No Rest For The Weary

Sam lay back in his seat watching the country side fly by. Mikaela was already fast asleep, her head lying on his shoulder, their arms entwined. Bumblebee played a soft rock station on low volume, hoping to get Sam to follow his girlfriend into recharge. In all honesty, the small scout was worried about his human. It had been nearly a year since the battle in Mission City, and Sam still had nightmares periodically. Sam thought he could hide it from his friends but if Mikaela noticed, then Bee noticed. Sam thought he could hide the bags under his eyes when his nightmares got the better of him. He even thought he could hide the shaking of his hands from Bee. Those hands that had pushed the Cube into Megatron's spark were still unhealed. Bee could feel the ridges that had been burnt into the boy’s hands when he gripped his steering wheel to still their shaking.



Sam watched Ratchet driving beside them, his mind going to the slightly older woman sleeping in his cab. He wondered how she would react to her current situation. And to the fact that her car had been totaled along with half of her house in the fight. She might not be too thrilled. Sam smiled despite his exhaustion, thinking about all the ways she could melt down in Ratchet's cab. If she did, then Iron Hide would have a new passenger. That thought brought a low chuckle from Sam's throat. If anything, she and Iron Hide would make fast friends. Being the daughter of a Tanker had its advantages. Including knowing how to shoot everything from a small 9mm to a 30aut if the situation warranted it. That and curse well enough to send a sailor into a sputtering fit.



Which if Sam and Bumblebee read lips, they would know exactly the kind of obscenities being tossed around in Ratchet's cab at the moment. His patient had awakened and was now grilling the medic on how in the world it could be driving without someone at the wheel. Apparently, Ratchet had given a rather snide answer, because Ellie had just called him a smart ass. Bumblebee was laughing softly over the music. Ratchet was asking the other Autobots if they would mind transporting a rather curious, handsy and lewd patient. Curious because Ellie was asking every question under the sun as her steel trap mind came to bear on the situation. Handsy because she was making sure to feel every inch of Ratchet's interior as though she could chaise out the gremlin behind the controls. And lewd because she was determined to test out exactly how learned Ratchet was in Human languages.



The only response the medic got was a few amused laughs and one growl that sounded an awful lot like 'wimp' from a certain weapons specialist. Ellie was sprawled out on the seat of Ratchet's cab, her hands behind her head. She had actually managed to be quiet for a few minutes, her mind working on the answers Ratchet had given her. "So let me get this straight," she started, her foot tapping on the opposite door. "You are self governing mechanical organisms from a far off planet, exiled to this world because the world you came from has been taken over by these Decepicons, right?"



Ratchet voiced an affirmative. "And up until a year ago you had been chasing this All-Spark from time immemorial to restore life to said planet?" Ratchet again voiced an affirmative. He had to admit that the human caught on fast. The only thing he had told her was that he and his fellow Autobots had been on the planet for about a year and that they had fought to obtain the All-Spark to give their species a fighting chance, and she had pieced the rest together from that. "And this All-Spark...I assume it was destroyed if you are still here." That last part was a statement, and again Ratchet had to admit that she was right. The female seemed to lay there for several more minutes. Ratchet could have sworn he could hear the gears in her head turning through all this time.



Ellie sat up and looked down at the small yellow Camero following beside them. The windows were tinted on the smaller vehicle, but she could see Mikaela slumped over in the seat and Sam's hand with hers, the fingers of which could not decide whether to stay open or to close. The movement was short lived, but it had happened. Ellie sat in the driver's seat, her eyes scanning over the brilliantly colored semi ahead of the pack, then to the large GMC Top Kick trailing behind. Ratchet watched the human female for the long few minutes she was quietly thinking, wondering if she were drifting back off to sleep. But her eyes remained wide open as they drifted upward to the dark, star-lit sky above them. The cab was quiet except for the odd bump in the road and even then that did little to pierce the noiselessness that filled the interior of Ratchet.



There seemed to be a question forming on the tip of her tongue, but she let it disappear into the silence. Instead she focused on the other Autobots in the convoy. Her eyes scanned from front to rear, watching the four of them closely. Ratchet had to admit that it was slightly unnerving. "So you guys are bipedal, right?"



"Yes, our bodies are amazingly like yours in their basic design," Ratchet offered, thankful for the break in the silence.



"And you transform into basically anything that you can comfortably compress your bodies into without squishing anything important?"



"Yes, I could not transform, comfortably into anything smaller any more than Optimus Prime or Iron Hide could. Bumblebee is slightly smaller and therefore able to transform into more compact modes of transportation." Ratchet offered in a matter-of-fact tone.



"Wow. I would hope not." Ellie's face split into a manic grin. "I would hate it if I had to shove my head up my ass just to transform."



Apparently, Ratchet had kept his channel open to the other Autobots, because he could all of a sudden hear Iron Hide's deep laughter floating across his processor followed by Prime's more conservative chuckle. "I think she's got you all figured out, Ratchet!" The other three were revving their engines in laughter, Iron Hide's lights flickering as he could barely contain his amusement at Ellie's observation. Bumblebee scoffed but stayed silent, preferring instead to play 'Figured you out' by Nickleback, playing some of the lewder verses for Ratchet who promptly closed the channel and just grumbled about not using pain killers the next time one of them was dinged.



Iron Hide kept laughing, his frame bobbing up and down as though he were driving over five foot deep pot holes. "I'll take her off your processor, Ratchet. She seems pretty healthy."



"And let you corrupt her more than she already is?" Ratchet seemed incredulous at this. "No, absolutely not. Besides, I would never let a half dressed young woman within twenty feet of your cab. There's no telling what your twisted little spark would come up with." Bumblebee did laugh this time as Iron Hide sputtered at the insinuation.



"I'm not that diabolical and you know it!" It almost sounded like Iron Hide was sulking better than any human teenager. Ratchet secretly grinned at this, listening as Iron Hide revved his engine in indignation. “Just because Sarah gets a few Bloody Maries in her for her anniversary...UGH! You try getting steam cleaned afterwards!"



"I get cleaned out quite regularly, Iron Hide. It is quite nice." Ratchet replied rather haughtily. "At least I don't smell like stale gram crackers."



"Then why don't you tell Grace to stop trying to feed them to me!" Optimus could not help but be amused. Grace, Captain Lennox's young daughter had gotten into the habit of sharing her cookies and crackers with the bulky Autobot. All the others thought it sweet of the young girl, however Iron Hide did not agree. The crackers after all attracted rodents like squirrels into his engine compartment. The giant mech was terrified of the little creatures, bemoaning about how they could chew right through his cables and render him useless. Iron Hide knew better, of course. But Primus forbid if he told the others how much it warmed his spark when the young human girl went through such effort to make sure he was happy. It was one of the reasons he never told Sara.






The dim desk lamp threw the entire room into stark shadow. The boundaries of light and dark seemed to form geometric patterns that reminded the occupant of several film noir movies he had seen when he was younger. The older man sat as his desk, leaned over several photographs taken just under an hour ago by a low orbiting satellite. The fact that the pictures were taken in an area so rural that there were no street lights did nothing to help to bring out any real details. What did help were the flashes from explosions and several blue glowing globules that looked a lot like glowing blue blood.



Defense Secretary Keller sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose where his glasses had made small divots in his skin from continuously pushing them back up. Keller had been in this position for the last half hour, staring at one frame in particular. The light from the explosions had come to a bright crescendo, making the darkness of night almost as bright as day. He could make out several mechs he knew personally. Optimus was wielding a wickedly curved sword that had sprouted from his forearm, hacking away at several gun placements on one of the three raptor like mechs. These three had been dubbed the 'Triplets' by the Defense Department analysts. The dull gray one in on the outskirts of the skirmish was Starscream, Keller knew that for sure. His two doppelgangers were a mystery to him as was the tallest of the four. This new one seemed to have discharged a type of sound wave weapon that distorted the air around its trajectory.



Within this picture he could see, along with the bots, a lone human. The human was fending off a rather large looking feline. Keller knew that this was no cat from the way its eyes glowed molten crimson. It had the woman by one of her legs. Whoever this woman was had probably lost that leg already. The area around her seemed in utter chaos as the Autobots tried not to step on her or tried to maneuver themselves to get the mechanical feline away from her. The Decepticons, however were not so cautious and were stomping their feet with little care as to what they stepped on.



Keller flipped to the last picture taken before the darkness over took the area again. The largest of the new arrivals was watching as the medic, Ratchet, if he recalled correctly, carried the woman away from the battle. It seemed to be committing the woman's features to memory before it transformed into a Sea Knight helicopter, following its comrades in their escape. John Keller took his glasses off, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He had just been informed, via email that Lennox was on his way to a secluded spot several miles north of Tranquility. The United States military needed to be kept abreast of the situation. If Decepticons had come back to earth, they needed to know why. Everything down to the minutest twitch needed to be reported, triple checked for accuracy and tracked to the most minute detail.



Keller had no reason to believe that Optimus Prime would lie, or even that the Autobot leader was capable of lying, but he also wanted to know everything about everything that was going on. Like it or not, the Autbots were guests on this planet and their continued protection rested on their forthright cooperation with the United States government. Though Keller stopped just short of informing the President. There was no need until the matter was cleared up. The leader of the Free World had taken to denying even to himself the existence of the Autbots. He had even refused to meet them, stating that he had other pressing matters that required his attention. Though Keller suspected that it had everything to do with meeting beings that were more powerful than he thought he was in his wildest dreams. Let the military handle the important matters, the President could rest assured that no matter what happened that the Ding-Dong supply would not run out.