Nightmares and Monsters - 2007/2009 Movie based

[Sunstar]

Chapter One

Qatar - Middle East, 2007

Captain Caliene Meredith sighed as she made her way over to the rest of her squad, she was tired, dirty, and wanted nothing more than to have a warm shower and just sleep on her cot in her shared tent for the next 72 hours (She shared a tent with the only other 8 females on the base, and they were either Medical or Communications personnel).

Captain Lennox was getting everyone ready for the airlift back to base after a grueling two weeks out in the deserts of Qatar looking for any problems from the locals that had been reported in to the US SOCCENT Base they were currently working out of.

She walked over to the Commander of the squad; the sound of incoming V-22 Osprey's cheering her up somewhat. "Hey Lennox, looks like the birds are here, everyone is ready to head on back to base, and I really want to put my baby away clean into the armory, this sand just doesn't help her any." she said as she patted her M-24 SWS, it was possibly the only thing she could stake her life on other than her squad and Lennox.

Lennox looked at her and smiled, "Yeah, well this blasted sand doesn't do much for any of our weapons let alone where it gets into the uniforms, Cali. And don't worry about your baby," he said pointing at her weapon, "I know you'll get the chance to clean her right, but after you help me with the reports for the Colonel, all right?" he asked, a slight smirk on his face as he waited for her response - it was well known that Caliene hated paperwork with a vengeance.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Sir! Just wait 'til I write to Sarah about your jokes on the squad when you're bored out of your mind on a mission. Not something she would want to hear, now is it William?" she replied with an evil smirk on her face now - they were constantly bickering back and forth about stuff (all in the name of fun), but it kept everyone from going stir crazy on these missions, Spec-Ops teams were hard working almost all of the time, and it wasn't unheard of for a few to go completely insane either from the pressure of the job or just because they couldn't handle the solitude at times.

Caliene knew all about solitude, she was the only female in this squad, but she was the best damned Sniper they had, and she was good at hand-to-hand fights also. It didn't hurt the fact that she knew some of the languages of the surrounding areas.

Now, here they were loading up the last few pieces of their gear, she looked around trying to figure out who was missing as she watched everyone else climb aboard the V-22 Osprey. Lennox turned to her and whistled. "Hey what ya waiting for Cali, get in here, they wanna leave and if I don't mind saying so, so do I." he said after she looked at him.

"Hang on a second, Lennox we're missing someone again, care to take a guess as to whom?" she asked him as she turned her attention back to a small patch of hillocks about 10 feet away.

"Oh let me guess, either Fig or Epps. And my money is on Epps, and I am guessing you are betting it's Fig?" came his response.

She looked at Lennox, nodded and walked forward towards the Osprey then looked back and yelled over her shoulder, "Anyone who wants out of this sandbox needs to be here in the next 20 seconds and onboard before we either make you walk back to base with all of your gear or sling you from the undercarriage of the Osprey, your choice!" Both she and Lennox laughed when they heard a yelp and cursing in Spanish, yep, definitely Fig, she grinned as Lennox handed her a twenty dollar bill. But the question remained where was Epps? That thought was answered when she reached the seating area of the bird and saw Epps coming out of the cockpit and sitting on the opposite side from her.

Donnely was sat down the same side as Epps, who now had his iPod plugged into one ear and listening to some of his music, she smiled at Donnely seeing as he was younger than her and the others maybe mid-twenties by her guess, whereas everyone else in the squad was late-twenties to mid-thirties, he was sat cradling his rifle almost like she did her M-24, as if it was the most important thing in his world - to most of them it was, they either lived or died with that weapon, he smiled at her as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, she nodded at him in return and settled down to think.

Soon after takeoff a conversation was struck up by Fig and Caliene just sat back to enjoy the ribbing that would happen to him.

"Oh God, five months of this. I can't wait to get a little taste of home. A plate of mama's alligators etouffee."

"You've been talking about barbequed 'gators and crickets for the past two weeks. I'm never going to your mama's house, Fig. I promise." Epps' reply came as he shuddered a little at the thought of crickets being eaten or any bug for that matter.

"But Bobby, Bobby, 'gators are known to have the most succulent meat." came Fig's comeback.

Caliene just shook her head as the conversation kept going, "I understand." was all Epps said as Fig kept on going just this time he had switched back into his native tongue of Spanish. Caliene reached over and slapped Fig on the back of his head as Epps smirked slightly at that and said "English, please. English."

It was after Epps said that that Lennox went on to add, "I mean, how many times have we…. We don't speak Spanish. I told you that." Caliene was trying her damnedest to not laugh, especially since she could speak Spanish, but they all liked to tease Fig about it - it boosted morale for the rest of the squad.

It was then that Fig came back at them with his favorite response: "Why you got to ruin it for me, man? That's my heritage." then he started rattling off in Spanish again, making Caliene snort with suppressed mirth as she understood what he was saying, Lennox looked at her one eyebrow raised in question, and she mouthed back to him that she would tell him later what was said by Fig.

So Lennox decided to respond to Fig's Spanish outburst again, "Go with the Spanish. Whatever."

Donnely decided that he was going to add something to the conversation by asking, "Hey, you guys remember weekends? Huh? The Sox at Fenway; Cold hotdog and flat beer."

Fig answered this time in English, "Perfect day. What about you Captain? You got a perfect day?" he aimed at Lennox, knowing as we all did he was still highly strung about his wife and baby girl back stateside.

"I just can't wait to hold my baby girl for the first time." Lennox said as he tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling of the Osprey. "He's adorable." came Fig's laughing tone closely followed by Epps' "That's too…." just to have Lennox face them and tell them "Shut up!" with a smirk.

Caliene just nodded at him until he asked her what her perfect day would be. She looked shocked but she had to be honest she really hadn't thought about it all that much, the Military was her career since she graduated High School, and after 10 years of service she was thinking of re-upping that fall for another five years, gotta love being in an all Military backed family - Dad was Navy, Mom was Air Force, and her, well she was Army all the way - SpecOps no less and of only a handful of women in the group made her folks proud that did.

"My perfect day…. Hmmm, never really thought on it that much guys, but I guess I could say spending down time stateside with Mom and Dad, go fishing, or even make it home for Deer Season - get that 10 point that's been running around the pastures, maybe give you guys some of the Venison." Caliene replied as she saw their eyes widen at the mention of hunting and the possibility of fresh Venison - men they all think with either their guts or their little heads.

They heard over the intercom from the cockpit that they would be landing in about 45 minutes and to make sure everyone and everything was strapped in for landing. Caliene was so looking forward to that shower now, maybe some real food and not MRE's like the past few weeks - they could get rather boring after a while, so Lennox and Caliene checked over everyone and everything and then strapped themselves back in for the landing. Caliene just wasn't looking forward to the paperwork that was awaiting them once they landed, and apparently, Lennox thought the same thing as he cringed - great minds think alike.

End Chapter One

Chapter Two

US SOCCENT Airbase, Qatar

Outside

Caliene's POV

After the landing and disembarking from the V-22's we all headed over to the trucks that had been sent to collect us and take us back to 'Tent City' as it was known. As we got closer you could hear the music blasting in the background, someone had some Rap music playing out of a radio and had it hooked up to the PA system, just hope the Colonel doesn't find out or someone will be on KP (Kitchen Patrol, which is peeling an overbearing amount of potatoes) duty, not something I would want, drives you bonkers it does (shudders).

As the trucks came to a stop we all climbed out and headed to our respective areas, Epps headed straight for the Ball Court and started playing against what looked like a Newbie, boy was he gonna loose, especially against Epps - guy played Basketball in college, but decided to join the Air Force after he graduated, guy could have gone pro, he's just that good.

"Hey I'm ready to do this." he said as he shucked off his jacket, "Hey, any of y'all grow some balls, come see me on the court, man." he yelled to us as he played.

I shook my head and yelled back, "Sorry, Epps, gonna have to do a rain check on that match. Some of us have paperwork and such to actually take care of here, can't all be slackers!" making him miss the basket and making the others laugh, and getting a "Hey, hey!" from Lennox as he glared at Epps.

I watched as Sgt. Burke went to the rudimentary open-air shower and pushed other soldiers aside, by saying "Step aside, ladies." much to their consternation and yelling of "Hey, Man." I laughed he was a great guy to have in the squad, almost as gun happy as I was - except he actually slept with his rifle on his cot, this bit of info coming from Lennox, so the intel should be accurate.

I went and cleaned up, placed my M-24 on my bunk and left a note for the others in the tent to leave be since she was going to be cleaned when I got back from doing paperwork (I hate paperwork!) Then grabbing my clipboard, pen and the report forms to be filled in I headed on over to Lennox, we could suffer this together. On my way there I met up with the young lad that had all but adopted our squad, Mahfouz, "Hey, Cali, have you seen Lennox?" he asked me as I walked up to him smiling, he's a good kid, always willing to do anything for us, even getting our water packs filled ready for our next recon and such.
"Yes I have, Mahfouz, follow me and you'll be able to give him his water pack, alright?" I said to him, he grinned up at me, handed me my water pack and then started to jog in front a little ways, stopping every so often to make sure I was following and that we were going in the right direction. We finally made it over to Lennox and I gently tapped on Mahfouz's shoulder and pointed at Lennox who was busy writing up some of his report, Mahfouz smirked and ran over yelling "Lennox!" that got Lennox's attention as he looked up and smiled.

"Hey, what are you doing?" asked Lennox as he looked between me and Mahfouz.

"Me? I'm just doing some of the paperwork we all despise so much and wondered if you'd like the company." I replied as I sat opposite him on another crate and started in on the essentials of the report.

"Water?" asked Mahfouz as he handed Lennox his water pouch and smiled widely.

"Thank you. Are you gonna help with the gear?" asked Lennox as he stood up and stretched out a kink in his back, then turned to face me and Mahfouz. "You gonna come with us, Cali? If I remember correctly you still have an M-24 that needs some TLC before we turn in for the night." he asked as he took the offered water pouch again from Mahfouz and took a quick swig of the cool stuff.

"Yeah alright, and then once my rifle is clean I'll collect your report and mine together and hand them in to Colonel Sharp at the Ops Center." I said as I too stood up and headed on out with the pair to the tents we called home for now, so that I could do what was needed. It was going to be a long day from start to finish, I just never realized just how long or how bad it was going to be.

Later, after helping Lennox and Mahfouz with the gear for our squad, I went and spent a good couple of hours cleaning my rifle - a clean rifle is a working life saving rifle (the life of me and my squad, anyway.)

After all that I headed over to the tents that the rest of the squad used as a home out here, and collected Lennox's report as offered earlier. Once I had our reports I headed over to the Ops Center beneath and to one side of the Control Tower to hand them in to Colonel Sharp, a fair but strict man who had the respect from almost everyone on his base. As I handed over the reports I heard a (from his number of three arm stripes) Senior Airman say: "Colonel Sharp, we have an inbound unidentified infiltrator, ten miles out."

Colonel Sharp looked at him and then me as I nodded that I understood he needed to see to this as he reached over and grabbed one of the radios.

"Unidentified aircraft, you are in restricted US Military Airspace. Squawk ident and proceed out of the area." he said to the pilot of the aircraft, before relaying a request on another frequency to the airstrip. "Raptors one and two, snap to heading two-five-zero to intercept. Bogie is in the weeds ten miles out, not squawking." This meant that two Raptors were going to identify the intruder incase it was one of ours having radio problems, if not they would be dealt with.

Sharp looked at the radio, nodded and switched back to the frequency used to contact the unidentified aircraft. "Unidentified aircraft, we will escort you to US SOCCENT airbase. If you do not comply, we will use deadly force." After he said that we all waited to see what would happen. Huh… this had possibly been the most action we had all experienced since we set up here.

"Copy the bogie. Tail 4500 X-ray." came the response from one of the pilots over the radio. The Senior Airman had been going over a print out of the details for the identified bogie for the past five minutes before he turned to Colonel Sharp and I and said "Sir, Ma'am, says here 4500X was shot down three months ago. Afghanistan." I shuddered lightly, that had been a bad intel operation, causing the loss of some fine men and one of our Helicopters.

"There's got to be a mistake. Check again, then recheck." said Colonel Sharp as he looked at the Senior Airman slightly bemused, hell even I wished that the crew were alive and well, but since we hadn't heard or seen any indication that they were they were listed as MIA/KIA. One thing I never wanted my folks to go through ever.

"I did sir, A friend of mine was on that chopper." came the response from the Senior Airman, I could see that it hurt him to say this, must have been a close friend to him then.
As we stood, there we heard one of the pilots talk over the radio. "Unidentified aircraft, we will escort you to US SOCCENT Airbase." Colonel sharp then turned to the Airman at the Radar terminal and asked, "Radar, where's the inbound?"

The Airman just looked at Colonel Sharp before answering, "Bogie's five miles out, sir."

'Hmmm,' I wondered, 'that would make their arrival time shortly before dark, which means the flood lights will need to be switched to face the landing area near the Control Tower.'

Colonel Sharp looked between me and the Airman, "I'll be up in the Tower for when the bogie arrives, I want to confirm this thing really is 4500X myself." he said and headed up the stairs to the main room of the Control Tower. I just hoped that it was going to be a quiet evening, but knowing the 'Powers of Worse,' it wasn't to be.

End Chapter Two

[Sunstar]

Chapter Three

US SOCCENT Base, Qatar

Middle East, 2007

Control Tower

Colonel Sharp was watching out of the observation windows of the Control Tower with his set of binoculars as the bogie flew by to the designated landing area. "4500 X. Something's not right." came the response to what he had verified with his own eyes, there was something not quite right about that Helicopter but he could not for the life of him figure out what it was.

He watched as some of his Security personnel went to surround the Helicopter when it landed. "Bogie's on the deck." came the voice over the PA System. Colonel Sharp watched with interest as the scene played out as trained.

Meanwhile back in the main control room below the Tower, another Senior Airman noticed something weird with the terminals. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Radar's jammed. It's coming from the chopper." as he turned and picked up the phone next to him to contact the Colonel upstairs. "Sir, we have interference coming from the chopper that is messing with our Radar, we need them to power everything down to stop this." he said as he updated the Colonel on what was happening.

"Thank you, Airman. Keep us posted on anything else that happens." said Colonel Sharp as he hung up the phone and grabbed the mic for the PA System. "MH-53 Pilot, power down now." he watched as the Helicopter blades slowed as it powered it's engines down.

"Have your crew step out or we will kill you." said Colonel Sharp over the PA System, as his men readied their weapons.

As soon as Colonel Sharp had said that, the Helicopter rotors stopped completely and suddenly, then with a move he had never seen before the Helicopter started to break apart and rearrange it's parts till it stood up as something he didn't recognize as other than some sort of robot. By now his troops were shooting at whatever this thing was. "My, God!" was all he could come up with as what happened next left him speechless.

The robot-looking thing started firing at his troops and then he heard a high-pitched whine before ducking as he saw a pale blue pulse wave heading straight out in a circle from the robot. Part of the wave hit the Control Tower breaking the windows out, by now Colonel Sharp was heading down into the main computer area of the building and was now trying to evacuate all the remaining personnel that were there.

Just as he was yelling orders to the remaining personnel the roof of the building was removed and a giant robotic hand attached itself to the Base mainframe, he knew this was not good. "Go! Move! Move!" he yelled to everyone there as he paused by one of the computer terminals, what he saw made his blood freeze; the robot - type - thing was downloading files from the DOD Mainframe, he caught a glimpse of a file with S7 on it and looked up as he heard the robot screech something he couldn't decipher.

"It's going after the files! Cut the hard lines!" he yelled to everyone who was running to get out of there. One Senior Airman - probably the same one from earlier, Colonel Sharp's mind suggested - yelled out "I need a key! It's locked!" as he yanked on a huge padlock holding the power lever secure.

Colonel Sharp looked around and grabbed a fire axe off of a nearby wall, running over to where the Senior Airman was standing and having him move out if the way. Colonel Sharp then proceeded to hack away at the main power lines to the mainframe and computer terminals. By this time Caliene had run out of the building to her tent for her weapon and pack and was now looking for Lennox and the rest of her squad.

Caliene's POV

I hoped beyond all hope that Colonel Sharp would survive this attack, he was a great CO to have and no one had anything negative to say about him, he was a fair but just CO - huh, wish all CO's were like that, he must be one of the few decent ones.

I had managed to get back to my tent, grab my M-24 and shoved a few MRE's into my pockets on my jacket and TAC vest, with some extra clips of ammo. Now I was running trying to find Lennox and the rest of the squad, I ducked just in time to see an M-1 Tank fly low over my head and then land on top of a couple of Jeeps, whatever this thing was, was out to destroy our base and so far was doing a damned good job.

I finally spotted Lennox, Mahfouz, Fig and Burke near another cluster of M-1 Tanks, hiding underneath the front portion where there was a slight overhang. I watched as Fig went to grab his gun from his back where he had obviously been carrying it, when I heard "No!" screamed, looking around I spotted Epps with a digital recorder aimed at the thing as he was laid out on the sand between the robots feet, I hope he got enough footage because I doubt anyone would believe we were attacked by a giant robot that had been a Helicopter.

What happened next shocked me as much as it apparently scared Epps, the robot morphed a fricking huge canon out of its chest area. Epps was still scampering backwards away from the robot whilst recording the thing on the digital recorder, I guess he thought that he was done for when I noticed a signal flare hit the robot near its face; good idea that since it was night out the robot had to be using some kind of night vision to see us or thermal imaging, which meant that a flare could screw it up really easy, enough so that we could get the heck out of dodge.

I watched from where I was positioned at and saw Lennox head on over to grab Epps, so to help out I too fried off a couple of flares at the towering robot, the darn thing had to stand an easy 25 - 30 ft tall. I didn't move from my spot till I heard Lennox yell "Epps, let's go!" and all but hauled him up by his shirt collar. As I headed towards Lennox, Epps and Fig who had by now met up again with Mahfouz and Burke, I turned around to see the robot spread what had been its propeller blades on its back and launch something out to hit the sand behind it. I was definitely not going to hang around to find out what that thing was either so I sped up and caught up with Lennox and the guys.

I told Lennox what I had observed before mentioning that since that thing was at the south-east end of our base that we head of to the north end and try and find some sort of safe spot to rest and regroup. We all hoped that others had survived this attack and that whoever was responsible for it was now in for major can of whoop-ass coming their way; failure was not an option for us at all.

End Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Somewhere in the Desert of Qatar - A full day after the Attack on SOCCENT Base.

Lennox's squad had been walking at a fast clip for a full day into the desert of Qatar, and already a few of the squad were complaining about the lack of water and food they had on what packs had been salvaged from the base whilst they were escaping from the destruction that that huge robot-thing had caused.

They were moving between the sand dunes and large boulders, guns at the ready as they tried to find a safe spot to rest, that had some shade and water. Finally after four hours of scouring the sand and boulders they made it to the top of a large sand hillock with an old disused tank sat on it, those who could find shade from its hulking mass did so, whilst Epps, Lennox, Caliene and Burke were talking and keeping watch out around the base of the tank whereas Fig was sat on the top keeping lookout from the high part of the remaining part of the turret.

"I've never seen a weapon's system like this. The thermal shows this weird aura around the exoskeleton like it's cloaked by some sort of invisible force field." said Epps as he finished looking through the shots he managed to get of the robot-thing before handing it off to Lennox.

"That's impossible. There's no such thing as invisible force fields except in, like, comic books stuff, right?" commented Donnely as he glanced down at us from his spot on top of the tank with Fig.

"Hey Donnely? Where the blazes do you think the writers got the ideas from in the first place? Think about it, the Government and Military have been working on secret stuff out in Area 51 since the mid-40's and onwards, how do you think we got the stuff we got now?" answered Caliene as she reached for the camera from Lennox.

Donnely just looked at her slack jawed and then snapped his mouth shut after shaking his head as if trying to grab what she had just told him. Surely she was kidding right? Instead of replying he just sat back down and kept lookout with Fig, whilst trying to wrap his head around everything.

Fig decided to speak up at this point. "I don't know, man. My mama, she had the gift, you know? She saw things. I got the gene, too and that thing that attacked us? I got a feeling that it ain't over."

"Yeah, I understand Fig. I keep getting the sense that we're being watched but we can't see them, who or whatever these things are." Caliene added as she smiled up at Fig, at least until Donnely put his two cents worth in.

"How about you use those Voodoo powers and get us the hell out of here, huh?" Caliene glared at Donnely after he said that,

"Don't joke about Voodoo, Donnely. There are things that you don't wanna mess with and joking about Voodoo and any other type of religious magic is just wrong, it may come back to bite you in the ass." she told him as she reached beneath her shirt and pulled forth her Triquetra and showed it to him watching his jaw drop once again, before he turned away and mumbled something about witches and Voodoo crazy people.

Meanwhile Epps and Lennox were still talking about the camera shots.

"When I took that picture, I think it saw me. It looked right at me." said Epps as he shook his head as if trying to shake the idea from his brain and having nightmares about the big terrifying robot-thing attacking the base.

"All right, we got to get this thing back to the Pentagon right away. They got to know what we're dealing with here." said Lennox as he handed the camera back to Epps for safe keeping.

"My radio's fried. I got no communication with aerial at all, and I bet ya all the other radios are out of commission too." said Epps as he took the camera and placed it in his pack on the sand.

Lennox walked over to where Mahfouz was stood looking around. "Hey, Mahfouz. How far do you live from here?" he asked the boy as the rest of the squad got ready to leave the tank behind.

"Not far. Just up that mountain." was the lads reply, and when Caliene and Epps looked at the direction Mahfouz had pointed in, they sighed, more hiking and climbing to come and hopefully it wouldn't be too much since they were very quickly running low on water.

"Do they have a phone?" asked Lennox, at which point the others smirked knowing that Lennox hated phone calls that weren't to his wife, or friends. "Yes." was the response he got from Mahfouz and Caliene then thought about it…. The military should make Satellite Phones mandatory for any Squad out here for emergencies where radios would not be beneficial.

"All right, let's hit it." said Lennox and everyone picked up what they had brought with them, which wasn't at all much, and headed out on the hike to the mountains in the distance where Mahfouz's family lived and hopefully a working phone to contact the Pentagon with their info of utmost importance.

End Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Qatar - Middle East, Day three in the Desert

Normal POV

Caliene let out a sigh of relief as they finally stopped near to a transmission tower of some sort which meant some sort of antique phone they could use to contact a nearby base for extraction. Lennox just gave her the kind of look she was now so used to that they didn't need to say anything, she nodded back at him and started to get the rest of the squad into their proper placement for securing the area whilst Epps and Lennox got on the horn to someone on their side.

"Let's hope this telephone line works." said Lennox as Epps stopped and grabbed a drink out of the nearby warm water barrel before proceeding to pour another cups worth over his dark shaved head to help cool down in the 130 degree plus weather.

Everyone was minding their own points on the edge of the area surrounding the communications tower when Caliene thought she saw something moving underneath the sand, she shook her head - the heat and sun must really be playing havoc with her mind.

A short while later - maybe five minutes by Caliene's reckoning everyone but Donnely jumped as something cut through the support struts of the comm. tower and sent it crashing to the ground, ironically just missing hitting Donnely. Caliene and Lennox both shouted at the same time "Heads up! Hey! Heads up!"

Caliene walked quickly over to where Donnely and Fig were standing and as she got closer she heard Donnely say "What the heck was that?" to Fig who just shrugged and started to mutter off into Spanish - at which point Caliene just grinned when she caught on to what Fig was saying. Donnely just looked at Fig then looked away muttering "English, dude. English."

Caliene was about to chew Donnely out for not paying attention to what was going on around him when they all turned to see Epps yell and jump back making Lennox turn and yell from the sudden realization that he was nearly a Ranger shish kabob. By this time everyone was moving around, but Epps looked like his Desert Camo pants were on fire.

As everyone was constantly moving and shooting at the sand below them watching for the strange metal spear to rise out of the ground again, they almost missed it as a hump appeared in between the group and there was loud yells of "Watch Out!"

What Caliene and the others saw next was not what anyone was expecting as a giant metal scorpion and Caliene estimated it to be the size of a tank, rose from the sand past them and then back under the sand. As soon as it had disappeared back under the sand, everyone started to fire at where they saw ripples in the sand. Everyone decided at that moment to turn and run down the sand dunes, shooting into it as they went with shouts of "Contact! Contact!" from Sgt Burke as he was spinning around and shooting at the sand behind him.

They stopped as they reached the bottom of the sand dune and tried to catch their breath. Lennox tried to take back control of the situation, "Quiet, settle." he said as he caught his breath and senses back, whatever that thing was Caliene was sure that it wasn't gone and was now twitchy - not a good thing for a sniper to be. Epps was still freaking out if the expressions of "Whoa, mother…." and "What the hell is…" were to go by, nearby the rest of the squad were still looking around the sand surrounding them.

Donnely scanned the sand and when Caliene looked over to him she was wishing she hadn't as she watched in what seemed to be slow motion as the scorpion looking machine exploded from the sand behind Donnely and impaled him on the spear-like tail, then proceeded to swing him around a number of times, before flinging his now dead body off its tail. At the sound of Caliene's rifle firing, the rest of the soldiers just started running and shouting to one another. Lennox looked around for everyone who was alive yet and spotted Mahfouz down on the sand, he ran over to the boy and helped him up all the while saying "Get up! Get up! Get up!"

As Caliene ran to help Lennox and Mahfouz down the sand dunes to the rocky outcropping she watched as the metal scorpion thing erupted from the sand dunes right behind where Epps, Fig and Sergeant Burke before diving back down under the sand it's claw like things spinning. She almost stopped completely to try and see where the monster would erupt from, until she heard Lennox yelling "Go! Move it!" so she turned once again to follow Lennox and the rest of her squad out of a rather dangerous situation in the loose sand.

As the neared the village the Mahfouz lived in with his father, Caliene could see the villagers all screaming and clamoring about in a panic as they saw the squad running up to them and taking cover behind any stone protrusion that could offer any type of cover.

Just as Caliene and Epps headed for the same spot, she heard Lennox yell as he hit the dirt behind a clump of old crumbling wall. She shook her head in confusion until she saw the Metal Scorpion erupt from the sand once more screeching as it landed and searching around for them as a few of the squad started shooting at it with the hope of knocking it down.

The only warning that Cali got that the monster was ready to shoot them was Lennox's shout of "Take cover!" So Cali took his advice…. She lay down in the sand and readied her M-24 SWS Rifle and prepared for the shot whilst hoping that the wall she was behind would stand up to the firefight going on around her. She looked through her scope and watched as the monster… scorpion looking robot thing started to shoot back at her team mates. She took a shot that was aimed at one of its claw like weapons which had energy cannons of some kind inside and hoped the shot took out at least one of them.

She heard Lennox yelling to the rest of the squad as she readied another shot. "Fig! Cover the rear! Cover fire! Move it! Fig! Cover the rear! Epps! Cover the rear! Move it!" she smirked internally at the fact that Lennox had to repeat his order to Fig, well she did until he ran up to her and yelled "Come on! Give me a mag!" so she quickly took a spare mag of rounds out of her belt and threw it back towards him without looking. "Thanks and keep hitting the blasted thing, we need to find a phone and get through to the Pentagon and get some Air Support here." Cali just sighed and aimed another round at the scorpion like monster.

"Yes Sir, but just remember, we all need to get outta here and I suggest we get in the 'Hogs' if they can't take this thing out I don't think anything can." she replied as he tapped her shoulder and headed off to find a phone.

She heard Epps yelling off to her left, "Hey, I need a mag! Give me a mag!"

She looked at him and yelled "Here take the last one, all I got left are the rounds for my M-24 so make each one count!" and she threw the last magazine to him.

He waved and loaded his gun and yelled "Fire!"

She fired off a couple more rounds at the robotic scorpion monster and headed on over closer to Epps, as she did so she noticed Lennox yelling into a cell phone. "This is an emergency Pentagon call! I need you to…. Do you understand? It's an emergency Pentagon…."

She sighed and shook her head as she fired yet another round at the monster as Lennox continued to argue with the idiot on the other end of the phone. "I don't have a credit card! I'm in the middle of a war! *sigh* This is frigging ridiculous!" He flinched slightly as Epps yelled near us for more ammo, before yelling out "I need a credit card!" and looked around. Cali shook her head at him and mouthed that she didn't carry one on her. Lennox nodded and turned towards Epps, "Epps! Where's your wallet?"

"Pocket!" yelled Epps as he continued to fire at the metal Scorpion.

"Which Pocket?" yelled Lennox as he looked at the pants of Epps in exasperation.

"My back pocket!" Epps yelled back as he loaded in a fresh clip of ammo.

"Epps you have like 10 Back Pockets!" came Cali's voice over the noise of gunfire and falling stone work and Lennox smirked as Epps looked at her closely and muttered something under his breath about female snipers before yelling to Lennox, "Left Cheek! Left Cheek! Left Cheek!" At this Cali just about cracked up laughing - or she would have done if she wasn't fighting for the lives of herself and her team mates, leave it to Epps and Lennox to crack jokes during a firefight.

Lennox found the required wallet and remarked, "All right, keep shooting! Keep Shooting!" as he headed off to an area of some protection - ironically where Cali was hunkered down and removed the card and spoke into the cell phone. By now Cali was sat behind a low stone wall that had so far survived the Scorpion things attacks and was loading up her assault rifle with the request ammo and placing her Sniper System carefully against a couple of large chunks of masonry where the sand wouldn't interfere with any of the mechanisms. As she sat there getting the other weapons ready, she heard most of the conversation with Lennox and whoever was on the other end of the call.

"Ok, it's a Visa…. No, I don't want the premium package!" at this point Lennox was getting exasperated with the other person he was talking to and just as Cali thought that he was going to throw the phone down and stamp on it he threw it towards Epps yelling, "Epps! Pentagon!" Epps quickly and carefully caught the cell phone as it sailed right at him and Caliene thanked whatever deity listened that he was a good catch.

He had by now made his way over to where Cali and Lennox were squatting and shooting at the Scorpion thing as he talked to whoever was on the other end. "I ain't never seen this in my life! Need gunships on station ASAP!" and Cali and Lennox exchanged a smirk as they heard the tone of Epps' voice behind them - he was starting to panic some.

"Unknown, man. I don't… Man, if you seen this shit…" and before he could finish his response we all heard another Sgt. yell out "Hey! Make way!" as we turned to see the building behind us take a hit and crumble debris down on top of people - civilian and military alike, this was in Cali's opinion getting worse and worse as it continued.

Epps had by now gotten most of the info to the guys on the other end and rattled off, "Seven-man team north of orange smoke! Attack direction west! You're clear and hot!" as he threw an orange smoke gas grenade out towards the monster and awaited the attack.

As soon as that was done Caliene and Lennox heard Epps yell, "Lennox! The heat's coming!"

End Chapter 5

[Sunstar]

Previously in Chapter 5:

Epps had by now gotten most of the info to the guys on the other end and rattled off, "Seven-man team north of orange smoke! Attack direction west! You're clear and hot!" as he threw an orange smoke gas grenade out towards the monster and awaited the attack. As soon as that was done Caliene and Lennox heard Epps yell, "Lennox! The heat's coming!"

And now onto Chapter 6 enjoy.

Qatar, Middle East: Still fighting Scorponok

"Laze the target! We got a beam-rider incoming! Laze the target!" was yelled by Lennox to anyone who could hear him, and Cali sighed as she stopped firing directly at the Scorpion looking robot and activated the green laser on the side of her guns barrel. Beam-riding missiles were difficult to control once they were launched from the planes that fired them a in this case that would be the A-10 Warthogs that had been called in, since they required the beam of light to be sat on the target that was to be hit, if they were just one millimeter off it could wipe out a large area and anybody in it.

For this reason there were more than five laser beams aimed at the Scorpion robot, at least it wouldn't miss the target that way. As all this was going through her mind, that damnable Scorpion robot was still firing on them and the others, taking down walls, homes and the occasional life. Cali decided that the sooner this battle was over with the better, and smirked when she heard Lennox yell "Ready! Heat's coming!" and then she smirked as she heard Epps yell a rather happy "What? Bring it!" as he searched the skies for their air support.

She glanced up as she heard the unmistakable sound of the A-10 as one of the pair fired their 30mm Gatling guns at the Scorpion robot and strafing the area around it as close as possible without hitting any of the troops on the ground, then she saw the other A-10 fire its missiles at the Scorpion robot and she held her breath as she awaited the impact of them, hoping against hope that they had finally taken the menace out.

What met her eyes after the smoke cleared was not a good sight: there still moving but definitely damaged somewhat was the Scorpion robot. Cali heaved a resigned sigh as she quickly thought up a plan. She heard Epps exclaiming that "No frigging way, that thing's still not down."

That was when her idea struck her. Turning to Epps she tapped his arm and gave him her idea, if normal ammunition didn't work and missiles only hindered it a bit, then what about using something that even a ``tank couldn't survive. She was talking about using 105 sabot rounds, definitely not something to play around with at any rate.

She smiled when Epps picked up the cell phone again and contacted the person on the other end by saying "Spooky Three Two, use 105 shells. Bring the rain!" Cali mentally cheered when she heard that and watched for the gunship to arrive and take out the annoyance with some of the best shells that could be fired from a gun, even if they were 40mm high-heat shells.

The squad watched as Spooky Three Two fired upon the Scorpion robot with multiple bursts of 105 shells, they really couldn't tell much since it disturbed a lot of sand and dust back into the air, but once it had cleared enough, she noticed the robot rolling around like it was in agony. She groaned though when she spotted it fleeing under the sand to escape the shelling it was getting, but then noticed that it had left behind some of it's tail… the same tail that she had seen it kill Donnely with. They might finally catch a break with what they could learn from this specimen of the robot that was left behind.

It was soon after that Cali was brought out of her musing by Lennox yelling "Where's Fig?"

At this point every remaining squad member jumped to and started looking for the Spanish speaking goofball they all loved. Lennox was climbing and looking around whilst yelling out "Fig? Fig?" It was Cali who heard Fig yelling "Oh, God! God damn it!" and yet it was Lennox who found him, laying on the ground holding his midsection as if he could stop his internals from falling out, from this Cali could deduce that he had suffered a rather bad gut wound. If he was lucky he might survive it, if not he would be dead within a short few hours. She made up her mind there and then that she would seek revenge on the creatures that caused this to one of her fellow soldiers.

Lennox yelled to the nearest soldier that wasn't Cali, since she had grabbed one of Fig's hands to let him know she was there and started muttering to him in Spanish to keep him coherent. "Get a medic! Get a medic!" Cali barely heard Epps talking into the cell phone once more calling in a Black Hawk Medevac, Lennox was talking and saying "We'll get a medic. Just hold on…" to Fig and then to anyone who would listen to him that "He's got a pulse."

Epps was a constant in the background as he spoke into the phone once more. "We need a Medevac. One man down. Patient care category Urgent!" Now when Cali heard that coming from Epps she was now worried that her friend Fig would die before help got here, so she did what she could: she prayed to what ever Deity would listen to her cries for help in saving a good mans life.

Roughly 20 minutes after the call went out for a Medevac, Lennox was waving his arms to signal to the chopper pilot that he was to land nearby. Whilst this was happening, Cali and the only other person with any type of useful medical knowledge were trying their hardest to stabilize Fig enough for transport. Cali felt sorry for Fig and kept telling him so and that if he made it through all this she was going to drag him back to her home town and take him hunting on her family's acreage and bag a few deer this coming hunting season.

A few hours later - On board a C-17 over the Atlantic

After delivering Fig to the Major US Military Hospital in Europe, the rest of Lennox's squad boarded a C-17 bound for the US. Lennox, Epps and Cali were inspecting the remnants of the tail segment they had managed to salvage from the Scorpion robot.

"It's like a self-regenerating molecular armor." said Cali as she looked at it closely with a magnifying lens and a probe. She was fascinated with this discovery, and was almost total engrossed in it when Lennox decided to get a few words in.

"Look at the scorch mark where the sabot round hit. Melted right through." he said as he peered over the top of Cali's head to look through the magnifying lens as she scraped at the hole in the armor. Turning to Epps he continued his spiel.

"Hey aren't sabots hot-loaded for, like, a 6,000-degree magnesium burn?" he asked sounding just a little bit intrigued now.

"Close to it. It melts tank armor." replied Epps as he too looked over what Cali was scraping off of the tail segment.

"So this metal skin must react to extreme heat." countered Lennox as he looked at Epps for confirmation, as this was going on Cali yelled a "Heads up!" and jumped back about a foot as the tail moved and pierced the tabletop near to where Epps had had his hand just seconds before and when she looked she noticed that it had just missed piercing the USAF Technical Manual.

Cali sniggered when Epps yelled "Oh!" before turning to Lennox and complaining. "I thought you said that thing was dead, man!"

Cali watched it carefully as the tail segment uncoiled from the strike position and helped when Sergeant Burke, Lennox and one other helped to pin it down. The whole time they're holding it Lennox was shouting at someone to "Strap it down! Strap it!" After making sure the others had a hold of the tail, he let go and pointed at it. "This thing is wicked!"

As soon as he had gotten the shock out of his system, he turned to Epps and Cali and said "Get on the horn with Northern Command. Tell them that our effective weapon is high-heat sabot rounds. Recommend we load them on all the gun ships. Go!" Cali punched Epps lightly on the arm saying a cheerful "you're it Epps!" and wandered back to the table to clean up the mess caused when the tail segment attacked, especially since in a few more hours they would be setting down wheels on the ground at one of many Airbases for a debrief before heading to their own base.

2 hours after their 1st debrief - Nellis AFB, United States

Everyone had unloaded and were heading to their respective barracks, most were looking forward to a hot shower and a soft bed after what they'd all been through the past few days, and Cali was looking forward to seeing her cat Magick again, he always cheered her up after a hard mission or a rather longer than planned posting. Between her cat and the firing range she had her stress relief planned out for the next few weeks.

After getting everything placed away in her rooms, she headed back to the C-17 they had arrived on and helped Lennox and Epps grab the remaining duffels and lug them to be sorted through, she cringed when she thought about the letter that needed to be written to Donnely's folks about his death… he really had been a good kid, even if he did tend to drive ya crazy when he went into one of his talks on comic books or, in her case, Baseball… she couldn't stand the game herself.

She was just about to ask Epps and Lennox about what they were gonna do with their request for down time with their families when they all turned to see three or four government issue SUV's pull up and some government suit climbed out of the first vehicle and headed straight towards them saying "Captain Lennox, we need you and your team to come with us right now! Let's Go!" as he finished saying this he grabbed a hold of the duffel Lennox had been holding and carried it to the SUV's. Two other men in suits came over and grabbed the duffels that Epps and Cali were carrying and did the same thing.

Lennox looked confusedly at Epps and Cali to ask what they should do, all Epps did was shrug his shoulders and started walking to the SUV's, whereas Cali just muttered in Spanish "¡Qué maravilla! Este tío es una noticia muy mala!"(1) and then added "Mr. Big: es un viento contrario marrón y muy molesto y toady mirando!"(2)

Lennox just shook his head with a smirk and asked "Cali? Do I want to know what you just said or is it not very nice?"

Cali just shrugged, gave him a smirk that made him shudder, and walked towards one of the black SUV's that were waiting for them. Lennox followed with Epps, who was muttering about those who spoke Spanish needing a swift slap to the back of the head, causing Lennox to laugh slightly as they climbed into the vehicles where all laughing, smiles and such ended as they were taken to collect sergeant Burke and the others before leaving Nellis AFB to go who knew where.

A.N.: I am sorry for those of you readers who speak fluent Spanish, but I am using an online translatory program that helps meh come up with what I need for Cali. I am trying very hard to keep the other characters in as much of their original-ness as I can whilst having enough leeway to make them mesh together better as a unit, just like any Military group there will be ups and downs - I should know since I am a member, both raised and married, let alone served for a time, so I am also pulling on mah own experiences as well as those I personally know that are still serving in the Middle East.

Please Review and let meh know what ya think... Any flames will be used to roast marshmallows and then smear them over Frenzy before leaving him to the mercy of mah two dogs: Freya and BB! *smirks* I can be evil at times!
Spanish translations: (1) How wonderful! This guy is extremely bad news!
(2) Mr. Big: is a brown noser and very annoying and toady looking!


Chapter 7.

(Lennox and his squad are sat in one of two Black Hawk helicopters that are transporting them to where they are to meet with the SecDef about what they saw in Qatar.)

Cali decided to make the most of the silence and plugged her ear buds of her MP3 player into her ears and listened to some of her music, she was bobbing her head along to the beat of 'Highway to the Dangerzone' and smirking as she listened, she knew the lyrics by heart and was gonna have to wait til they got back to base before she could sing her heart out the way she liked… usually after a few beers with a while they landed the Black Hawk helicopters and disembarked into the awaiting black government SUV's.

As soon as they placed their duffels in the back of the SUV's, Cali looked around and spotted a group consisting of a young boy, one blond woman, a brunette girl and a dark skinned chubby guy, 'now what could the government want with those four?' she wondered to herself as she climbed into the SUV with Lennox and Epps. Sergeant Burke and the two other members of the group were in a third SUV and followed theirs.

45 minute drive from drop-off point at the Helicopters

Cali gawped at the sight before her, they were being driven to the Hoover Dam. But what confused her was 'WHY!' She had always wanted to visit this tourist attraction, but she never for the life of her thought it would be with her Squad members at the request of the SecDef. She mentally squeed at the thought that her brothers would go crazy when they found that she had been without them there. She followed the rest of her Squad members to one of the side pylons off of the Dam and stood in line and awaited for the SecDef to arrive and tell them why exactly they were 20 minutes after they had arrived, Cali and Epps noticed the SecDef walking up to where they were stood, she hid the smirk that came to her mind as Epps yelled out "Team attention! Present arms!"

The Squad moved in synchrony as they saluted the SecDef and stood rigid at attention.

"At ease. Captain's, Sergeant. Got your intel. Excellent work." said the SecDef as he faced the Squad looking at all the remaining members. "Thank you, Sir." came the quick and crisp response from both Lennox and Cali. Lennox then decided to ask the one question that was bugging nearly all of the troops. "What about the gunship's?"

The SecDef smiled at both the Captain's as he said, "They're being retrofitted with sabot rounds now. If they hit us again, we'll be ready for them. But it wouldn't do us much good if we can't get world communications back up."

The next 45 minutes was spent traipsing through the corridors of the Hoover Dam following a man, that Cali was sure was related to a rat with his hair and expression of superiority that irked her really badly. She wanted so badly to just wallop him and not have to deal with his snide comments about things that were minor. They finally made it out at the bottom of the Dam and yet again the rat-guy, who she found out was named Simmons, started to talk. "All right, here's the situation. You've all had direct contact with the NBE's."

"NBE's?" asked a bemused Epps, as he beat Cali to the punch so to speak.

"Non-Biological Extraterrestrials. Try and keep up with the acronyms." replied Simmons.

The group slowly walked through a large service tunnel into a giant room. While this was happening Simmons decided to continue with his spiel. "What you are about to see is totally classified." Everyone that was present in the group stared wide-eyed in awe at the monolithic robot-man that was being held in what Cali deemed to be a type of Cryo-stasis. What was said next: "Dear God. What is this?" by none other than the Secretary of Defense, made everyone want to know the answer. A man, that Cali would find out later was named Banachek answered the SecDef's question.

"We think that when he made his approach over the north pole, our gravitational field screwed up his telemetry. He crashed in the ice, probably a few thousand years ago. We shipped him to this facility in 1934." Simmons then decided to add in his two-cents. "We call him NBE One."

By this point Cali really wanted to just punch Simmons and do everyone a favor. She was surprised to hear the young teen respond to Simmons, "Well, sir, I don't mean to correct you on everything you think you know, but, I mean, that's Megatron. He's the leader of the Decepticons." and she swore she could Simmons' eye twitch, damn she was going to buy that kid a drink once they got out of there - non-alcoholic of course.

Banachek responded with, "He's been in Cryo-stasis since 1935. Your Great-great-grandfather made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of man kind." Once again, not to be outdone, Simmons turned to the boy and added "Fact is, you're looking at the source of the modern age, the microchip, lasers, spaceflight, cars, all reverse-engineered by studying him. NBE One. That's what we call it." The SecDef by now was looking slightly pale, but he responded to what Simmons said, "And you didn't think the United States Military might need to know that you're keeping a hostile alien robot frozen in the basement?" When the SecDef was done Cali was mentally cheering the older gentleman.

Banachek tried to defuse the situation between Simmons and the SecDef by saying, "Until these events, we had no credible threat to National Security." But apparently the SecDef thought otherwise and the situation quickly went to pot. "Well, you got one now!" came the response from the now very aggravated SecDef.

It seemed that any credibility that either Simmons or Banachek had was now almost non-existent at this point in time, and Cali wouldn't have been surprised if neither of the two men in question had a job by the end of the day. By this point Lennox had decided that he wanted a question answered that had been bugging him for a while now. "So why Earth?"

"It's the All Spark." came the response from the boy as if that meant anything to those in the group stood around the base of the platform holding Megatron. "All Spark? What is that?" came the intrigued voice of the SecDef. Cali also hoped that this boy knew something more than what they were being told by Simmons and Banachek."Well, yeah, they came here looking for some sort of cube-looking thing. Anyway, Mr. NBE One here, AKA Megatron, that's what they call him, who's pretty much the harbinger of death, wants to use the Cube to transform human technology to take over the universe. That's their plan." came the now confident voice of the boy. "And you're sure about that?" came Simmons' snarky remark.

Cali and Lennox shared a quick glance with Epps and the others in their Squad when Simmons said that, it was a look that said that the boy was more forthcoming with the information than the two Government idiots that were trying to hide this from the general populace. "Yeah." the boy said as his eyes turned and looked at Simmons directly as he asked the next question, "You guys know where it is, don't you?" The look on the boys face was one of shear disbelief that these morons were keeping it anywhere near Megatron - this was officially looking bad to Caliene and her Squad mates, you don't keep something the enemy wants right next to them, you make sure that it is far, far away from where ever you imprisoned enemy is being held. Especially an alien who is bent on taking over the world with an army of transformed electronics, Banachek sighed and looked at everyone, "Follow me." thus they left the room containing a still very frozen Megatron and followed Banachek to where Cali guessed this Cube, the All Spark was being held.

"You're about to see our crown jewel." declared a now pompous looking Simmons, that after traipsing through a few more tunnels, opened a door to an observation room. Everyone looked through the small window that had been put in the room to view from, and they could see a massive Cube of metal with scaffolding around it with technicians and scientists walking around on as they continued to study it unaware of their decided to tell them some about the Cube whilst they were still captivated by the beauty of the Cube.

"Carbon dating puts the Cube here around 10,000 BC. The First Seven didn't find it until 1913. They knew it was alien because of the matching hieroglyphics on the Cube as well as NBE One. President Hoover had the Dam built around it. Four football fields thick of concrete. A perfect way to hide it's energy from being detected by anyone or any alien species on the outside." Cali was about to ask a question that she knew was going to be asked after that little revelation, but she was beaten to the punch by an Australian accent - the tall, young looking blond woman.

"Wait, back up. You said the Dam hides the Cube's energy. What kind exactly?" she asked looking at Banachek and the back at the Cube.

"Good question." came his quick response as he led them to a small secure room that had a weird lit up box in the center and a technician standing beside it. "Step inside. They have to lock us in." and Cali turned when she realized that Banachek was indeed correct - she watched as the heavy blast-proof security door was shut with a clang and locked from the outside, she winced as she heard the locks slam into knew Cali detested being locked in any type of room that she couldn't see a working handle to open the door with, so he looked around the room and made a quick observation about the walls, especially a few spots that were a good 2ft or more above his own head.

"Oh, wow." he said as he saw one set of particularly nasty claw marks that went through the metal plating, "What's that? Freddy Krueger done been in here or something?" Cali detected a slight amount of awe in Epps' voice when he said that, and looking over where he had been looking she saw why - it had to have been something almost diamond sharp to slash through 6 inch steel plate like a hot knife through butter.

Cali turned and face palmed when the chubby computer-geek exclaimed, "Oh, no, man. Freddy Krueger have four blades, man. That's only three. That's Wolverine!" he made a weird snarling sound crossed with a chomp and laughed a little as he added, "Right? That's Wolverine!" She looked to Epps in sympathy when he caught her eyes looking in his direction, no-one should have to suffer what one of her brothers had termed a 'Geek-asm', well unless it was Military related, such as weapons and such because by then it didn't soon as Epps had made his way over to where Cali and Lennox were standing,
Simmons opened his mouth to reply, "That's very funny."

Everyone in the room could obviously tell there was quite a bit of sarcasm in that short response, and even though she thought the Geek was weird, he didn't need to be put down like that as she watched said Geek visibly deflate from the remark and she forcibly restrained herself from hitting Simmons. "Anyone have any mechanical devices? Blackberry? Key Alarm? Cell phone?" he asked as he looked around the room at everyone. The Geek then answered the question reluctantly, "I got a phone" and tossed it to Simmons, who then placed it into the small strange box in the center of the room and shutting the door on it. Apparently Simmons didn't know when to shut up - must have liked hearing his own voice, when he uttered, "Nokia's are really nasty. You've got to respect the Japanese. They know the way of the Samurai."

The blonde Australian, who she found out was named Maggie, who was stood next to Cali as well as the SecDef, muttered so that only they could hear, "Nokia's from Finland!" Cali smiled a wide smile and snorted with suppressed laughter at the SecDef when he responded, "Yes, but he's, you know, a little strange. He's a little strange." She decided that 'Strange' didn't even begin to cover the description of Simmons, 'Crazy' now that was only just touching the surface of Simmons, when her attention was brought back to the present when Simmons powered up the box and they all watched as a probe dropped down from the roof of the box to just above the cell phone. They placed light filtering goggles on over their eyes to protect them, when Simmons decided to tell everyone how they did it as he continued to flip switches.

"We're able to take the Cube radiation and funnel it into that box." They all starred in amazement as the probe pulsed a charge into the cell shuddered as she felt a light tingle crawl across the hairs of her arms and neck before her attention was brought back to the situation at hand, when she heard a sound of moving parts. Looking close she could visibly see the cell phone split apart and reform into a small little robot with red optics.

Everyone but Simmons and Banachek jumped as it started to attack and shoot up the interior of the box. "Mean little sucker, huh?" said Simmons as he walked in a circle around everyone keeping an eye on the box containing the robot."That thing's freaky!" exclaimed Maggie as Simmons grinned a manic grin - you know the kind that just screams 'Dr. Frankenstein' and made Cali shudder again, she really didn't like this guy.

"Kind of like the itty-bitty Energizer Bunny from hell, huh?" was his response as the little cell phone continued it's attack on it's confines, by this point Cali just couldn't take it, she was getting the feeling that the robot was scared and doing what any cornered and frightened creature would do - try to escape and take down anything that was stopping it.

She ripped open the door to the box and grabbed at the cell phone-turned-robot and held it close murmuring to it to relax and that it would be safe. Everyone just gawped as the little robot retracted it's weapons nodded it's small head and folded down into the form of a normal cell just starred at her and Lennox shrugged as if to say 'You're on ya own this time, Cali. Ya really gone and done it now!' Frowning at Simmons and Banachek, Cali gently placed the cell phone robot in her top chest pocket on her BDU jacket, she figured it would be safer there and the Goddess help anyone who tried to take the innocent little thing away from her - she sighed, where in the seven levels of hell were these feelings coming from? Was it her maternal instincts kicking in or was it something else, she really didn't know, what she did know was that she was now the parent to a cell phone robot that was sentient. Her family were going to freak if they ever found out. Looking around the room, she saw the look of shock on the young brunette lad's face and awe on the girl's face that with him, she nodded at them as if to say 'I had to do something!' As if they understood, they nodded slightly and the lad smiled a timid smile at Cali that seemed to say 'Ya kinda alright for Military!' Cali was about to say something to Simmons about trying to play God when the room shook, she tensed and looked at Lennox who nodded - whatever was going on was bad, really bad!

End Chapter 7

[Sunstar]

Chapter 8.

Everyone was startled when the lights in the room flickered with a groan and banging noises above them. They all turned during a lull in the noises when the SecDef mentioned, "Gentlemen, they know the Cube is here."

Cali turned and looked at Banachek when he clicked on a button on an old intercom on the back desk. "Banachek. What's going on?" She frowned when the response came over the speaker. "Well, the NBE-One hanger has lost power..." She knew that that wasn't good to hear, especially since they had need of the energy made here at the dam to keep Megatron under ice for as long as possible. She all but ignored what Banachek said next until she heard the response. "...and the backup generator is just not gonna cut it."

At the same time as Cali growled about the backup generator, Lennox walked over to Banachek and asked him, "Do you have an arms room?"

They ran from the room with the box, into a chaotic scene right out of 'God of War 2'; the workers were fleeing in terror. Banachek yelled to anyone who would listen, "Get everyone to the NBE-One chamber now!"[/I]

Lennox and Cali were bringing up the rear and both were yelling, "Move it! Move it!"[/I] to those who were lagging behind. Cali jumped slightly when the cell phone she was carrying decided at that time to morph back into it's robot mode and started to chirp at her as they ran. Trying to run and not hit anyone she cautiously looked at the cell phone 'bot and sighed. "Ya know, you really need a name. One that stands out from all the rest." she said as it continued to chirp at her as if agreeing.

Placing the little robot close to her in her BDU Jacket pocket for safety as she ran, she heard Banachek yell as they continued towards the Armory, "They're popping our generators!"[/I]

She sighed as she thought about a good name for the little bot, she thought back to all she had learned whilst practicing her Wiccan ways, and she came up with three possible names: Anubis, Thoth, and Mithra. She weighed up the possible reasons for those names and what went through her mind was relayed to the small 'bot in her pocket on her BDU Jacket as she talked to it/him, she stared as the small 'bot crawled out of her pocket and sat in her open hands as they headed to where Lennox wanted to go with Banachek in the lead.

Anubis: Egyptian; Guardian of Isis. Jackal-headed God of Protection. Call on him to protect both home and person.
Mithra: Persian; Sun God and Bringer of Light. A Soldier's God.
Thoth: Egyptian; God of Reincarnation. Also a Moon God and favorable to Science and Wisdom.

Looking down towards the small 'bot in her hands as she mentioned each name, she weighed up the responses that it/he had for each name. When she mentioned Mithra the little bot brought out his rocket launcher, and she took that as a 'Not on your life, you crazy woman!' so she decided to try one of the other names, when she mentioned the name Thoth he completely shut down and folded into his cell phone form and a text message appeared on the small screen; 'Are you crazy!'

She shook her head as they finally reached the Armory and watched as Lennox, Epps and Burke helped to get the Assault Vehicles loaded up with guns and boxes of ammunition.

She went to help but then she said to the cell phone in her hands, "So you want the name Anubis?" As if she had said the right thing, the little phone unfolded and hopped up and down in her hands chirping away. "I'll take that as a 'Yes' then." she replied as he kept jumping up and down chirruping now as if pleased to finally hear it's name.

She was heading over with Anubis the cell phone robot, to help Burke load up the 40mm Sabot Launchers with the ammunition from the secure boxes, when Anubis folded down into his phone mode as the brunette lad walked past her and grabbed Simmons. "You got to take me to my car. You have to take me to my car. He's gonna know what to do with the Cube." Cali noticed that he said 'that his car would know what to do with the Cube.' Was the lads car like Anubis? Was his car... Sentient?

Cali internally groaned as she thought about those questions for a few seconds and decided right at that point in time that she certainly didn't get paid nearly enough to deal with this sort of stuff - it was if she and her Squad had been transported to another dimension completely, where Science Fiction became Science Fact. Yep she would definitely require some extensive vacation time after all of this.

She was about to say something to Lennox about any possible time off, when she heard Simmons respond to the brunette's request to get to see his Sentient car. "Your car? It's confiscated."

"Then unconfiscate it." said the brunette as he got in Simmons' face about it.

"We do not know what will happen if we let it near this thing!" came the reply from Simmons as Cali stood and watched the exchange, with a rather curious 'bot in her hands that was also now watching the exchange.

"You don't know." said the brunette as Simmons kept on ranting now about the kids car.
"Maybe you know, but I don't know." By this point Cali wanted to just slap the man stupid and drag the kid back to his car and get the hell outta dodge, what was said next pretty much made up her mind for her as she placed her cell phone robot back into her BDU pocket and apparently Lennox thought the same as well.

"You just wanna sit here and wait and see what happens?" came the exasperated tone of the brunette, only to have Simmons turn around and respond with, "I have people's lives at stake here, young man."

Lennox grabbed Simmons by the front of his shirt and slammed him against one of the assault buggies whilst saying in a calm voice, "Take him to his car!" Cali stood besides Lennox as the pair drew their own weapons and aimed them at encroaching S7 soldiers as they tried to get to Simmons. "Drop it!" growled out Cali, thus giving the rest of the Squad the go ahead they needed to help out with the remaining S7 personnel. She smiled as she watched Sgt. Burke slam a rifle butt into two agents faces and Epps also took down another soldier not of their close-knit Squad.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" came the voice of Banachek, to Cali he was sounding a little fearful, but that could just be from the fact that they all had guns pointed at them.

Simmons was apparently trying to reason with Lennox as she heard him comment, "Drop your weapon, soldier. There's an alien war going on and you're gonna shoot me?" Cali just shook her head and answered him for Lennox, "Don't tempt me or Captain Lennox right now, Simmons. This could go either way right now and you don't wanna have us all pissed off at you now."

Lennox nodded and added, "You know, we didn't ask to be here."

Apparently Simmons really didn't know when to shut his mouth and just do as the kid wanted, Cali was trying really hard at this point to not blow Simmons' brains everywhere.

"I'm ordering you under S-Seven executive jurisdiction." came his smarmy yet slightly panicked reply.

"S-Seven don't exist." replied Epps, as he kept his gun trained on the other S-Seven personnel.

"Right. And we don't take orders from people who don't exist." Added Lennox as he continued to hold Simmons still at gun point. As soon as Cali heard both her fellow soldiers say their words, she smiled she fully agreed with what they had said, they really didn't take orders from people who never existed on paper.

"I'm gonna count to five. Okay." said Simmons, hoping that Lennox and the others listened to him and let them all go.

"Well, I'm gonna count to three." said Lennox as he aimed his gun with the safety off over Simmons' heart. "And I'm gonna count to two and half." responded Cali as she aimed her handgun at Simmons' head, she swore she saw his eyes widen slightly and that she saw a sweat drop form down the side of his face.

End Chapter 8


Previously in Chapter 8: "I'm gonna count to five. Okay." said Simmons, hoping that Lennox and the others listened to him and let them all go. "Well, I'm gonna count to three." said Lennox as he aimed his gun with the safety off over Simmons' heart. "And I'm gonna count to two and half." responded Cali as she aimed her handgun at Simmons' head, she swore she saw his eyes widen slightly and that she saw a sweat drop form down the side of his face.

Now on to the next installment:

Key:
"Italic" = Anubis talk/Text
'Bold' = Bumblebee sound clips / noises
'Italic' = facial expressions / thoughts
"normal" = Normal Speech

Chapter 9

As the 'Mexican Stand-off' continued for what seemed like hours but was in fact only minutes, Cali kept her gun trained on Simmons' head. If he said anything further derogatory about her group or the teens that were there she was going to shoot him on basic principles. She was brought out of her musings of shooting the annoyance by the SecDef asking, "Simmons?""Yes, sir?" came the timid reply as he looked from the two guns aimed at him, towards the at Simmons, the SecDef just gave him the 'Are you really going to be as stupid as I think you are?' look. "I'd do what they say. Losing's really not an option for these guys."

Still looking at the SecDef, Simmons replied quickly and with as much courage as he could muster, "All right. Okay. Hey you want to lay the fate of the world on the kids Camaro? That's cool."Cali let out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding when Lennox let Simmons go and placed his sidearm back into it's holster. She looked around and noticed the relieved look on the teens face at the prospect of seeing his car again, she smiled slightly at the thought of 'boys and their cars!' and she headed on over to them and decided that since they didn't like Simmons, she was going to protect them incase he tried anything. Catching up to them as they headed to where the car was being held, Cali decided that introductions were in order. "Hey there again, sorry about the tension back there, but the idiot that is Simmons really rubbed meh the wrong way. Name's Caliene Meredith, Captain in the US Army. I work with Captain William Lennox - the guy who held his gun to Simmons' chest.

What are your names and why are you here, anyway? Thought it was strange for the Government to drag in a couple of teens for something like this." she said as they made their way through yet more drab tunnels towards an area that had some really weird whines coming from. "Thanks for helping us back there, we really appreciate it, so far we've been given the run around and nobody would tell us anything about a friend of ours, which is why we need Sam's car." came the reply from the leggy brunette walking the other side of the lad. "Yeah thanks for that, Captain. We really owe you for putting yourself in danger against Simmons and his goons. As Mikaela just said my name is Sam, Sam Witwicky, and she is Mikaela Banes. The reason for us being here is in the room we're heading to right now." came the lad - 'No' she told herself 'Sam's' response as they finally reached the they stood outside the door and waited for the others to arrive they could hear what Cali deemed to be metallic whining and groaning sounds, looking down at her shirt pocket when she felt a sharp pinch, she saw Anubis waving his arms at her.

She picked him out of her pocket and held him whilst Sam and Mikaela looked on in disbelief at what was going on between the cell phone-bot and the Captain, "So what is it, Anubis? What is going on in there?" Cali asked the small bot as she tried to calm him folded down into cell phone mode, surprising Cali with what came next; 'Hurt... Scared... Bigger... Guardian... Pain... Help!' came the reply in the form of a text message on the screen. Cali showed Sam and Mikaela the text and all three had a quick moment of understanding, they were hurting someone in there and it was scaring the poor phone-bot to the point where he was shaking as if he was set in vibration mode - what ever was going on in that room Cali was going to try and stop it, she never did like seeing or hearing anyone being tortured and from the sounds still coming from the room next to them they were torturing an even bigger version of as the rest of the group made it up to them, Cali watched as Sam pretty much slammed through the doors and started yelling at the idiots in the room to "No, no! Stop! You got to stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!"

As Cali walked in quickly behind Sam with Mikaela, she was surprised to see Banachek shove past them and he too started to call out to the room, "No, no, stop, stop, stop!" at the same time as Sam was now calling out to the people still hosing the entity on the table in front of her down with Liquid Nitrogen. "Let him go! Let him go!" before turning to the entity as the other humans laid down their hoses and backed away quickly. "Are you okay? They didn't hurt you right?" asked a rather worried Sam in Cali's opinion as she watched with awe as the entity sat up and she watched as it flipped some sort of a battle mask down over it's face and powered up some sort of a cannon or large blaster at the other humans in the room. Cali also noticed that her Squad along with Lennox looked cautious and with good reason, after their meeting with the Scorpion robot and 4500-X at SOCCENT in Qatar, it was prudent to be cautious. Cali watched as Sam tried to gather the robot's attention. "Listen to me. The Cube is here and the Decepticons are coming."

Everyone watched as the robot tried to get upright completely and looked around the room before looking back down at Sam who was now next to Cali who was still holding a chirping Anubis, who was watching the other larger robot with great interest.

"No, no, don't worry about them. They're okay. Right? They're not going to hurt you." Sam continued to say to the larger robot, before turning to the rest of the group and saying, "Just back up a little bit. He's friendly. He's fine." Then with Cali still next to him he continued to talk to the robot. "Okay, come on. Put the guns down. Their not gonna hurt you. Here, come with me. I'm gonna take you to the All Spark." Everyone watched as the yellow and black robot retracted his battle mask and blaster to follow Sam to where the Cube was reported to be, what she didn't expect was for the robot to stop by her and pick her and Anubis up. To say that Cali was surprised would be an understatement towards the situation and with Anubis chirruping and whirring at the larger robot to which the larger robot responding in kind whilst walking after Sam, she turned to look to where Lennox was staring at what had happened and she waved as if to say 'I'm fine, don't worry about me.' Seeing Lennox nod in understanding she sighed and settled back for the relatively short trip to the Cube with the others following a short way she was now sat in the robots hands as he walked along, she decided to try and talk to him/it.

"So... why'd ya pick meh and Anubis here up when ya walked by us?" she asked in a confused tone, and for once in her life she really was confused. The black and yellow robot looked at her and then warbled and chirped at Anubis who then flipped down into his phone mode and started explaining via text messages. 'You were holding a sparkling! One who trusted you, that means you are a good person!' came the response, which startled Cali somewhat as she responded in kind, "What exactly is a... Sparkling?"

The response came quicker this time, 'A Sparkling is what they call a baby.' shortly after that message was sent to her, Anubis started growling and chirring at the larger robot as if angered. Cali decided to ask what the problem was, "What is going on now?" she asked as she looked between the two. 'He called me a baby! I am not!' came the somewhat indignant response from Anubis as his form vibrated in what she termed to be anger at being called a baby.

"But you are Anubis, at least to him. But to meh you seem rather grown-up. Don't worry, I'll protect ya and hopefully you can keep an eye or whatever you guys have for eyes on meh so I don't do anything silly later on. OK?" she said hoping to placate the cell phone robot, it certainly wouldn't do to have the small robot start shooting things up just because he was upset over a small difference in the mismatched group reached the doors that were the entrance to the room containing the Cube, Cali looked down at Sam and whistled at him to gather his attention. Looking up at her Sam tilted his head in the universal sign for 'What?' thus Cali asked the question that had been bugging her since she saved Anubis from being destroyed. "What is so important about this Cube anyway?" causing the yellow and black robot to look down at her in answered after looking up at the robot that was carrying her in his hands, who nodded at the teen to go ahead and explain it. "The Cube is what gave them and their Planet life, kinda like their God in a way, I guess. At least that's how it sounded to me when they explained the situation to myself and Mikaela."

Cali just sat there and processed what she had just been told by Sam - that the Cube was essentially a God and that it was being held by Sector Seven and that the Government had no idea that it was here. That made Cali blanch just a little at the thought that, essentially the robots were here to collect their God. She was brought out of her musings when they stepped through the doors and she finally saw the Cube up close and was immensely awed by the sight. IT WAS HUMUNGOUS! The Cube took up most of the room and was surrounded on all sides by walkways and scaffolding where scientists were walking along on.

All movement seemed to halt when they realized that there was a giant robot in the same room and that it had walked up to the Cube, placing Cali on it's shoulder (to which Cali clung gently but firmly so as not to fall) and was touching the Cube in what Cali deemed to be reverence for it and slight amount of awe itself. Cali couldn't help but smile at the rest of the group as they walked up and she heard Epps state in a slightly nervous and unsure voice, "Okay, here we go. He doing something. He doing something."

Cali turned back and she along with the rest of the group watched as the robot touched the Cube in a specific way and the Cube began to shift into a smaller form the whole time the robot was holding and moving his hands across the surface of the Cube. Cali was paying attention to the patterns and were those glyphs of some kind marked across the surface piquing her interest as a translator, even though the shrinking of the Cube made it difficult to tell thoroughly what they were, maybe she could get a closer look at a later date to see what they were exactly.

"Oh, my God!" came Mikaela's voice from below where she was on the robot's shoulder, as she looked at the now much smaller Cube in his hands. She smirked when he responded to everyone after moving the Cube around in his hands with a funny Sci-Fi mix of speech: "Message from Starfleet, Captain. Let's get to it." Cali nodded in agreement at his sentiment, they really did need to get out of here and fast, apparently Lennox was thinking along the same lines as herself and the robot." He's right. We stay here, we're screwed with Megatron in the other hanger."

He looked up at Cali who shrugged and let him know with a look that this was going to be his call, not hers, she had a Sparkling to look after right now and she really didn't see the larger robot letting her out of his sight for any length of time due to that reason alone, why she had no clue, she just knew! "Mission City is 22 miles away. We're gonna sneak that Cube out of here and we're gonna hide it somewhere in the city." continued Lennox as he looked from the robot with Caliene on it's shoulder to where the SecDef was standing looking on in amazement at what had just happened. "Good! Right." came his reply when he finally regained his senses. "But we cannot make a stand without the Air Force." said Lennox as he started to walk over to the rest of the group, every once in a while looking up at where Caliene was sat. Cali absent mindedly cuddled Anubis close to her as she held on to the larger robot's shoulder and she decided that she really needed to know the larger robot's name, so she asked Anubis to ask him the question via a text message.

Confirming her text message, Anubis asked the larger robot what his name was, they were both surprised but for different reasons when they got his reply. "His name is Bumblebee! He is a Scout for the Autobot's. In other words he's one of the 'good guys' as he puts it." Cali tried so hard not to coo at the name given to the larger robot, it seemed to suit the robot well, especially with the coloration of the armor on his body, and the cute antennae on the top of his head and the way his door wings fluttered behind was brought out of her musings when she heard the SecDef respond to Lennox with, "This place must have some kind of radio link! Yes, Shortwave, CB."

Then everyone started slightly when Simmons responded with, "Right, Yes." Caliene almost fell off of Bumblebee's shoulder when she heard the moron respond in the affirmative that there was an older way of communication here in the broke her shock when he turned back to the SecDef and said, "Sir, you got to figure out some way to get word to them." As soon as he had said that he turned and faced the rest of the group and yelled out, "Let's Move!" As soon as those words left his mouth all hell broke loose and everyone started moving with a renewed watched as Lennox led the rest of her Squad away to find the other vehicles that they could use to get to Mission City, preferably some that had some heavy artillery. As this was happening, Caliene had Bumblebee place her safely and gently down off of his shoulder and she patted his hand in thanks, and she crooked a finger at Bumblebee asking him to come closer to her and when he did so she hugged his face as best she could and gave his cheek area a quick kiss in thanks, thus causing the robot to make some sort of an 'Awww!' sound as if he was smiling at Bumblebee, she turned to face Simmons and the SecDef as they continued their conversation about how they were going to get out the required message to the Air Force.

"In the Alien Archive, Sir!" came Simmons' voice causing Caliene's jaw to drop slightly in shock - 'They had an Alien Archive room here?' "The Alien..." came the response from the SecDef, before Simmons continued with "There's an old Army Radio console."

The SecDef looked shocked too and then responded with, "Will it work?" Simmons made Caliene smirk when he next replied "Anything's possible! Did you see that..." and he made funny hand motions about what Bumblebee did to the Cube, thus shrinking it down to the size that it was now. She decided that she had officially heard everything, and she didn't think that anything else could surprise her now. She was shockingly her attention back to where Lennox, her Squad and the teenagers had disappeared to, she headed on over and got there just in time to see Bumblebee transform into what she recognized as a brand new 2008 Chevrolet Camaro with the twin black racing stripes down the hood. She nodded to herself, 'yes the name Bumblebee was indeed appropriate.'

She started slightly when she heard Lennox call out to Sam and Mikaela "All right, Sam, get into the Car!" before turning to Caliene and telling her "You too, Cali, we need someone with the kids, and you seem to get on well with their robotic friend there. We'll see you in Mission City and good luck Captain!" he said as he saluted her and she saluted him back whilst giving him a warm smile. "Will do Lennox, and ya go careful ya self, ya hear me? Sarah would have mah head if anything happened to you right now after you got back Stateside!"

"I hear ya Cali, just keep those kids and the Cube safe, we'll catch a beer together after all this is over." he added and walked over to the Vehicle he was going to ride in whilst yelling over to the SecDef, "Mr. Secretary! Get our birds in the air. When we get to the city, we're gonna find a radio, and I'll have Epps vector them in, Okay?" The SecDef looked at Lennox and replied with a firm, "Affirmative!"

End Chapter 9.[/color]

[Sunstar]

Previously in Chapter 9:

"I hear ya Cali, just keep those kids and the Cube safe, we'll catch a beer together after all this is over." he added and walked over to the Vehicle he was going to ride in whilst yelling over to the SecDef, "Mr. Secretary! Get our birds in the air. When we get to the city, we're gonna find a radio, and I'll have Epps vector them in, Okay?" The SecDef looked at Lennox and replied with a firm, "Affirmative!"

And Now….

Chapter 10

Lennox started calling out instructions to the others that were going to follow the Camaro and it's passengers to Mission City.

"Set a perimeter around the yellow vehicle!"

Driving as fast as they dared the small convoy drove away from the Hoover Dam, the assault vehicles following Bumblebee. Inside the Camaro was a slightly different scene to the one outside.

"The Cube's okay?" came Sam's question as he turned around form the driver's seat to look into the back where Cali was sat with Anubis and the Cube. "Yeah the Cube's fine, Sam. Just worry about getting us to where we need to be." came her response as she held onto both the Cube and Anubis (who was sat on top of the Cube looking at her and tilting his head to one side and then the other as if trying to figure something out.)

Cali unconsciously stroked Anubis' head and jumped slightly as he chirruped in happiness, Mikaela laughing slightly at Cali's slight jump of surprise at the noise from the cell phone bot. Cali glared lightly at Mikaela before shrugging and going back to mulling over everything that had happened to her since she got caught up in this situation, all the while hugging the alien Cube and Anubis close, once again causing Anubis to make a funny purring sound in contentment thus making Cali snigger slightly at his response - she could see Anubis and her cat getting on well if all they did was snuggle and purr like that and smiled as he folded down into his phone mode to sleep.

Outside of the Camaro with the rest of Caliene's Squad and a few others in the assault vehicles, Lennox noted that at the speeds they were traveling down the road at that they were currently 10 miles from the Hoover Dam and halfway towards Mission City. He watched as the Camaro in front of his continued to move at a fast pace, enough so that the assault vehicles were starting to have a few issues with the speed - since the assault vehicles were older and in worse shape mechanically. He was just about to ponder on what was going through Sarah's mind right now whilst she was caring for Annabelle, when the sound of a large Semi's air horn blaring made him jump and stare as the Semi - covered in painted flames, along with blue and red paint, a GMC Topkick, a H2 Hummer Search and Rescue vehicle and a sleek Pontiac Solstice all did sharp 180's and followed the convoy of Military vehicles.

Inside the Camaro, Sam was so pleased to hear the air horn that belonged to Optimus Prime that he just had to let the others in the car know. "There's Optimus." he said and pointed out the large flame painted Semi. Cali looked at the Semi as it passed them and turning around slightly she managed to watch as the Semi hit his breaks and managed a complete 180 degree turn in one smooth move, along with three other vehicles, what caught her eyes though was the sleek sports car that was quickly gaining on the Camaro and was then driving right alongside them as they hit the main Freeway towards Mission City.

She breathed out a steady breath when she realized that it was one of the new Pontiac Solstice's that had been advertised in the media the past few months, she shook her head, whilst it was a nice sporty vehicle and from what she could make out from this distance, that it was a two seater, she knew that she would never be able to afford one even at her Military Pay Grade. She sighed and relaxed back into the rear seat of the Camaro known as Bumblebee.

All was going well until the passengers in the Camaro heard police sirens behind them, Cali assumed that they were getting additional escort from the local police, at least that's what she thought until Sam looked out the rear window and started panicking. "No, no, no, no, no!" he cried out causing Mikaela to ask the question, "What?"

Sam all but cursed under his breath as he once again saw the police cruiser gaining on them, and said, "It's the same cop!" Cali could make out another vehicle with it and identified it as a Buffalo Mine Sweeper, used by the Military.

Cali, Sam and Mikaela watched as the Hummer, black Pick-up and the flamed Semi closed off the road to the two vehicles trying to get to them, Cali shook her head as she heard Sam saying, "Block them, block them, block them." What happened next shocked Cali slightly, she then decided that it was one thing seeing Bumblebee go from robot to car, but to see a large Semi go from vehicle to robot was a completely different thing altogether.

She watched as the Semi hit his breaks, and went into try and block the police car and Minesweeper that were starting to cause problems to the drivers in other lanes on the freeway. She watched as the Minesweeper then transformed into some kind of skating robot that started causing more destruction as it headed towards the now completely changed Semi. She closed her eyes in a prayer to whatever deity was listening to help those who were either dead, dying or injured after seeing the Minesweeper robot slam through a bus full of passengers sending it up into a ball of flame. She fully agreed with Mikaela when she heard the teen gasp out, "Oh, my god!"

After seeing the Semi robot attack the Minesweeper robot they moved out of visual range and headed towards Mission City without any further mishaps, with the Hummer, Pick-up and Solstice, along with Lennox and the assault vehicles in tow. Cali knew she would never forget the scene of the bus exploding in a fireball, for as long as she lived.

After they made it into Mission City she watched as Lennox got the assault vehicles to stop outside of a cheesy pawn shop and about 3 minutes later she watched as he exited with an arm full of old Military radios, he first stopped beside the Camaro and handed her one through the window and asked if she would be alright with it, Cali responding that she was just fine with the old style Military radio, since her brothers used to mess around with them at their grandparents growing up, and therefore taught her how to use them.

She watched as Lennox nodded and headed back towards the rest of the Military convoy to hand out the rest of the radios. "Come on, let's go! Mount up!" Smiling as she tuned her radio into the correct communications frequency for the convoy she listened to one of the soldiers - possibly SAW Gunner Burke from the sound of the voice, yelling at the others. "Move out! Move out! Go! Go!"

She was really laughing hard once she heard via the radios what was going on with Lennox and Epps after Lennox handed Epps the radio, and apparently Epps had his hand right over the transmit button as he was talking to Lennox. The resulting conversation made her, Sam and Mikaela laugh for a bit as they listened in.

Lennox: "Here, I got shortwave radios."
Epps: "Wait. What am I supposed to do with these?"
Lennox: "Well, use them! It's all we got!"
Epps: "This is like RadioShack dinosaur radios or something, man. I'm only gonna get 20 or 30 miles out of these things. Are there any aircraft orbiting the city?"
Lennox: F-22 at 12:00. All right, I want planes for air cover and get Black Hawks on station to extract that Cube. You got it?"

Caliene watched through the rear window as they stopped and listened in as Lennox continued, "Air Force has arrived! Pop smoke!"

She cautiously climbed out of Bumblebee's Alt. Mode and stood beside Lennox, and looked towards the skyline to see what kind of air cover they were likely to get. She let her eyes scan the area for any human type interference to this mission and as she did so she heard Epps talk into his radio.

"Raptor, Raptor, do you copy? We have you visual. Green smoke is the mark. Provide air cover and vector Black Hawks for extraction."

What none were expecting was what happened next; the black Pick-up started to transform behind them and yelled, "It's Starscream!" Caliene was now worried, who or what was 'Starscream' and apparently Epps was of the same mind as he asked into the radio, "Please tell me you copy."

End Chapter 10

Previously in Chapter 10:

What none were expecting was what happened next; the black Pick-up started to transform behind them and yelled, "It's Starscream!" Caliene was now worried, who or what was 'Starscream' and apparently Epps was of the same mind as he asked into the radio, "Please tell me you copy."

Now Chapter 11

Cali's POV:

We all turned to face a noise behind us as the black GMC Topkick transformed the whole way and started to shoo people backwards whilst saying the whole time to, "Back up! Take cover!" and then he turned to face the Camaro that was Bumblebee and called out his name as if to get him to help, which is exactly what our yellow and black striped friend did.

He walked over to where the GMC was now stood and helped to lift up a 'Furby' truck as if to try and make it into some sort of shield or screen to block the missiles and rounds coming from the enemy. I turned when I heard Will panicking slightly as he said, "No, no, no, no, no! Move!" I couldn't tell if he was talking to the Mech's lifting the truck or if he was talking to us who were standing around.

I soon realized that Lennox was talking to all of us as a group, especially when the black GMC Topkick-now-a-Mech turned and told Bumblebee who was still trying to lift the 'Furby' truck up mind you to "Back up! Back up!" I shook my head and yelled to him, "He's trying to you black bucket of bolts! Now either help him move it or shut the hell up!" As you could probably tell my temper was by now starting to fray somewhat, and Will and the guys knew that was not a good thing, especially during a battle zone like Mission City was starting to look like.

For a quick second or two my mind flashed back to the village in Qatar where we faced the Scorpion robot and I shuddered, there was no way in hell I was going to lose any of my Squad or the two teens that we were here to protect. I came back to the present when I heard Lennox yelling "Retreat! Fall back!" I was about to tell Will in no uncertain terms that I was not retreating for any reason, when I was shocked to hear one word nobody in the Armed Forces wants to hear on a battlefield; "INCOMING!"[/i]

Looking in the direction I could see everyone else looking in I swallowed as best I could considering what my eyes were seeing had caused my mouth to dry up. Coming straight at us all were a small group of Missiles - AGM-65's if my guessing was anything to go by (and AGM-88's were for hitting Radar batteries on the ground from the air), and was sure we would find out in a few I remember after the Missiles hit was 'where the hell was the ringing coming from?' and 'I'm alive!' Then the fun thought of 'OWWW!' hit as I tried to sit up, figuring out just where I was feeling the 'OWWW!' from, I touched my head and found a slight bump near the top of the back of my head.

'Great! I have a minor concussion!' I thought to myself as I slowly stood up to look around for the rest of the Squad and the teens along with the Mechs.I watched whilst I looked around as everyone started to shake off the effects of the explosions and debris covering them. Spotting Lennox and the rest of my Squad, I headed on over to see if anyone required a medic or not; we really didn't need anyone being out of commission right now.

As I slowly and carefully made my way over to them I heard a metallic sound, almost like a whining sound, so I stopped and looked around through the dust clouds that were still floating around and spotted Bumblebee trying to crawl towards where I assume Sam and Mikaela were. Therefore, I decided that my Squad mates could deal with anything that came up without my help, thus freeing me up to help the teens if they were injured.

Hearing one of the Squad yelling out to "Clear the area!" and then hearing Lennox call out "Anybody hurt? Everyone okay?" I replied that I was fine and was going to look for the rest of the I got over to where Bumblebee and the teens were, I was appalled at the state that Bumblebee was in; he was missing his legs from the knees down. He was in definite pain if the whining was anything to go by. Almost like the noises he was making back at the Dam when he was being experimented on. Reaching them and squatting down in front of Bumblebee, I pulled out Anubis, effectively waking up the poor baby so that he could help me figure out what was going on with 'Bee.

"What is wrong with Bumblebee, Creator?"[/i] came the text I got as Anubis fully took into consideration the scene if front of his mini transformed form. "He was injured in a blast from a missile, Anubis. Now he is in pain. Can you help whilst one of the group finds a Medic or a Mechanic to help him?" I asked, looking from Bumblebee to Anubis as 'Bee whined some more and Sam was now freaking out over the Bot's loss of legs.

What happened next surprised even me when Anubis jumped from my hands and toddled over to Bumblebee and gently climbed up his arms to check him Anubis was doing this I watched as Sam literally pushed the Solstice backwards, all the while saying to him "Here, back, back, back, back!" then turning to Bumblebee and asking him if he was all right, before asking him to get up. I shook my head at the boy and touched his shoulder effectively getting his attention. "Sam! He needs to see a Medic or a Mechanic to fix his legs, or at least to shut off the sectors of his legs that tell him they hurt."

Nodding his head, Sam turned and looking around yelled out "RATCHET!" Who or what 'Ratchet' was, I would find out later.
Turning around to see where the Medic would come from I noticed the Solstice was slightly further back than Sam had had him move. So wandering over, I looked the vehicle over for any dents or scratches from the explosion and was relieved to see only dust laying on the silver paint of the car. I was mentally drooling, as I looked this vehicle over. It was a sports car so naturally it would appeal to me, heck I owned a 1970 metallic blue Camaro with white racing stripes which was a nice smooth ride. I kept that baby as pristine as I could when I was home, although if my neighbor was doing their job she would be the same once I got back and not covered in dust.

Reaching for a clean rag in my BDU pants pocket, I started to wipe the dust off the hood of the car. I jumped when the car visibly shuddered and a voice came from the radio, "Tha' tickles soldier! But ya have mah thanks!" I almost dropped the rag when I heard the thanks coming from the car, that I now noticed had no driver, thus making it one of the 'Bots we were fighting alongside with. Gathering up my courage again, that had been shaken by the Missiles, I asked a couple of simple questions, "Who are you, if you don't mind meh asking? Are ya a friend of Bumblebee's or are ya just a colleague?" The Solstice answered me back, "Mah designation is Jazz, Lil' Lady and I ahm a friend and colleague of Bumblebee. May ah ask the same of yerself?"

I stood and watched as Anubis was shutting off receptors to Bumblebee's legs to stem the flow of sparking wires and a glowing blue liquid from the wounds, before I answered the Solstice known now as Jazz.

"Mah name is Caliene Meredith, a Captain in the United States Army; mah job specializations entail Sniper, Saboteur and Linguist to mah Squad. I ahm currently the human carrier of Anubis, who is the little bot currently helping out Bumblebee, but Anubis keeps calling meh his Creator." I shrugged in a way that told Jazz that I did not really mind that Anubis called me that. "Sector Seven made him out of a cell phone activated by a jolt from the All Spark, they then tried to kill him when he was scared and started attacking the box he was in. I saved him and now we're here helping you guys."

Turning back to face Jazz, I watched as he rolled back and forth as if he was thinking about something.

I mentally cringed when I replayed the previous conversation with Jazz back in my mind; my accent had come out again. It usually only did that when I was stressed, in a Hot Spot of a Battle Zone or if I was very drunk... usually the latter never applied since I never had as much down time as the rest of the Squad due to my training. I cringed when I heard Lennox call out, "What the hell was that?" Turning to face Lennox to respond to his obviously irate question, I stopped when I heard Epps reply with, "What are you talking about?"

I just about faced palmed and sat down at the same time - thus ending up sat on the edge of Jazz's hood and shook my head as Lennox yell out, "What do you mean, 'What am I talking about?' They shot at us!" Cautiously looking up from my hand I decided to explain to Epps why Lennox seemed pissy about the plane shooting at us and also the reasoning for him looking like he would pull a Vesuvius.

"Yo, Epps! He is tryin' to get ya ta understand tha' F-22 pilots would never fly below buildings. Thus meaning that, that's alien. That ain't friendly!" and getting up from where I was sat I turned and apologized to Jazz by wiping where I had sat down with my sleeve and rag till it was clean. Then I turned to where Sam was as I heard his one sided conversation with Bumblebee.

"You gotta get up. You're okay. You're okay. Come on!" Sighing and nodding to Jazz's vehicle mode I headed over to Sam and gave him a pat on the shoulder whilst looking up a Bumblebee and spotting Anubis as he climbed back down from where he was now situated on his shoulders. Scrambling over to me, I picked him back up, gave the small phone-bot a gentle stroke down the back of his head, and crooned to him with my vocal cords. It was kinda like a mother cat will do with her kittens - and he snuggled up into my hands before folding back down into his phone form and typing out a message.

"Fixed what I could. Needs better Medic than me. Too small for most things! "[/i] I was shocked at what Anubis had done for Sam's robotic friend and I smiled at Anubis before responding to the text. "Anubis you did really well with what you did, I am proud of you. Also remember that great things come in small packages!" I smirked after hearing a certain Solstice's engine rumble in agreement glad someone understood the meaning.

After placing Anubis back into my BDU shirt chest pocket for safety, I picked up my rifle and racked a round into the chamber, before heading back towards where Jazz was sat idling. I was almost there when I heard a metallic clanging and a spray of debris was thrown into the air by whatever was shot at us. After regaining my feet, since I had instinctually ducked low enough to land on my knees.

I looked in the direction from where the noise had originated and spotted what I was sure was an Abrams Tank firing shells at us, it fired off another round whilst driving right over any vehicle in its way causing many civilians to run around panicking. As I watched the Tank continue towards us, I heard a familiar engine rev loud and speed down the road towards the Tank, swerving and dodging around anything/anyone in his way so as to not hit anyone/anything and just behind him was the Rescue Hummer that had traveled with us speeding right along with Jazz.

I was shocked out of my skin slightly when I heard Lennox yell out behind me to everyone else, "Move out! Let's go!" I watched as the rest of the squad headed off to help where they could in the assault vehicles, whilst Mikaela was searching now for something - I'm guessing she was trying to figure out a way to get Bumblebee to a safe area, due to his leg injuries. I watched as I stood there when Mikaela ran towards an abandoned tow truck, breaking the window and getting the door open before hot-wiring the vehicle and driving it back over to where I stood near to Bumblebee and Sam. Turning to check on them, I watched with a sad smile on my face when Bumblebee handed Sam the Cube that he had dropped during the explosion and decided to hand on over to be kept safe by his friend.

As I turned around slowly to see what everyone else was doing, I could tell that things were about to get rather dangerous - well more than they were now at any rate - and that we may lose some friends to this battle, along with a whole mess of civilians. I was not looking forward to what was going to happen next, since my senses were telling me that something big and evil was going to arrive and no-one was going to safe from his wrath.

End chapter 11[/color]

[Sunstar]

Previously in Chapter 11:

I was shocked out of my skin slightly when I heard Lennox yell out behind me to everyone else, "Move out! Let's go!" I watched as the rest of the squad headed off to help where they could in the assault vehicles, whilst Mikaela was searching now for something - I'm guessing she was trying to figure out a way to get Bumblebee to a safe area, due to his leg injuries. I watched as I stood there when Mikaela ran towards an abandoned tow truck, breaking the window and getting the door open before hot-wiring the vehicle and driving it back over to where I stood near to Bumblebee and Sam. Turning to check on them, I watched with a sad smile on my face when Bumblebee handed Sam the Cube that he had dropped during the explosion and decided to hand on over to be kept safe by his friend.

As I turned around slowly to see what everyone else was doing, I could tell that things were about to get rather dangerous - well more than they were now at any rate - and that we may lose some friends to this battle, along with a whole mess of civilians. I was not looking forward to what was going to happen next, since my senses were telling me that something big and evil was going to arrive and no-one was going to safe from his wrath.

Now on to chapter 12:

"Bold Type" = Yelling/Shouting/Radio Communictaion
"Bold Italic Type" = Anubis texting conversation
'Italic Type' = Thoughts

Cali's POV:

I watched as the Pick-up now robot with huge ass cannons on his arms headed towards the tank that was shooting at us. I watched in awe as he jumped over two incoming shells and proceeded to use his own cannons to help him flip over a pedestrian who just screamed as he sailed above her and landed in a shoulder roll on the other side of her.

I prayed hard to any deity that was listening when I saw Jazz driving towards the same tank. I watched as, as he got closer he transformed into his own robot mode and proceeded to jump up and land on top of the tank. I then smirked when I heard him say, "Come on, Decepticon Punk!" before pulling up on the cannon, causing the shot it fired to go wide of it's mark - namely me and the rest of the small group.

It was almost like watching a car wreck in progress - ya just can't not look. I watched as the tank then transformed into a much heavier built robot, and watched whilst mentally cheering for Jazz as he kicked the weapons from the Tank robots shoulder. I gasped in shock when the tank robot then grabbed Jazz by the leg and proceeded to throw him into one of the nearby buildings, I sighed once Jazz got back up shaking his head to obviously clear out any dizziness the hit had caused.

By now the black Pick-up truck-turned-robot was firing at the tank robot whilst, and I even had to drop my jaw in awe, pulled off a Double Helix Twist in the air. By now Jazz was back in the fight and the Emergency Hummer - I assumed to be Ratchet - were now also shooting at the tank robot. I cheered out loud when the Hummer - Ratchet - used a bi-directional circular saw blade to remove one of the tank robots limbs.

I jumped slightly when I heard Lennox yell out, "Concentrate your fire!" This got me back into the thick of things as I set up my Rifle and aimed towards it's upper torso, making sure that I wouldn't hit any of our allies. Firing at least three rounds - one hitting it in the face, and the other two hitting it in the upper gut area - I listened as the rest of the Squad fired their Sabot rounds at the Tank. We all watched as the Pick-up, Solstice and Hummer all shot at the tank at the same time we did, effectively knocking it down. I strongly hoped that it stayed down, since it was obviously one of the oppositions heavy hitters.

I really had hoped to be wrong about the big, evil thing that was going to arrive, but as per usual my senses were dead on (excuse the pun). I was just getting my rifle back up off the rubble I had been leaning on for my shots, when I heard Ratchet yell out, "It's Megatron! Retreat! Move! Fall Back!" As soon as we all heard that, well Lennox did the only thing he could do…. He called a retreat of sorts, "Fall Back!"

Watching Ratchet and Jazz shooting at Megatron had my heart in my throat. I hoped that they would get out of the way, but it wasn't going to happen. Megatron started to fire back at them and a couple of the hits knocked Jazz off of his feet, causing him to roll backwards.

Turing around I saw Lennox helping a bunch of our Squad out from one of the turned over buggies we had driven here in, so I yelled to him, "Get our guys out of the way, Lennox! Get them outta here!" Facing me, Will nodded and continued to help move them out of the buggy and I listened when he told the others, "Go! Get them out of the buggy! Move out!"

By now Epps was looking rather more worried than I had seen him when we were running from the Metallic Scorpion of Doom, and mentally nodded in appreciation when he yelled, "We need air cover down here now!" and then smirked widely when he muttered loud enough to hear "I really ain't paid enough for this shit!"

I turned around suddenly at hearing the voice of Jazz yell, "That all you got, Megatron?" and froze as Megatron reached over and tried grabbing Jazz who was moving and dodging any attempt from the much larger robot until he was grabbed whilst dodging backwards with Megatron yelling at him, "Come here, little cretin."

As soon as he said that mah military training kicked up a notch as I swapped the smaller gun (my M24 SWS) I had been using for a modified M242 Bushmaster (a proven 30/40mm Mk44 Bushmaster Cannon system, that may be set to fire in single shot, 5 round burst or fully automatic modes) whilst I listened to a track on my MP3 that was clipped to my other BDU pocket - "Doomsday Clock" by the Smashing Pumpkins was definitely a good thing to listen to whilst trying to concentrate on my target.

I aimed at the much larger robot currently holding one of my robot allies by his foot as he took off to the top of a nearby building. Watching through the attached scope and waited for my opening, all the while listening as Megatron and Jazz continued to yell at each other, the latter still hanging by a foot from Megatron's clawed hand. "You want a piece of me?" came Jazz's voice as he fired his rotating shield gun at the massive bulk of Megatron, "You want a piece?" he repeated again as he shot this time at Megatron's claw that was holding him upside down, thus causing the larger robot to switch claws and grabbed him with the other.

This maneuver gave me the opening I required and as I watched Megatron finally grab a hold of Jazz in both clawed hands and yell out, "No! I want two!" I fired a shot right into one of Megatron's optics, thus causing him to bellow in pain as the incendiary round worked it's job through the delicate wires behind the front.

This in turn caused him to drop Jazz, who was still relatively in one piece except with a gash along his abdominal plating, which would more than likely cause him to be out for the rest of this battle. I hurriedly grabbed up the M242, what rounds I could grab in the ammo case nearby (which had been thrown from the buggy when it was hit) and ran towards where Jazz had landed, I decided that I should protect him whilst he was injured - just like I would for any member of my Squad in a war zone.

Getting over there I watched as the BDU Pocket that I had placed Anubis in moved as he transformed and wiggled out of it and all but jumped onto Jazz's frame, I guess he was going to do with Jazz like he tried with 'Bee whilst I was busy keeping an eye open for any further Hostiles that would try and take us out. "Creator... Need to help silver Mech with visor!"[/i] came the message from Anubis as he settled in to work on the injury 'Megadork' my mind finally decided to call Megatron, did to Jazz. Nodding at my partner - since that is what Anubis had become since rescuing him from Hover Dam - I watched the surrounding area once again and flinched when I noticed the same Helicopter robot from Qatar land on a nearby building rooftop.

Grabbing my radio I yelled through to Lennox, "Yo, Lennox! Got some intel for ya! Face North of your position and look at the telecommunications building's rooftop... Do you happen to see what I see? Over" I heard a crackle over the radio before hearing the cussing of my best friend, " $%^&! Oh, we are so dead. Thanks for the heads up Cali, I owe ya a drink when this is over!" I smirked slightly as I responded back, "Five by Five, Lennox, I'll hold ya to that. What I would love to see right now is an AH-64 fully loaded to help us out with these things. I just don't think the REMF's would appreciate the paperwork though."

I was currently sat alternating between watching what Anubis was doing to Jazz and keeping watch in the small area we had - luckily it was far enough away from the main brunt of the battle, that we were safe... for now. I listened closely to the radio incase anything came this way, and I heard Epps place a call out, "Army Black Hawks requested. Immediate Evac for civilian boy with precious cargo. Headed for rooftop marked by flare." Now I understood from that single transmission that they were going to Airlift Sam and the Cube out of Mission City to some nearby Military Base - which one would be up to debate on how much fuel the Black Hawk had in its tanks.

Getting up I walked to the edge of the area we were in (we being: Jazz, Anubis and myself) looking around I tried to spot the tallest building that could be for an Airlift Evac, and spotted an old white building with Angel Statues at the top of it - it had what seemed to be a clear flat rooftop, perfect for an Evac by Black Hawk.

Turning back to head back on over to Jazz and Anubis, I heard the voice of 'Megadork' yell out, "Decepticon's, Attack!" After hearing that I heard the tell tale sound of a tank firing. 'Crud,' my thoughts went, 'that thing just doesn't die does it? I thought we had taken it down!'

Running back over to Jazz and Anubis I slid to a stop, and panting slightly I told Anubis to let Jazz know that I had gone back to help the Squad, since where we were currently was out of the range of the main battle; thus it meant that the two of them would be safe whilst I went and backed up my team mates. Nodding his small head, Anubis text me, "Creator, be careful! Come back whole, please! "[/i]

Smiling back at him I gave him a quick hug and then patted Jazz's armor with some form of affection, he had given us time to get out of Megatron's way before he was injured. Then turning and grabbing my weapons, I ran as fast as I could towards the Squad and Lennox. I had a bad feeling that they were going to need the heavy firepower I had at my disposal as well as their own.

End Chapter 12

Previously in Chapter 12:

Running back over to Jazz and Anubis, I slid to a stop and, panting slightly, I told Anubis to let Jazz know that I had gone back to help the Squad, since where we were currently was out of the range of the main battle; thus it meant that the two of them would be safe whilst I went and backed up my team mates. Nodding his small head, Anubis texted me, "Creator, be careful! Come back whole, please! "

Smiling back at him, I gave him a quick hug, and then patted Jazz's armor with some form of affection; he had given us time to get out of Megatron's way before he was injured. Then turning and grabbing my weapons, I ran as fast as I could towards the squad and Lennox. I had a bad feeling that they were going to need the heavy firepower I had at my disposal as well as their own.

Now onto Chapter 13:

As I approached where Lennox and the Squad were, I heard Lennox yelling at Mikaela to "Get out of here now!" I ducked when the sound of the tank firing at our position brought me back to what was going on around me.

Watching as Mikaela drove away with 'Bee on the back of the tow truck she had somehow liberated, I turned to face Epps when I heard him say "Oh, no!"

Joining up next to him, I questioned him about what he was thinking when he said that. "Well, if ya care to look in that direction, Cali, there is a fricking TANK SHOOTING AT US!" Nodding at him finally losing his control, I was surprised that all of us hadn't lost it by now, due to stress.

I couldn't help the words that came out of my mouth after he had calmed down slightly, "This is not going well!" This earned me a glare from both Epps and Lennox, which caused me to shrug. As we turned to see what was going on, the tank started firing at us again, causing all to duck and we prepared to fire back at it.

Firing back during a few breaks in-between shots fired by the enemy I was not expecting to hear shots coming from behind me. Taking the risk and looking behind me there was Bumblebee on the back of the tow-truck firing his cannon at the tank as the rest of my Squad and Lennox continued to shoot at it too.

Quickly deciding that I should concentrate on the tank for now, I turned back and started to fire at it again, this time we all got lucky when one of Bumblebee's shots hit him right in the chest where it's heart or equivalent would be housed; killing it instantly.

After seeing the tank go down for the final time, I swore I heard Burke say "That tank is definitely dead now." Shaking my head to throw out the irony of his words in a battle such as this, I turned to face Bumblebee and gave him the 'thumbs up' for a great shot, and then I walked over to Mikaela and was about to start chewing her out for driving back into a war zone with an injured ally, when Lennox decided to take matters into his own hands.

"All right, let's go! We got business!"

I decided that I was going to check back with Jazz and Anubis, to see how they were coping and hopefully Jazz would be awake enough to understand why he was left with the equivalent of a baby to them, whilst I was fighting and Jazz was injured. I knew it was a stupid thing to do, but I had thought he would be safer with someone much bigger, heavier, and better armed than me at the time.

Finally making it back to where the two of them were still sat at, Jazz raised his visor slightly and looked at me with his piercing electric blue optics, almost as if he was giving me the evil stink eye for leaving him behind. "Ahm sorry ah left ya guys here, but the rest of mah squad needed meh, and if it wasn't fer meh Jazz, you'd be in two rather messy pieces that yer medic would have one hell o' a time puttin' back together if it hadn't o' off-lined ya first! So dun go giving meh tha' look Mister, 'cause it ain't gunna work on meh!"

I said as I crossed my arms and looked at the pair of them but Jazz especially.
"Ah wasn't gunna say nuthin' Lil' Lady, but now tha' yer mention it… wha' yer did was reckless, and if I weren't too sure of yer thought processes, I woulda said yer were glitched in the processor, but considering yer came back in one whole piece, I guess yer did a'ight! But yer did scare the Sparklin' here when yer left him to tend to meh, he is just a newborn spark yer know" came Jazz's reply to my outburst.

Hearing a familiar 'whomp-whomp' of rotors, I looked up and spotted three Black Hawks flying towards the building where Sam was supposed to hand off the All Spark to the Military, who would then extract it to another safe point. I started running once I saw a missile hit the air intake on the lead Black Hawk, and held my breath as I watched to see if any of the crew would bail-out but when I didn't see any of them do so, I prayed to whatever deity would listen and hope that their souls made it to where they were supposed to.

Finally making it to where I could get a clear view of the building, Sam on the edge of the Building's roof by a statue, and the helo’s that were now circling after the other helo crashed if the spiraling smoke plume was anything to go by. What surprised me next was when I saw the tallest, red and blue flamed robot - I think Sam called him Optimus - was running and jumping trying to get Sam after I witnessed Megatron use what I could swear was a mace to separate the piece of building Sam was currently holding onto causing him and the statue to tumble.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Optimus catch Sam in one of his hands and curl him close to his chassis and was trying to find a safe way down for the pair of them, when Megatron decided to make his presence made by jumping down after Optimus and Sam.

I was now starting to worry since Megatron had pretty much slammed into Optimus who was carrying Sam and the All Spark, thus causing them to fall way too fast to the ground below. Because of this I was now running over to where they had all landed and decided to try and keep Sam alive and thus keeping the All Spark out of Megatron's claws.

Getting over there, I grabbed at Sam making the poor lad jump a good foot or two into the air before he turned and faced me with an obvious sigh and a small smile that he was glad to see my weapons and me. We both turned and faced Optimus when he spoke, "Sam? You risked your life to protect the Cube."

"No Sacrifice, No Victory." Came Sam's reply as he looked at Optimus and held the All Spark tighter.

Standing behind him I nodded and uttered a few things in Latin, getting a couple of confused looks from both Sam and Optimus at what I said until I said, I would translate it to them after this was all over. Turning around I spotted Jazz and Anubis a ways back from where Sam, Optimus and I were standing and I sent a quick smile and waved to them before Optimus said, "If I cannot defeat Megatron, you must push the Cube into my chest. I will sacrifice myself to destroy it. Get behind me."

I looked at him in complete disbelief as he started to get up, "Are you completely out of your processor! That is amount to suicide! There is no way in the nine levels of Hell that I will let you do that, once this is over with you and I are going to sit down and have one hell of a long discussion about self-sacrificing. It doesn't do any good to anyone!" Panting hard at the end of my mini-rant, I looked at Sam who had the look of shock, or was it bewilderment, on his face that I had just pretty much chewed out the leader of the Autobots.

I shrugged at Sam, and was about to grab him and find him a safer spot to be than above ground - broken roads and water pipes are a god send in a battle zone - when I heard the familiar 'whomp-whomp' of helicopter blades, turning to see if it was reinforcements for us. I was surprised to see that blasted evil helicopter that had attacked us in Qatar.

Looking his direction I noticed that whilst Optimus and Megatron were now duking it out, he had one of his sets of propeller blades - most likely his tail rotor blades, looking at the size of them - and was starting to try and sneak closer to where the two larger robots were fighting.

Using my brain, I told Sam to hide in the debris of what was left of the road and water pipes so that he would be a whole lot safer, and with him nodding and then sliding into a spot just 5 yards from where we were standing, I then headed on back towards where I could make out Epps and the group shining a green laser-beam to target the Helo-bot.

What none of them were expecting was for the helo-bot to actually notice the laser-beam, which was kinda hard not too when it's being shone on to your hand, and turning in their direction activated the same chest cannon that had been aimed at Epps back in Qatar.

I watched as it fired at my squad members as they ran into a group of buildings and it followed them, all the while spinning its tail-rotor blades of doom and shredding a nearby yellow car that bore a strong resemblance to Bumblebee's current vehicle form. By now, I was pissed as all hell, decided that I had to do something, even if it cost me my own life in this regard - I ran straight for the helo-bot, and fired off round after round of 30mm sabots at it and yelling at it at the same time.

"Mater tua criceta fuit, et pater tuo redoluit bacarum sambucus!" I yelled at the enemy as I continued to run and shoot, whether or not it understood me though I did not really care, although from the look on the squads faces behind the enemy robot was anything to go by I had confused them enough too, yet they still shot at it.

"Tua mater tam antiquior ut linguam latine loquatur!" Now this got a snort out of Lennox as well as a grin out of Epps, mainly because I had used it once or twice and they remembered the phrase well. Then as we all fired the final shots at it and I couldn't believe that Lennox had grabbed a motorcycle and pulled the most stupid stunt I have ever seen him pull by sliding under the Helo-bot whilst firing up into its underside, I uttered load and proud, "Hostis hvmani generis. Dum spiramus tuebimur!"

I glared at Lennox as he came to a stop not more than 5 ft from me on the ground staring at the Helo-bot as it crashed to the ground, most definitely off-line now and it wasn't getting back up. "Just what were you thinking you idiot!" I said to Lennox as I jogged over to him and slapped the back of his head just enough to get it through to him I was pissed at his little stunt. "You have a family to get home to, and you pull shit like this!" by now I was waving my hands around trying to get the point across, and yet not letting him get a word in edgewise. I was on a roll until I heard Optimus' deep voice say, "Sam, put the cube into my chest!"

As soon as he said that I was running towards Sam, Optimus and Megatron, - Goddess did that sound weird - and I was yelling to Sam now, "Don't you dare do it Sam! There has to be another way around it! You can't kill Optimus!" At that last bit Sam looked at me and seemed to understand what I was saying, although by now I was pretty much back to where he was and as Sam ran over towards Megatron I figured out what he had come up with plan wise.

He was going to place the All Spark into Megatron's chest instead of Optimus'! Now, this was a plan I could get behind, in a weird way. This kid actually thought out of the box in this whacked out situation. I was actually impressed with him. Maybe, once he was out of High School, we could get him to join the military, since he would probably do well with a mind like his.

But back to the matter at hand, I decided to help Sam as much as I could. He was stumbling everywhere and he nearly dropped the All Spark again, so I helped him steady himself and to make sure this venture worked we both held the All Spark up to Megatron's chest and watched in amazement as it started to disintegrate into his chest, the heat that was released was amazing, and I don't know if Sam noticed or not but my arms tingled as the Cube disappeared.

Megatron howled in agony as the Cube destroyed his chest with its limitless energy. Sam and I watched above us as Megatron convulsed, jerked and then made some inarticulate sounds before grabbing at his messed up chest area with a claw before falling over; off-lined by a Cube and two insignificant humans, kinda like 'David vs. Goliath'. What shocked me next was when Optimus leaned over Megatron's body, and said, "You left me no choice, brother."

Then, as I was currently holding Sam up from collapsing, Optimus walked over to us and bent down and said, "Sam, Captain, I owe you two my life." causing us to shake our heads in denial of that, as he continued, "We are in your debt."

Now this caused me to look up at Optimus and I decided to shock my squad and Sam by saying what I did next, "De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum - 'Of two evils, the lesser must always be chosen.' In other words Optimus, we chose the lesser of two evils, instead of letting Megatron getting the Cube we used it against him."

Nodding as if understanding what I meant he stood up and started talking to the rest of the group around us, Lennox walked over and clapped my shoulder, obviously happy to see I was still breathing, if a little singed. "You and I are going to have a talk about this later, Cali!" he said with a smirk, letting me know that he was joking around now and pretty much using my own words against me.

I was so intent on hugging Lennox, since he was whole, and had always been a good friend throughout our military career, that I completely missed a certain silver car-turned-robot sneak up behind me with Anubis in one of his claws. Feeling a light tap on one of my shoulders, I jumped with a squeal - one that Lennox nor Epps would let me live down - and turned to face the person responsible for making me squeal.

Glaring slightly at Jazz, who was smirking widely mind you, I shook a finger at him and decided to chew him out slightly, "I can honestly say that you really should not do what I say next: 'Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus!' or in other words: 'Never tickle a sleeping dragon!' aka ME, unless you want retaliation and I can be rather creative when riled. Also, why did you try and take on Megadork! That was stupidity at its highest Jazz!" By now the other, 'bots were smirking and obviously trying to with-hold laughter as Jazz got chewed out for his escapades.

In all actuality, he was lucky to be in one piece, let alone alive. It was at this point that Ratchet walked over and started to chew out Jazz too, thus causing me to smirk now, especially when Ratchet brought out a massive wrench from somewhere on his person and proceeded to whack Jazz in the helm with it. "Note to self: Never piss off a medic, whether they be human or robotic in origin." I mumbled just loud enough for the squad and Optimus to hear, this time causing them to laugh out right. Glaring back at them all I pointed out, "Ya'll know that's a true and time proven fact that medics are scary enough when riled to even make Satan himself wanna run and hide in the deepest parts of Hell!"

Most of the squad looked at me and smiled in agreement as we turned back to watch the argument between the medic and Jazz.

After listening to the speech Optimus gave about making new allies with us, we all headed off to our separate destinations. Well, me and the squad headed back to base to change out of our uniforms, shower, and possibly rest up for about 48 hours.

Unfortunately, that wasn't to be for me, because as soon as I had done everything else and had just flopped down on my bunk, I heard the sound of two familiar engines. Getting up, making sure that Anubis was asleep in his phone mode on the dresser, I moved to look out my room's windows. Whilst trying to look past my cat who was sat there sunning himself, I recognized the two sat outside the building.

Grabbing my sneakers and lightweight hoodie, I walked out the main door, keys in my pockets and wandered on over to the pitch black C4500 GMC and the shiny Pontiac Solstice that were sitting there in the two parking spots outside the building - coincidentally the spaces that were reserved for me and Lennox to park a vehicle in when we're here and not at home with our families. Patting the Topkicks hood gently and moving to between the two vehicles I muttered, "What are you two doing here? I thought you were supposed to be recuperating after the battle and that the 'Medico of Doom' could get you all fixed up again, especially you Jazz! You were almost ripped in half, if it wasn't for Anubis doing what he did, I doubt that Ratchet would have had any chance at fixing you because you would have been dead! Deceased! Cease to be! Offlined!"

The last part was me getting back into a tizzy because I had almost lost a friend in another battle. I mean, fine, I hardly knew the Mech, but I could count him as a friend since he tried to save us and our planet from being over taken by some Mechanical Megalomaniac. In fact, I counted all the Autobots as friends, after what they did.

End Chapter 13[/color]

[Sunstar]

Chapter 14


I would just like to say that this chapter is un-Beta'd. Sorry if there are any mistakes in it. I am truely sorry for the length of time between the last chapter and this post, it was due to quite a few factors - a bout of Writer's Block, then mah three youngling's going back to School, and then an Internet connection problem that has now been sorted out (crosses fingers).

Enough of this and on to the Story.

---

It had been a few days since the Battle of Mission City, and everyone was hoping to spend whatever down time we were allowed off of Base. I was relaxing on my bunk when I was alerted to a familliar vehicle outside of my dorm, peering through the window I shook my head with a snigger... there in the empty parking space for my personnal vehicle was a very shiney and sleek looking Solstice.

As I turned to let the curtain fall I noticed the flash of the headlights on the car indicating that I had been spotted and giving the car a quick wave from the window I grabbed my shoes, light weight jacket, wallet and Anubis - who was in his phone Alt. Mode sleeping. Gently placing Anubis into my jacket pocket I locked the door to my dorm room and slid the keys into my pocket on the other side of my jacket.

Hopping down the steps three at a time until I mad it to the door and then jogged to greet a very good friend. Reaching the Solstice, I ran my hand gently over the hood of the car and gave the front fender a slight pat before reaching for the door that opened of it's own accord.

"Thanks Jazz, glad ta see tha' da Doc let ya away from his ministrations for a while huh?" I asked as I made myself comfortable in the drivers seat. I looked up from my wallet and jacket that I had placed on the passenger seat when Jazz spoke through the radio.

"Well... ah dun know abou' da Hatchet letting me outta his Optical range, let alone his ministrations willingly... Ya could say tha' I snuck away ta come and see ya and Anubis. I was goin' crazy listenin' ta Ratchet going on and on about how slaggin' stupid ah was fer goin' up against Megatron." He said as we headed out the main Gate and then out towards the National Parks Area where we could go deep enough for Jazz to be in his true form and not scare the crap outta normal folks.

I could pick up in his tone that there was more going on then what he was saying, but I let it be for now as I stretched and yawned. Even after we had gotten back from the Battle at Mission City, I had tried to sleep since I was completely exhausted, but I just could not sleep. I truly believe that the scene of Donnely being killed by that Mechanical Scorpion in Qatar, constantly playing through my mind when I tried to sleep didn't help any, I knew it was just a matter of time before my body decided to take the matter into it's own hands and either 'shut me down' to sleep as Ratchet had said or drive me insane. I truly hoped that it would sort itself out before that ever happened, but I was never going to take the Medication that would be prescribed for the situation, especially after seeing what it had done to a friend in Boot Camp.

Jazz noticed that I had been quiet for longer than normal, and decided to try finding some music to distract from the silence that had filled the cab of his Alt. Mode. After settling for some sort of smooth jazz, which made me laugh at the irony, after a short while I decided to ask Jazz the real reason for his visit to me on Base.

"So why did you really sneak away from the Medico of Doom to see meh, Jazz? And don't try ta lie ta meh, it doesn't belong between friends, and I count us as such after what we both went through at Mission City." I said as I felt Anubis move around in my jacket pocket before he settled back down. I had really connected to Anubis after Mission City, and I would be torn up badly if anything was to happen to the small bot, I could be classified as his 'mother' now since he has attached himself to me and almost refuses to go to any of the others that Jazz and I know except Ratchet and then only because Ratchet spoils the lil' guy and that was probably because Anubis is currently the only Sparkling/Youngling to be 'conceived' by the AllSpark in Millennia which meant that Bumblebee was now no longer the youngest 'Bot on Earth.

"Well... I worried fer ya Cali. Yer may be able to fight off other Humans who wish yer harm, but when it comes to dealin' wit' da Decepticons... Yer still new to all dis, I don't know what would happen wit' meh or lil' Anubis if anything happened ta ya. Ya mean the world ta da both of us Cali, and after speaking wit' Prime abou' it... much ta da Hatchet's annoyance mind ya... Prime has agreed that since Ironhide is the Guardian to the Lennox family that ya too should have a Guardian. Ah offered ta be ya Guardian, Caliene because ah owe ya for keepin' meh alive during the Battle with Megatron, yer didn't have ta but ya did." said Jazz as we drove closer to the National Park and his chance at stretching out his frame.

After about another 45 minutes of driving, we arrived at the National Park and I climbed out and paid the fee to get us in there. After getting back into Jazz's Alt. Mode we drove through the gates and out towards where the thicker and taller trees were at, I could tell from the added bounce that Jazz was using in his shock absorbers that he was really looking forward to being able to transform.

(25 MINUTES DRIVE-TIME LATER)

Getting to the area we had found via shifting through massive amounts of information, Jazz parked his Alt. Mode and allowed me to climb out before he transformed. Watching the process from start to finish amazed me to the point that I don't ever think I will tire of watching them do so. I continued to watch as Jazz stretched out his cables and I swear I heard a few 'pops' from his joints as he twisted and turned to loosen up after being in his Alt. Mode.

Finally letting out a sigh, or what I guess was a sigh for them, Jazz sat down and leaned against one of the tall trees with an arm drapped across on slightly bent leg to relax. I waited for him to get comfy, and after a few minutes I decided to climb up his leg and sit on his knee joint and that way we could talk face to face, without me getting a crink in my neck. Deciding to bite the bullet I asked Jazz exactly what was rolling around my head after his revelation of wanting to be my Guardian.

"So what does being mah Guardian entail? I mean it could be something completely different to what we humans consider a Guardian or it could mean the same thing. So illuminate the situtaion for meh please." I asked him as I cocked my head to the left as if I were a hawk watching my prey from a distance.

"Well... A Guardian ta us means tha' we protect that young 'bot or in this case human aka you, from anyone or anything that would try to harm you in any way with our life. I meant wha' ah said earlier on da way here... ya mean da world ta meh and lil' Anubis and I wouldn't want ta see him orphaned by his Creator because I weren't dere ta keep ya safe from harm. Da 'Cons are gonna be layin' low fer a while since Megatron was offlined, but make no mistake about it Cali, dey will regroup at some point and come after those responsible for his defeat." he explained as I sat and took everything in.

He stared at me and then he proceeded to do something I had never seen him do, not even at Mission City, he flipped up his visor and stared at meh with cool, clear, crystal blue optics. They were such a clear blue that I would have likened them to a brilliant cut Aquamarine gemstone - you know the really pale blue gemstone - He stared at me some more before continuing, "Meh bein' ya Guardian would mean that I would go where ever you went ta make sure tha' both yaself and Anubis were alright and safe. Ah know dat Ratchet would weld mah aft ta a Med Berth if he found out I had let somethin' happen ta either of ya, he may not show it but he has a soft spot fer Sparkling's, Femme's and Younglings. Pit even ol' 'Hide himself cares abou' dem like they were da most important thing in da 'verse, mainly because der are so few ta start wit' I guess." He shook his head as if trying to clear a bad memory and as I sat there I gently patted his clawed hand in understanding.

I squeaked when Anubis finally decided to join us and unfolded completely out of his phone mode to wave his little hands at Jazz, I really wasn't expecting him to awaken as he had, but I guess he really wanted to get to know Jazz better too. So for the next 5 hours we sat and talked about what we were going to do now that we had beaten Megatron and what we could expect in the future, before heading back towards Base and some food for me and then rest. Who knew having an Autobot for a Guardian would mean someone acting 'Mother Hen' like? Certainly not me that's for sure.

(18 MONTHS LATER)

A year and a half has flown by since the day we beat Megatron, destroyed the AllSpark, and ended up with Jazz as the Guardian to me and Anubis. We have moved from California to New Jersey, Lennox was upset when I told him that I was recieving orders for a transfer back to the East Coast, but I explained to him that this way I would be closer to my family then, but that he and the family were welcome anytime they could make it out to us.

Looking around my house... yes I finally bought a place of my own (rank can have some perks), off Base so that Jazz would have some room to relax in his normal form in, I sighed, my home was almost complete. I had bought the old Farm House and Acreage that went with it, with what money I had saved up over the years of Active Duty - Hazzard Pay is a massive bonus, but not always a worthwhile thing, it's not called 'Hazzard Pay' for nothing ya know, ya only get this when ya posted ta a war zone! - and bought the place outright. The original owner had decided to retire and had sold all the livestock he had had and just wanted to sell it for whatever amount of money he could get.

Half of those 18 months was spent looking around for the perfect place off Base for me, Anubis and Jazz to live, and we had managed to find it at the base of a large hilly range in New Jersey - right next to a Wildlife Preserve and State Park Land, therefore very few folks were going to be walking up to the property line uninvited.

Between Jazz and myself, we had set up a sensor net around the whole 400+ Acres making all of us feel so much more secure, we had demolished all the old buildings that we were never going to use and after clearing all the debris up we had rebuilt better buildings that were upto Autobot Standards - according to Jazz that is.

We had built a series of Muntitions Storage Igloos at one end of the property and had that secured with both Human and Cybertronian security systems, we had also built what was dubbed the U.W.R. (Urban Warfare Range) where we could practice together as a team in a Simulated Urban Environment.

The most recent addition to the property was the Helo-Pad about a quarter mile from the house, so that if needed we could either Medivac anyone who needed it back to Base or for Higher-ups to come in and see what we were doing... although they had to call ahead in advance or risk being shot at, we were far out of the flightline for any commercial planes so that made life easier on us.

I had just finished cleaning up the mess in the Basement, when Jazz pinged me on my cellphone. Picking it up I asked him what was going on and was surprised to hear the response. Lennox had been placed in charge of a new group called NEST and he was asking if we would be willing to join them.

I told Jazz to let Lennox know that if he wanted to talk to us about it, he would have to come and talk to us face to face and not over a phone line - even one as encrypted as Jazz's was. Apparently Jazz laughed at the response that came via Ironhide's comm. link, saying that Lennox and his family would be out our way in a few days to talk in person about the request, especially since Ironhide was the one driving them and I had no doubt that he would make it in less than three days.

I decided to jog up stairs and fix up the spare rooms some for the Lennox Family, and then see about Jazz taking me and Anubis to the local village market to stock up on food other than MRE's, which I had been eating on and off since moving here. Whilst working to get the property ready for use, I was living off of MRE's 5 out of 7 days a week (the other two days were spent at my folks place with the rest of the family) and then eating a proper couple of meals those other two days, and only because Jazz would remind me that 'if I fell ill he would get Prime to send Ratchet out this way and then I would be in trouble, and did I really want the Medic to hit my Guardian over the helm with his infamous wrench?' and I replied to that that it all depended on how sick I was as to when the Medic would be required.

After grabbing a snack and fixing up the spare room - which took all of 35 minutes - I picked up Anubis, who had by now fully woken up and was ready to see Jazz some. The lil' 'bot sure had taken to Jazz well after Mission City, although I attribute that to the fact that he was kinda like a brother of sorts or an uncle if I thought about it too much. I headed back outside to where Jazz was sat at in his vehicle mode, and running my hand across the hood of the Solstice I asked him if he was ready to go and get the groceries for when the Lennox's got here. After responding that he was ready, we left the property and headed on into the nearby small town and the Village Market.

2 HOURS LATER.

We had been back less than 20 minutes when we heard the familiar rumble of Ironhide's engine coming in the drive near the house. Skidding to the door and opening it up, I made it in time to see Lennox, Sarah and the adorable form of a now 2 year old Annabelle climb down out of the massive form of Ironhide's Alternate mode. As soon as Annabelle's little feet hit the dirt she was running towards me, at by which my response was to crouch down ready to grab her and swing her up for a hug. It had been way too long since I had seen her last, almost a full 18 months and by Primus she had grown like a perverbial weed and had the energy to match it.

After picking up the squealing form of a two year old, we walked back on over towards her mom and dad. After handing her back to Sarah, I grabbed Will's hand and save it a good clasp with my own and pulled him into a hug, I was really wondering what he had to say to me that would have him coming all the way out here instead of just asking me over the phone or in a letter even. He officially had my curiousity peaked.

After reaching the sitting room of my home, we all sat down on the two couches so that we were all comfortable whilst Will talked through this 'offer' of his. We had mugs of coffee for Sarah and Will whereas I had a large mug of black tea with Acai and Blackberries to help me relax and pay attention to what was being said, if I had been drinking coffee I would probably be jittery and thus not able to pay attention to whaat was being said. (This was found out by Ratchet roughly 8 months after the Mission City fiasco, and thus began my drinking of more black tea and less coffee *sigh* I miss the large amount of caffeine per mug, but it was necessary in his optics if I wanted to work better and live longer.)

As I took a large drink of my tea I listened as Will explained what it would entail with me joining NEST. He even pointed out that with me here on the East Coast with Jazz and Anubis, we would be placed at the NEST Base on this Coast as Commander of the Autobot/Human Alliance when Will was in charge of the Alliance on the lovely Island Base of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. He told me that I would be in charge of training the new recruits and getting them used to 'bots like Jazz in size before they were shipped out to Will and Epps to meet the other 'bots.

I told Will that this was a rather good idea, as it would pepare the recruits better than just showing them Optimus or even Ironhide, though I said Ironhide's name with a laugh since he could be intimidating without meaning to be, and Optimus' presence just demanded respect because of who he was to the 'bots and him being a Commander himself. When I said this Will and Sarah laughed as they seemed to understand what I was saying, Will nodding and saying that Ironhide would be saved to meet the recruits after they had been acclimatized to being around Jazz and possibly 'Bee when he could make it this side of the country.

Excusing myself I walked out towards where Jazz, Ironhide and Anubis were sitting - well Jazz and Ironhide anyway, since Anubis was climbing all over Jazz and chittering away happily - and waited for them to notice me, which wasn't very long since Ironhide smirked and nudged Jazz's arm then tilted his Helm in my direction. "Ah gather 'Hide here let you in on wha' was being said to meh by Will and Sarah? I don't mind it since we can stay here, but ah would like ta know wha' ya think of da Idea yerself Jazz, considering yer mah Guardian and will also be helpin' with the Recruits." I said as I settled into Jazz's palm when he lifted me up to sit on his shoulder plates.

Jazz looked between me and Ironhide before raising his visor and staring at me as he consideered his response. Letting out a sigh he answered, "Ah'm glad yer like da idea that Lennox and ol' 'Hide 'ere had, dey were havin' a hard time coming up wit' personnel dat could deal with workin' wit' us and da Recruits at da same time. Yer name came up when dey spoke about the situation wit' Prime himself and he was da one ta suggest dat both o' us be da first contact with the Recruits, so as ta not scare them ta da Pit and back, unlike wit' ol' trigger happy ova here." he said pointing a digit at Ironhide who growled a warning a Jazz who just seemed to ignore it.

"I agree wit' ya dere Jazzman and ah'm sorry 'Hide but he is right, yer would just scare the poor Recruits back ta dere momma's, Ah mean ah heard what 'appened when yer met Witwicky, so dun blaim meh for agreein' wit' da Prime on this situation. Ah'm quite happy ta accept the placement, especially since it means we won't 'ave ta leave our home. Plus it means dat both Will and Prime will have two folks dey know holdin' down da fort this side of da world fer them. Now if ya will excuse meh, Ah'll go and tell Will and Sarah dat we both agree ta do dis thing fer them and Prime." I said as I slid down Jazz's shoulder and then scrambled down his back plates to the ground below which was easy considering he was sat at an angle that wouldn't cause a problem.

Making my way back inside the house I thought about what I would tell Will about what me and Jazz had decided. We had no idea as to what was going to happen to all of us within the next six months except that the Decepticon's would become a major pain in our afts.

---

Please review as they keep me going when I have problems. This is now leading us to the Second TF Movie. What will happen next? Who knows! Remember Flames will be used by Ravage to roast Marshmallows over mah Wood Stove Fire.

Til All Are One!

[Sunstar]

Chapter 15

A.N.: I know it's been a while.

Also thanks immensely to Forever Dreaming Grace fer being da first Reviewer of dis chapter - YA AWESOME HUN! *Hugs and hands out Energon Cookies*

Disclaimer: Ah don't own Transformers, dat honor belongs ta Hasbro/Takara. All ah own is mah OC's Caliene and Anubis.[/b]

---

Prime Voiceover:

Earth, birthplace of the human race, a species much like our own, capable of great compassion and great violence.

For in our quest to protect the humans, a deeper revelation dawns.

Our worlds have met before.

For the last two years, an advance team of new Autobots has taken refuge here under my command.

Together, we form an alliance with the humans, a secret but brave squad of soldiers.

A classified strike team called NEST.

We hunt for whatever remains of our Decepticon foes hiding in different countries around the globe.

New Jersey, USA 0914 hrs (13 hours behind Shanghai), September 8th, 2009

I sat watching the news that was being broadcast over one of the NEST Command video feeds as all of us with clearance watched the Op in Shanghai go down on the others. It always amazed me how some Govenrments would do anything to cover slag up, but I had to hand it to the Chinese... "Toxic Spill" that was a rather good cover, but only if we could keep the enemy contained and out of the public view.

-"Newsflash from the BBC. Breaking news out of Shanghai. There's been a major toxic spill in the Shanghai factory district. We're staying on top of this developing story for you. We will bring you any new information as we get it."-

{"Yeah,"} I thought to myself as I watched and listened along with the Communication Techs and Jazz's Holoform. {"...they'll get the information we feed them and hope that they fall for it."} went my brain as it watched as the Black Hawks were told that they could drop off their load of troops.

As the radio chatter merged slightly I jumped when Jazz's Holoform gently touched my arm and asked with a slightly worried look, "Yer feeling a'ight Cali? Yer seem ta be driftin' somewha', and ah dun wan' da Hatchet ta dent mah helm again, because ah let yer get ill now."

Patting his arm, I smiled back at him to reassure him. "Ahm fine Jazz. Jus' a lil' bit tired from all we've had ta do the past few months, especially wit' da trainin' of the newbies before dey meet up with Lennox and Epps. Yer also know da 'Cons 'ave been sneaky 'bout where dey been attacking 'round da world, and this makes the sixth time in a year, that's one battle every two months Jazz, an' it's starting to wear on everyone... includin' meh. Guess we were all caught offguard on da number o' 'Cons here on Earth."

Nodding his head, Jazz hummed a little before giving me a much needed hug of reassurance before he started laughing at what was being broadcast over the main Monitors and radio frequencies.

="Ding-a-ling! Come out and get your ice cream. Any bad robot out there better get ready for an ass-whupping."=

I groaned as I looked over at Jazz who was still laughing hard. "Whose idea was it ta send those two idiots on this mission? They can't even blend in right and are more than likely gonna mess this mission up and no amount of begging is gonna help us or them if this goes pear-shapped." as I pointed to the garrish form of a pink ice cream truck with a sticker on one side that said "Decepticons Suck My Popsicle!"

Jazz looked at me and sighed as he compossed himself, "If yer must know it was mah idea ta send dem. Dey need da experience, and dat's neva gonna happen if dey don' get ta go on any missions. Prime also said it might be a good thing fer dem ta learn dis way. Although dey coulda chosen a bettah disguise den dat." he agreed as he shuddered at the picture of the vehicle they were supposed to be.

My mind was brought back to what was happening on the monitors when I heard Lennox speak.

"All right, Ironhide. We got echoes. They're close. Steel stacks at 2 o'clock."

We all heard Ironhide transform behind Lennox over the radio mics before we heard his deep gruff voice, "He's here. I smell him."

We watched through Lennox's video camera on the side of his helmet as he walked over to where Epps and a couple of others were crouched down with a Thermal Energy Reader.

"Oh, no." came the voice of Epps over the mics and at that I felt a shiver go down my spine, the same kind of shiver that I had had during the attack of our Base in Qatar in 2007.

"What have you got?" came the voice of Lennox as his helmet camera showed us what Epps had on his thermal imaging scanner. "Thermal ripple." came Epps' reply, and looking through the feed from the helmet cameras we all shuddered when we saw the massive form on the scanners screen. Whatever this 'Con was, it was BIG.

"Right, everybody, be steady. We're right on top of it." said Lennox as everyone on his team crept forward slowly and thats when all Pit broke loose.

"Eagle niner! I need an energy proton." came the call from Lennox as he rn to grab a team member that had just missed being hit by one of the steel pipes that were stacked.

"Panther 1, requesting fire mission now!" came the request from Epps as they ran to get clear as the Massive 'Con rolled out of their rifle range and headed towards the main freeway - definately not good.

"Gunships on station. Roll in hot!" came the response from General Morshower and shortly after that we all heard, "Dog 1, now we are engaging. We got a second Decepticon." and we looked towards the screen that had the camera on the underside of the Black Hawk that was providing air support.

"Arcee twins! Target coming your way!" yelled Lennox through the Comm. Links and we all sighed in relief at the idea of Arcee going after the 'Con , that we now knew to be Sideways according to Jazz.

What the others weren't expecting was for the Twins - Mudflap and Skids to completely frag up their part in this plan. "I got him, I got him!" came Mudflaps response and shortly afterwards we heard him say, "I screwed that up. I'm okay. I'm all right."

What came next made Jazz shake his Holoform's head in embarassment. "This is combat, man. Total brain freeze, man." from Mudflap and then the sudden, "What's wrong with you?" and a slap across the back of Mudflaps helm from his twin Skids.

I truely sighed with relief when I heard Lennox call out over the Comms. "Bring in Sideswipe!"

"Clear a path!" came Sideswipe's voice as we watched the live feed from the Black Hawks circling overhead as their cameras recorded everything that was happening. We saw Sides literally jump in the air do a summersault over Sideways slamming his blade into the hood of the 'Cons Alt. Mode before shooting him with his shoulder mounted guns, landing infront of the 'Con and grabbing his blade before literally slicing Sideways in half.

Jazz sniggered, yes he sniggered when the next thing said by Sideswipe was, "Damn, I'm good!" All I could do was facepalm at the fact that he took my line that was used when I beat Jazz on 'Left 4 Dead 2' and took out a Hunter with a Katana in one swipe.

I appologized to Jazz and the rest of the Techs in the room and walked out after asking Jazz to let me know what happened next as I walked outside for some fresh air before getting a mug of coffee and heading back inside and the finale of the chase around Shanghai. Stress was definitely not a good friend to any of us.

---

A.N.: Sorry it's been a while since ah updated, but due to situations outta mah control with mah health, family and such, it has taken meh longer than ah had liked before gettin' dis chapter out fer ya - mah readers.

Ah know dis chapter is short (only 3 pages), but it ended where ah wanted it to, and the next chapter should be longer *crosses fingers in hope*

Once again ah ask dat ya review and let meh know how ah'm doin' and what ya guys think. Just remember dat any Flames will be borrowed by Ratchet ta flambe Mudflap and Skids.
[/color]