Ruby - Transformers: Dark of the Moon fanfic

To War

Sam and Ruby walked side by side, back along the bridge. Simmons came out to meet them, his wheelchair buzzing across the bridge,

"You know," he said, "One day, years from now, people are going to ask, 'where were you when they took over the planet?' and we'll say, 'we just stood by and watched'."

Ruby agreed with him, keeping her eyes glued to the floor, only just keeping the tears under control. Beside her, Sam wasn't doing so well. He squatted down, his face buried in his hands. Ruby rubbed his back in an attempt to comfort him. Oddly, she found strength through the grief. With one final blink, she was no longer in danger of crying and looked up. White smoke billowed around the base of the ship; she could feel the heat from it, and imagined a countdown happening, three...two...one...lift off!

With a blast that shook the earth, the ship climbed into the air, slowly at first, but it was gathering speed fast. It had been space-bound for less than five minutes when somebody yelled, "Incoming!"

Ruby instinctively threw her arms above her head, but the voice hadn't meant the base. The entire team watched, horror-struck, as four missiles, out of nowhere, whistled towards the ship. It rose irrevocably up to meet them. Ruby blood froze in her veins.

 The missiles hit in a spectacular, terrible, mid-air explosion. A bright white ball of fire plummeted down, landing in the distant ocean with a huge splash. They all  heard it.  And then there was a deadly silence. Nobody spoke, nobody moved, for minutes, maybe hours; everything was still except for the gentle swoosh of the waves.

Ruby felt too numb to breakdown. Shards of her frozen flood sliced her from the inside out. She continued to stare at the spot in the sky where the collision had occurred until a cry from Sam snapped her out of it. His watch had come undone and was crawling up his arm. He batted it to the floor and stomped on it, cursing all the time.

"That thing had a hold on you, didn't it?" said Ruby, her voice surprisingly calm.

"Yes," said Sam, "But you have to understand, they have Carly!"

An ebb of anger pulsed in her belly.

"What!? Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"Because I couldn't! It wouldn't let me!" cried Sam. His phone started buzzing: "Excuse me one moment," he answered: "Where is she?"

Ruby took a step closer to Sam and put her ear on the other side of the phone;

"I assure you, she's perfectly safe, as promised," said the voice on the other end of the line,

"What was the point of that, why did you shoot them down?" demanded Sam, "I'm sure you were listening, you heard Optimus say there was no plan to retaliate,"

"Because," said the voice, "we had to be sure that they weren't going to fight back." The line went dead.

Ruby quelled her million questions for Sam, and sprinted after him. He was off, running towards the control tower. Simmons followed.

Sam burst into the room and headed for Dutch, who didn't seem to be surprised.

"I need you to track this phone," Sam told him urgently, "It's them! The humans who are working with the Decepticons, they have Carly hostage,"

Dutch nodded and opened his brief case, "I'm on it," he said, "On it like a car bonnet,"

Sam and Ruby exchanged confused glances.

"Well, well," said Simmons, who had just caught up with them, "Charlotte Mearing!"

Mearing looked round from the screen she had been examining with five others, "Agent Simmons," she replied coolly, "Or maybe I should say, ex-agent. I see you survived Washington."

Simmons wheeled his chair right up to her, "Washington, Egypt, I've survived them all, I will survive, oh I will survive," he sung the last phrase.

"So what are you doing here?" she snapped.

"They're bringing everyone in, slapping all the Intel on the table." He banged a fist down with a smack, making everyone jump, "Those scheming Decepticons are up to no good."

"I've got it!" squealed Dutch, "Chicago," he pointed to the city simulation he had pulled up on a nearby computer. He zoomed in, "Trump tower, lower penthouse,"

"I'm going," said Sam,

"I'll come too," said Ruby,

"And me," said a voice, "I'm coming," Tyrese walked over to join them, "Those alien scum killed my friends too. I've still got some old NEST friends out there; we'll round them up on the way."

Simmons examined the simulation, "Can you get a satellite picture up Dutch?"

Dutch tapped away on the keyboard for a moment and then hit enter. Nothing happened.

"Hmm," Dutch tried a different combination of taps, and bringing a set of images came up on the screen. They showed a live feed of Trump tower from different angles. "Aha!"

The pictures had been up for maybe five seconds, when one by one, they shut off, leaving them all staring at a black screen.

"I have a feeling," said Ruby, "That Decepticons are behind this."

Dutch glanced around the room; none of the other computers showing satellite images had shut down. "It's literally just the Chicago feeds being disrupted," he said.

"Maybe that's where Sentinel is going to activate the rest of the pillars," said Mearing, peering curiously at Dutch.

"Well then," said Ruby, "There is no time to lose, let's go."

The pulsing anger in her belly throbbed, growing. She was almost looking forward to releasing her fury.

"Wait," Mearing grabbed Ruby, her fingers curling around her wrist like claws, "We need to be in contact with you. Keep us updated and we'll forward everything to Major Lennox and the Pentagon."

She led Ruby over to a cabinet, digging her sharp nails into Ruby's flesh before releasing her. Mearing handed her a tiny ear piece and a microphone. "Here, put this in,"

Ruby popped the ear piece into place while Mearing roughly attached the little mike inside the collar of Ruby's shirt.

"What, no mini camera?" asked Ruby.

"You move too fast for us to pick up a good enough signal from it, the image would blur." she snapped, "Now, I think you should go on ahead to Chicago while these boys-" she gestured to Sam and Tyrese "-do whatever. Luckily, we have some normal transportation stored on site in case the Autobots quickly need to scan and mimic new, inconspicuous cars. I'll let you take your pick. You leave, I'm going to organise back up, air cover, and whatever else I can to follow you in."

"Follow me in?" said Ruby, "But Chicago is like a fifteen-hour drive from here,"

Mearing rolled her eyes, "Maybe for normal people. Go, leave. Now." Then, to Ruby's disbelief, she winked, "Give them hell." And with that, she stalked off.

Simmons accompanied Sam, Tyrese and Ruby outside, "Now remember," he lectured on, "I won't be there to save the world this time like in Egypt, so you must-"

"Thanks Simmons," Sam cut in, "But we really need to leave now."

The agent's face fell. "OK, good luck then," he said sadly, and he wheeled around and went back inside.

Tyrese showed them to the garage. "This is mine," he said to Sam, when they stood level with a blue Mustang, "Let's go."

"Where is my promised pick of cars?" asked Ruby,

"Oh yeah," said Tyrese, "The other side of that screen."

Ruby ducked behind the canvas and stopped dead. A smile crept over her face.