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"No," Natsumi whispered, covering her mouth with both hands and staring at the bank of monitors. Tears trickled from her wide eyes. "Oh, no …"

"I knew it." One of Camille's hands gripped the arm of the sofa and the other clenched into a trembling fist. "I knew she was going to get herself killed!"

I'm about to watch one of my friends die. Sierra shook her head slowly and tried to process what she was seeing. This can't be happening.

"It's not working!" On one of the screens, Bulkhead's human-size body hosed the burning SWAT tank down with a fire extinguisher. "It's putting some of the flames out, but the metal is still melting away."

"We've got to think of something else," Tomoko shouted. "What about sand? If we cover it with sand, that should smother the fire."

"The ground here is paved over," Miko said, "and outside the base it's packed too hard. I dunno how you'd carry enough in before it's too late, anyway."

Sierra pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Once it melts through, Miko might be able to survive long enough to get clear, but her dad's not wearing armor. If that molten metal gets all over him …

"And if we try to blast through the pavement to get to the sand underneath," Arcee said, "hitting the ground too close to the tank could kill both of them, now that its armor has softened. And … shit, it would take too long, anyway."

"I think I have an idea," Raf said. "Miko, can you tell if the side under you is burning? It's flat against the ground, so …"

"Hold on." After a few seconds, Miko said, "It's not as hot as the rest. Maybe it didn't get spattered with as much of whatever that crap is."

"Good. Guys, grab something to lift the tank upright. I dunno, a piece of one of those blown-up planes, or something. See if you can use something to push it up. Then Miko can open the door and jump out with her dad. I hope."

"And that gives me an idea," Miko said as the nearby 'Bots ran off in search of a useable piece of debris. "Dad, get in front of me. When they flip us over, I'm gonna kick the door open and fire my thrusters. That should get us clear before we can be burned too badly. Just tuck your legs and head so you won't bump 'em on the doorway. I'll keep a tight grip on you."

"Are you sure you can hold on?"

"This armor's got servos that increase my strength. Yeah, it won't be a problem."

"Hurry," Camille and Roderick whispered at the same time. He reached out to clasp her hand and added, "Come on. Come on."

Optimus tried to slide a jet wing under the tank. The vehicle scooted back and its underside started to buckle. Elita ran up to it with a long pipe and pressed the end against the roof. She pushed gently, then increased the pressure once the roof held up. Optimus shoved the wing under the tank the instant the gap was wide enough. The roof bent inward and Elita yanked the pipe back before it could poke through.

"Miko, are you ready?" Optimus gripped the edge of the wing in both hands and waited for her reply.

"We're in position. Let 'er rip."

Come on. Sierra leaned forward and glanced over at the monitor showing the feed from Optimus's optics. He pried the vehicle up until it rolled onto its partially melted wheels. The underside buckled a little more, tilting the less-damaged side into a slight upward angle.

Natsumi sobbed and her whole body trembled.

The door burst open and Miko rocketed through, her arms clamped around her father, who had curled into a fetal position. They shot past Optimus and the image on the screen whipped around to track them, getting them centered just as they hit the pavement and skidded several more yards before finally stopping. Miko pushed herself up and leaned over her father.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"I think so," he muttered. He sat up slowly, holding a hand against his forehead. Blood seeped out from under his palm. "I'm scraped up pretty badly, but I'll survive. Thank you." He smiled and put his free arm around her.

"Glad you're in one piece, Dad." She put her arms around him and glanced up at the 'Bots. "He needs to get to the hospital. Can one of you give him a lift?"

"I'm on my way," Ratchet said over the comm. "I've just gone through the ground bridge and will be there momentarily."

"Understood." Optimus turned around a few seconds before an ambulance smashed through the perimeter fence and roared across the compound. It stopped nearby and the passenger-side door opened.

"Can you walk?" Miko slipped a hand under her father's arm.

"Yes, I think so." He let her help him to his feet. "Miko, come back with me."

"I told you, I'm finishing this." Miko pointed at the blood running down his face. "Go get that patched up before all of it leaks out. Don't worry, I've got this."

"Yes," Natsumi whispered. "She can do this. Let her go."

He stared at her for several seconds and finally seemed to realize there was no talking her out of it. He hugged her again and released a long sigh.

"Just come back to us alive and well when it's over."

"I will. See you soon." She watched as he climbed into Ratchet and they sped away.

"Natsumi," her father said softly, "if you can hear me, I'll just need some stitches. Stay where you are and keep an eye on our girl."

"I will," Natsumi whispered back, wiping her sweaty palms on her pants but smiling at the same time.

Miko turned to the building Colonel McKenna had highlighted in her HUD. "Let's go get that sonofabitch."

---

"We're going in," Ashanti said softly, backing away from the door and holding up a detonator. Jack took a few steps back along with everyone else, and waited. The team had split into groups to enter the building from all four sides and the roof, while the full-size 'Bots finished neutralizing the last of the MECH troops. Luckily, Tomoko had already immobilized most of them with her webbing, leaving only a small handful to mop up.

"Breaching in three … two … one." Ashanti pressed the button and the charge she'd placed blew the door off its hinges. Four other charges went off at the same time. Ashanti led the others into a hallway, kicked open the first door on the left, and moved on when she found the room empty. Chang took the door on the right and moved on to the next.

Jack glanced over his shoulder at the SWAT tank Miko and her father had just escaped from, and found it collapsing in on itself. What was left of it still glowed red hot. He shivered.

"What the hell is that stuff, anyway?" he muttered.

"It's like napalm on fuckin' steroids," Miko said.

Kefira glanced at the vehicle and shrugged before following the rest of the team. From the way she moved, she appeared to have adjusted quickly to her cybernetic legs. She'd chosen a set of interchangeable limbs, and currently wore a pair of standard legs that her armor could fit around.

"I hope we can find more of it to analyze, or find the formula in one of the computers," she said. "We'll need to develop a way to neutralize it in case MECH has more of it in another base."

Outside, Tomoko grunted. "That's it. I had to disconnect my mini-me. That stuff melted through too many parts and it kinda snapped in half."

"We'll build you a new one ASAP," DeeDee said. "Thanks for all the help outside, though. We'll take it from here."

"Just be careful, all of you. We have no idea what else they might have up their sleeves."

"Copy that. See you on the way out." Ashanti led everyone deeper into the building. They spent the next few minutes kicking doors down and finding nothing but empty rooms. Arcee pivoted, sweeping her optics over the walls, ceiling, and floor, and shook her head.

"I'm still not picking up any life signs. Either all of 'em were already fighting us outside, or some are in the underground bunker."

"I'll take a look at any computers we find," Raf said. "Maybe we'll get lucky and find the formula for the stuff they're using in their ammo."

"See if you can get your hands on any footage from whatever cameras they've set up in here. If Sokolov didn't think to turn them off or wipe their drives, maybe we can use them to track his movements."

"Good idea."

They continued on in silence for a few more minutes before Ashanti found a server room and waved Raf and DeeDee into it. Jack glanced at his mom while they each grabbed a computer and went to work.

"How're you holding up?"

"I guess it hasn't really started to sink in yet." She shrugged. "Not completely. I'm kind of shocked at some of the things I did, though."

"You were protecting your son and his girlfriend," Rosalina said over the comms. "And the things you did will pale in comparison if I ever get my hands on Sokolov."

"Yeah. I'm actually afraid of what I might do if I find myself face-to-face with him."

"Just save a piece of Suckadick for me," Miko said. "I owe him a kick to the nuts, at the very least."

"We'll keep that in mind." Ashanti chuckled and turned back to Raf and DeeDee. "Got anything yet?"

"Most of the files are encrypted," Raf said. "We'll have to poke around a little to find out if anything's set to delete if unauthorized people try to access it."

"I did find the security-camera files," DeeDee added. "Going through them now."

"Good. Let us know when you find Sokolov. Raf, if you can't bypass whatever countermeasures they set up, we can always call in a whole team of hackers from the base and see what they can do with the servers."

"Sounds good. I'd love to try out the software suite that came with my armor, but I'd rather not be the one who lost all the data by poking a stick into the wrong place."

"Found him," Double-D blurted. "A camera caught him entering a hatch a few minutes ago. I bet the hatch leads into the bunker."

"The bunker we were in didn't have a hatch like that one," Miko said, "but if this one's the command center, it makes sense that it'd have extra stuff protecting it."

"I backtracked Sokolov to the side entrance he used to slip into the building." DeeDee grinned. "I'll know exactly where he is in the bunker, and the exact path he took, in a moment."

"Copy that. Send the info to all team members once you have it." Ashanti smiled grimly and glanced around at everyone before her eyes settled on Roz. "We should try to capture Sokolov so he can be questioned, but …"

"Sorry, Colonel, but if I get my hands on him, he's as good as dead."

"I understand. When I found the bastard who killed my husband, I blew his fucking brains out. If we'd had a kid who was in any danger from Sokolov, I'd do the same to that evil bastard."

Arcee nodded. "We could've gotten a ton of intel from Starscream's base out in the desert, but once I found out what they did to Jack, there was no way I'd do anything except blow up the entire base."

"Thanks, guys." Roz managed a shaky smile. "I'm relieved to know the actions I might take won't put me at odds with you."

"Well," Ashanti said with a smirk, "General Volkov did advise us to take him out if we have the opportunity. Like Jack and Arcee said about Airachnid, sometimes you gotta put the rabid dog down."

"We still have Silas, anyway," Chang said. "Sooner or later we'll get him to talk, and he should know even more than Sokolov about MECH's operations."

"Got him," Double-D muttered. "Sending the info to everyone's HUDs."

"I have a few ideas about questioning Silas." June wrung her hands as everyone turned back to the door. "I'll talk them over with you when we're back at the base."

"Looking forward to hearing them." Ashanti gripped her rifle and strode into the hallway. "Let's wrap this up."

---

"Anyone picking up any other life signs?" Ashanti glanced around at her whole team. Everyone had made their way to the lowest level of the underground bunker without encountering resistance and converged on the last hatch Sokolov had passed through.

"Just the one," Arcee said, and the other 'Bots and Pretenders nodded.

"Same here," Rosalina said. "Looks like he sent all of his mooks out to fight us while he ran away like a pussy."

Ashanti nodded and turned to DeeDee. "Double-D, run a bypass."

"On it, boss." She darted over to the keypad beside the hatch, pried it off, pulled a tiny device from a pocket, and connected it to the lock's innards. Everyone stepped to the sides to stay out of the line of fire and aimed their weapons at the door while waiting for Washington to finish unlocking the hatch.

A hefty clunk shook the walls, ceiling, and floor, and the hatch swung outward. Ashanti waited for a hail of bullets to spray through the opening. When nothing happened, she charged through, moved aside, and swept the hexagonal, console- and monitor-packed room, and found Sokolov ducking through another hatch on the far side.

He spun toward her and snapped a rifle up.

"Gun!" Ashanti fired a quick burst from her thrusters, launching herself to the left and crouching behind a console as he hosed this half of the room down. In her HUD, the blips representing her team flowed into the room and scattered. In the corner of her eye, Arcee, Bulkhead, Kefira, and Chang took cover and returned fire.

Sokolov waited out the barrage on the other side of the hatch, then popped out just far enough to empty another magazine at them. Kefira and DeeDee poked their guns up over their consoles and blind-fired in his general direction. He ducked out of sight and reappeared once they stopped shooting.

Ashanti spotted a round object in his hand. "Grenade!"

Smirking, Sokolov pulled the pin and tossed the grenade into the center of the room.

Kefira dived over her console, rolled, and came back upright with the grenade in her hand. In one smooth motion, she pitched it straight at Sokolov. His eyes nearly popped out of his sockets and he slammed the hatch. The grenade bounced off it and rolled back toward Ashanti's team. Everyone jumped back under whatever cover they could find and Ashanti winced at the sharp bang of the grenade exploding.

Once it was over, she bolted across to the hatch and tugged on its handle. Locked, of course. She turned to DeeDee.

"Get that hatch open."

A muffled roar came from the other side of the wall and the room shook. Everyone grabbed on to whatever was within reach and stared at the ceiling, as if expecting the whole bunker to collapse on them.

If he set off a self destruct or …

The vibration faded, as did the rumbling sound.

"Uh," Bumblebee muttered over the comms, "that can't be good."

"What is it?"

"A pair of doors in the ground just opened and a rocket launched. I'm sending you the image from my optics."

A window opened in Ashanti's HUD and she watched a rocket streak across the sky. Bee zoomed in on it and she realized an armor-clad man was clinging to the side. She shook her head slowly and mumbled, "You gotta be fucking kidding me."

"On the bright side," Bee continued, "I'm not detecting any explosives, nuclear or otherwise."

"It wouldn't make sense for a missile-launch system to be installed right next to the command center, anyway," Kefira said. "Any malfunction that caused the missiles to explode during launch would take out the entire command staff."

"Must be an escape system he had built in just for himself." Roz glared at the hatch. "We've lost him."

"Not yet." Ashanti stared at the rocket receding into the distance and tried not to clench her teeth. "Base, do you have anything that can intercept that missile?"

"We will in a moment," Optimus said. "I've received a message that three of our new Vehicon friends have volunteered to pursue Sokolov. Their alt-modes are jets, so they should be able to intercept him if they launch now."

"I'm tracking the missile," Ratchet said over the comms. "I can transport them to our base via ground-bridge, then bridge them to coordinates near the target. Stand by."

Ashanti clenched her fists as the missile grew smaller and Bee zoomed in more. Finally, a vortex opened in the air a few hundred feet from the missile and three jets shot out of it.

"Nice," Chang said. "Uh, which ones are those? I'm still getting them mixed up."

"The black one is Elvira, the red one is Sahuarita, and the red-and-chrome one is Maverick."

The image zoomed in a bit more just as the three defectors opened fire on the missile. Ashanti caught a glimpse of Sokolov leaping away and popping a parachute before one of the Vehicons hit the missile and blasted it into a cloud of debris.

An odd flash erupted from the fireball and the three jets veered off course and then plunged toward the ground.

"What the hell?" Jack shook his head and glanced around at everyone. "What was that?"

"Looked like the flashbangs we've used against the 'Cons before," Arcee muttered. "If they don't recover in time, they'll crash."

"Guys," Bee shouted, "pull up! Pull up now!"

Several seconds passed before the three former Decepticons rebooted and began struggling to stabilize their descent.

"Ugh," Maverick grunted. "What happened … oh, shit!" He managed to level out just as he reached the ground, but not soon enough to deploy his landing gear. He scraped along the desert, bounced into the air, slammed back down, and continued sliding. "Shiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

Elvira glanced off a mountain, plowed into the ground, and transformed back into her primary mode. She dug her feet in and clawed at the ground until she came to a stop, then she let out a long sigh and collapsed. "Crap like this is gonna give me a fear of heights."

Sahuarita panicked, transformed, and plunged straight down. She hit the ground feet-first, sending up an enormous cloud of dust and dirt, crumpled, and rolled. When she came to a stop, she lay flat on her back.

"Are all of you intact?" Optimus said, taking a few steps in their general direction.

"I think so," Elvira muttered.

"I'm in one piece," Maverick said.

"I think I fucked up my left leg," Sahuarita added, "but I'll survive."

"Good. Was anyone able to keep track of Sokolov?"

"I lost him," Bee said, and several others gave similar answers. "I guess we were distracted by the flash and the close call our friends had."

"Goddamn it," Roz whispered. Ashanti walked over and patted her shoulder.

"He won't get far. We can determine the area he'll land in, search it, and find him." She glanced at June and added, "He's not gonna mess with your kids and get away with it."

"Thanks." Roz managed a slight smile.

"Optimus, are any MECH personnel still shooting at you?"

"All of them have been captured or killed, except Sokolov."

"Understood." Ashanti sighed and took a slow look around at everyone. "We'll have a team of experts go through the computers here, UAVs and local law enforcement hunting Sokolov down, and another team removing hazardous materials like the ammo they were using and that horrifying stuff that nearly cooked off Miko and her dad. But for now, you could all use some time to unwind while we figure out our next move. Some of you were civilians until very recently, so you're not used to this shit."

"Yeah." June laughed softly. "I guess I could use some downtime."

"So could I, to be completely honest." Ashanti motioned at the outer hatch. "Let's head for the surface, and when the support teams arrive, we'll go home."