he was hearing. Quite possibly nothing but the ravings of some lu­natic who had somehow hacked the command frequency and was having his little joke at the captain’s expense. Or ... A number of “lunatic” occurrences lately had resulted in thousands of deaths. Like every officer and enlisted man in the navy, the loss of the Lincoln remained uppermost in his mind. Further­more, they were presently operating under a Red Alert. In the past, lunacy and Red Alerts had often turned out to be connected.

  He decided to take a chance. If he was wrong, he would only come off looking like a fool.

  If he was right. ..

  “All right, ‘Agent’ Simmons,” he said into the pickup, “I’m listening.”

  The static seemed to clear slightly, as if the radio was steadying—or the hand holding it was.

  “We got ourselves an alien remodeling a pyramid. What you need to know is that if he finishes the job, a whole lotta everybody is gonna wish more attention had been paid to—well, no time for that now. I’ve studied these things, okay? Our best hope at this point is a prototype weapon, a rail gun. Shoots a steel projectile at Mach Seven. Bombs and missiles these guys’ll be looking for, but a rail gun slug might come in under their radar. You carry some on your destroy­ers now.”

  Wilder stood straighter, glanced sideways at his ex­ecutive officer, and moved his lips closer to the pickup so he could lower his voice. “That information is— classified, mister.”

  “You can call me ‘mister,’ ” the highly excitable voice shot back, “but don’t talk to me about ‘classi­fied.’ My father, Felix Simmons, invented the word. If you got a suitably equipped ship in the Gulf, which I suspect you do, tell ’em to ready that weapon. I’ll radio exact targeting coordinates in T-minus five!”

  Nothing but static followed the mysterious trans­mitter’s last words. Wilder looked over at the nearest comm officer.

  “Channel’s still open. He’s just not talking. What— what are your orders, Sir?”

  Wilder considered. He had listened. Now he had to decide whether or not to commit. The whole battle group would be waiting on his decision.

  “Get me Captain Jackson, on the Zumwalt.”

  Coming in low and fast over the Jordanian coast, the Reaper was shooting video even before it crossed the shoreline. Moments later it was sending pictures to a low-flying satellite that was linked directly to Soccent headquarters in Dubai. That station in turn further encrypted the images and relayed them back to Washington via a routing that was not being mon­itored or controlled by the orbiting Soundwave.

  Cries and exclamations arose unbidden in the Joint Ops room as the peaceful view of the tranquil village in Jordan was replaced by black-and-white images of carnage and chaos. A few men and women rose from their seats to yell at the monitors or at those seated next to them. Morshower’s reaction was no less heated.

  “Shit, it’s a trickl Send everyone! Get the marines from the battle group in the air and on that ground as fast as possible. Tell General Fassad to move his armor south—and somebody let the Israelis and the Saudis know what’s going on so they won’t get the wrong idea! Whatever ground assets they can give us—bring them!”

  From the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, from Amman to Cairo, forces were set in motion. The Decepticon threat knew no borders, and as soon as the requests that were coming were verified, the armed forces of multiple governments began to respond proportion­ately.

  But it took time to get armor and aircraft in mo­tion.

  Meanwhile, Sam and Mikaela were dealing with fire and destruction all out of proportion to anything they had encountered before, including at Mission City. At times it seemed as if the ground itself had vanished, to be replaced by gouts of flame and geysers of earth and pulverized stone. The American and British NEST troops were literally a stone’s throw away, but the barrage beneath which they were presently hunkered down made any notion of rising and running toward them suicidal.

  They remained pinned down for some time, until a new sound made itself heard above the ongoing struggle. Lifting his head, Sam strained to wipe grit from his eyes. Something was coming up behind the remaining soldiers. At first he thought it was another Decepticon. As the shape drew nearer, he wasn’t so sure. Looking to his left he muttered to Mikaela, choking slightly as he did so on the swirl of acrid fumes that now permeated the town.

  “Is that—is that a tank?”

  The clanking interloper did not change shape, either to Decepticon or Autobot. Instead, it parked it­self behind the uneven line of NEST soldiers. As it did so, a single figure detached itself from cover to race over to the massive war machine.

  “Let the world know we’re here!” Lennox shouted

  up to the gunner crouched low within the top hatch. “We got a dozen Black Dragons laying siege to this place!” Turning, he gestured with the muzzle of his own weapon. “Gonna need cover to reach civilians down by those pillars!”

  The gunner above nodded to him. “Marines got you covered, Major!”

  Rattling up behind the first tank, others spread out in line abreast. While internal communications shut­tled back and forth, turrets swiveled and cannon were brought to bear. As a pair of Decepticons closed in on the two trapped teens, sabot fire erupted from the muzzles of the half dozen parked and ready Abram­ses. The heavy barrage did not destroy the enemy— but it certainly gave the two robots pause, slowed them down, and distracted them.

  That was enough for Lennox and Epps. Together, they charged out from behind their cover and zigzagged at top speed toward the line of pillars. Though both men dove for the ground as soon as they reached their objective, Lennox still had wind enough to grin up at Sam.

  “Hey, kid. Long time. Tell me you got what you came for.”

  Sam’s expression was as explicatory as his words. “Where’s Optimus?”

  Rolling to a sitting position, Lennox gestured back the way he had come. “First we’ve got to get you out of here. Couple of hundred yards across that courtyard, then we make a break for the beach on my sig­nal. Optimus—we’ll deal with him later.”

  Reaching into a pocket, Sam silently pulled out the sock full of black sand. Lennox glanced at the sock, saw nothing worthy of comment, then raised his eyes back to the teen’s face. Mikaela was watching both of them expectantly.

  “Look, there’s an air support attack coming.” Lennox put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “We can’t sit here and wait for it. You need to stick right behind me—understand?”

  Sam blinked and looked up. This was not what he had come all this way for, but—there was Mikaela, staring at him, waiting for him to make a decision. Turning back to the officer, he nodded, his lips tight­ening. At a gesture from Epps, they all rose and started to run southward.

  They made it only a few strides before a big Decep­ticon stepped out right in front of them.

  Howling defiance, Lennox and Epps opened up on the monster that was blocking their way. Their small- arms fire did not even slow it. One hand thrust for­ward, reaching for Sam.

  It never touched him.

  Landing atop the startled Decepticon with both arm weapons aimed straight downward, Jetfire pro­ceeded to blow the foe to pieces before it knew what had happened. Touching down, the old Decepticon silently regarded the quartet of staring humans. He could not smile, but a creaky hand lifted slowly in greeting was evocation enough.

  Seconds later an entirely different kind of Decepti­con eru
pted from the ground beneath him to plunge a restored and regenerated tail straight through Jetfire’s chest.

  Skorponok had not shown himself in a very long time, a stunned Lennox knew.

  Roaring in pain, Jetfire reached down and with strength born of desperation and memory, ripped the impaling Decepticon’s arachnoid head clean off its body and flung it aside. Both hands then dropped to wrench free the skewering tail and body. Heaving these in the opposite direction was all the aged De­cepticon could manage. Falling to one knee, he stared down at himself. Through the gaping hole in his chest could be seen a blinking, sputtering spark.

  Green smoke rose skyward from the far side of the courtyard: the signal. Radio clasped to his ear, Epps yelled confirmation back toward his companions.

  “Coming in hot in forty seconds!”

  Jetfire looked up, his voice subdued, his posture downcast. “So many memories. So many wasted lives. Run, my friends! Get to safety.”

  Distant from the ongoing action in miles but not in perception, the crew of the AWACS plane went about their business with the somber efficiency for which they were noted.

  “Slayer One-Six, this is Top Hat. F-18s inbound, B-ls fifteen seconds behind you—you are cleared hot.”

  Four B-l bombers sped up the length of the Gulf no more than a hundred feet above the calm blue water. From another direction, ten F-18s off the Roosevelt approached. Their target was the same.

  On the edge of the abandoned village, the marine tanks were already pulling back. Not retreating, but accelerating toward cover. Across the battered and blasted empty space between them and the line of standing pillars, Lennox looked over at his young charges.

  “When I give the word, do not stop running— we’ve got seconds to clear! Everybody with me?”

  Sam and Mikaela nodded. Now was not the time for questioning.

  Epps yelled as loudly as he could. “Incoming! Go! ”

  Lennox was already on his feet. “Go go go! ”

  As they raced after the retreating tank battalion, the two soldiers let loose with their magazines while the backward rumbling Abramses barraged the milling Decepticons to try and occupy their attention. A few explosions erupted around the quartet of flee­ing humans, but the bulk of Decepticon fire was di­rected at the more distant and far more threatening human war machines.

  The break in the heavy fire around him allowed Sam to get a glimpse of a shape off to his right. Some­thing large and massive and motionless. Without breaking stride, knowing what he had to do, he veered off sharply in the direction of what he had es­pied.

  “Sam!” Mikaela didn’t slow. As she tried to join him she ran into Epps, who half pushed, half carried her onward.

  “Kid, no!” Lennox yelled.

  Missiles launched from the oncoming F-18s began to arrive and slam into the Decepticons who now towered over the rubble that had been the town. Sam did as Lennox had advised him: he did not stop running. It was just that he was not running in the direc­tion the major had specified.

  From on high came a whistling sound: a one-ton bomb dropped by one of the B-ls. The blast wave from the cratering explosion knocked Sam off his feet. His face bloodied, he was back up and running as soon as he recovered from the initial shock. Behind him there was now only black smoke and debris still falling out of the sky. That, and something that was emerging from the wall of smoke. A tank shape—but not Abrams, not marine.

  Megatron.

  Halfway to the recumbent body of Optimus, a shell tore up the ground near Sam’s feet and sent him fly­ing. Megatron adjusted his weapon, taking aim at the lone figure sprawled facedown in the dirt. But his ap­pearance had drawn the attention not only of the troops on the ground but also of the recently arrived aircraft circling overhead in search of new targets. Pounded by the humans from all directions, the De­cepticon leader was forced to change shape and take to the air in order to save himself.

  Breaking free from Lennox, Mikaela ran toward where Sam had fallen. As she dropped to her knees beside him she called his name. It had always brought a smile, a twitch, usually accompanied by some wise- ass remark no matter how badly he was hurt or how exhausted.

  Not this time. He didn’t move.

  “Sam—Sami Wake up! Please wake up!”

  She could see his face. His eyes were half open, but this time they did not focus on her. She passed her hand over them, close. He did not blink.

  Moments later, Lennox was at her side again. Reaching down, he ripped open Sam’s shirt and pressed an ear to the teen’s dirt-smeared chest. Straightening, he yelled back the way he had come.

  “I need medevac here now! No pulse!”

  The chopper with the red cross on its side set down beside them with commendable speed. Medics sur­rounded the body as Lennox pulled Mikaela aside. Paddles were slapped against Sam’s chest and his body convulsed as current from the defibrillator shot through him. Another medic jabbed a liquid-filled needle into an arm and rejuvenating fluid was forced into his bloodstream.

  Shoving the defibrillator paddles aside, the medic in charge began pounding on Sam’s chest. One-two- three—he counted and repeated the action several times. Each time the result was the same. Wiping sweat from his face, he looked up at Lennox, then over at Mikaela. It was time for the most difficult mo­tion of all.

  He shook his head, slowly.

  Tears streaming down her face, Mikaela fell for­ward onto the unmoving body. “Please come back to me, Sam. I—I love you. I love you so much. Come back to me.”

  Others were gathering as the Decepticons were slowly forced back from the town. NEST soldiers, marines, and fighters who were not human. Ironhide and Ratchet, the badly wounded Jetfire, and most prominently a distinctive black-and-yellow figure that had dropped down on all fours.

  Reaching out with one hand, forefinger extended, Bumblebee traced the air above the face of his friend.

  Then the gleaming metal digit shifted sideways, to where one hand lay sprawled palm upward toward the desert sun. The clenched fingers were clutching a sock. A steady trickle of black sand fell from it, mim­icking the line of blood that was seeping from a cor­ner of the young man’s mouth. The rest of the sand had already spilled from the torn fabric to lie dark and meaningless against the paler grains beneath.

  White light, so bright it was almost blinding. Sam blinked against it but was unable to shut it out en­tirely. Around him lightning flashed, somehow more intense than the white glare from which it emerged. Images from his life frozen in time sparked briefly into existence around him only to vanish as swiftly as they had appeared. His vision cleared slightly.

  Just enough to allow him to make out the singular exoskeletal entities that drifted in a circle around him.

  A voice was speaking within the eddy of light: his own. He hardly recognized it.

  “Where am I? Am I dead?”

  “We are The Dynasty of Primes,” one of the shapes murmured. “We have been watching you. For a long time—by your measure.”

  Sam shook his head. At least he thought he did. He had no sense of movement, no feeling in his extremi­ties. “Watching—meV

  “You do not yet know the full truth of your past,” declared another of the spectral figures sympatheti­cally. “Or your future.”

  “I don’t understand,” he murmured.

  “You will.” There was the impression of smiling, but not of humor.

  “The Matrix of Leadership is a force capable of great good,” explained still a fourth shape. “Or great destruction. You have proven worthy of it. First, by sacrifice. Now, through courage.”

  “Most notably, you did not seek this power,” added a fifth. “You wish for it only to help others. These are the virtues of a true leader. The Matrix of Leadership is yours. “

  His thoughts were as cloudy as the ether in which he found himself floating. What were they saying? Could they possibly be talking about him? Samuel Witwicky?

  “But I don’t understand. It’s dust, that’s all. San
d. There’s nothing left.”

  “Determination brought you this far,” said a sixth of the twelve. “Don’t lose it now.”

  Another flash of lightning, directly in front of him, drew his attention. His lips parted, but no sound came from his mouth. The flash silhouetted a vision of Mikaela. She was holding him, crying atop his own body. His dead body.

  “Sam, I love you ... come back to me .. .”

  He took the deepest breath he had ever taken in his life.

  His pupils dilated so rapidly that the one medic still lingering over him fell backward. Blinking, Sam stared up at Mikaela. Shocked, but ultimately re­lieved, she embraced him while still crying. He strug­gled to make his mouth and larynx and lungs all work in harmony. It required a tremendous effort to render the three words audibly. The effort was worth­while.

  “I love you.” This time he was able to hear himself.

  So focused on the unexpected, impossible resurrec­tion were those around him that no one noticed the slight gust of wind that had sprung up. Whipping across the ground, hugging close to the surface, it began to swirl the sand. But only the sand lying close beside Sam’s right hand, and only the grains that were a deep, deep black.

  Something was welding them together. A shape was taking place. Metallic, with a crystal somehow embedded intact in its heart.

  Rolling over, Sam gripped the dagger shape that had appeared beside his torn sock. Gripping the alien metal tightly, he rose from where he had been lying dead and began to walk, then to run. Not knowing what was happening, Lennox and the others fol­lowed. Not caring what was happening, so did a joy­ful Mikaela.

  Up on the motionless metal hand Sam climbed, then the arm, until finally he was standing in the cen­ter of Optimus’s broad chest. Searching the gleaming surface beneath his feet he found no slot, no opening of the right size and shape. Behind him the battle raged on, surging back and forth as first the humans and their Autobot allies, then the Decepticons gained the upper hand. There was no time to wait for advice, no way to ask another what he should do. Then he realized that he already knew. He had done this be­fore, with an opposite goal in mind. He had taken a spark.