Chapter 267: Rescuing Carly

Chicago.

The sprawling metropolis along Lake Michigan, once a gleaming jewel of commerce and towering ambition, had descended into an absolute charnel house.

Cruisers and gunships swept insolently between the high-rises, loosing plasma rounds into any skyscraper whose glass facade caught their eye.

Human interceptors scrambled from regional bases to stem the slaughter, but long before their radar could lock targets, they were blasted into blinding fireballs by the picket destroyers screening the lakefront.

Burning wreckage rained into the crowded avenues below, adding tragic punctuation to the metropolis's agony.

At street level, the city was drowned in fire and concussive shockwaves.

Terrified civilians fled in all directions, only to find the grid sealed off at every bridge and thoroughfare.

Armored invaders stalked through the corridors of broken concrete like a mechanical plague. An occasional rifle retort or desperate small-arms volley would ring out from behind an overturned vehicle, only to be abruptly snuffed out by a hail of heavy energon bolts.

High above the burning basin, on the main flight deck of the flagship Nemesis, Skygnaw stood alongside Megatron and Sentinel Prime around a reinforced deployment station.

"Megatron. Skygnaw."

Sentinel reached into the recessed bay, his metallic digits withdrawing a heavy pillar forged in intricate, dark-crimson alloy.

"This is the master control unit. Once initialized, it will command the entire field, linking every sub-pillar across the globe to inaugurate the transit sequence."

Observing the crimson spire, Skygnaw's logic cleared.

Sentinel was not simply assembling a standard ground bridge for planetary deployment; he was orchestrating a full-scale cosmic corridor capable of bridging star systems.

A standard orbital gate could never withstand the immense gravitational shear of drawing an entire dead world across interstellar space.

Skygnaw had pieced together the possibility from historical records, though seeing the master spire resting in the ancient leader's grip was an entirely different experience.

"I have already designated the apex of this settlement as the transmission spire," Sentinel continued with cold finality.

"The master unit answers only to my spark. I shall oversee the node personally."

Skygnaw kept his faceplate composed, though a ripple of anticipation stirred within him.

Tearing an entire planet across light-years and anchoring it into an alien orbit was an undertaking only Sentinel's absolute conviction would dare initiate.

"Skygnaw!" Megatron turned, his optical glow flaring with harsh impatience. "Deploy our drop wings. Disperse the operational pillars to their designated coordinates worldwide."

Skygnaw looked away from the master pillar, nodding without hesitation. "By your command, Lord Megatron."

He cast a measured glance toward the far corner of the deck, where hundreds of polished alloy cylinders were stacked in an immense metal pyramid.

Every rod was fully charged, their internal power cells glowing with an eerie azure luminescence. Skygnaw had no idea where Megatron had unearthed this supply—he had left the sector yesterday, and upon returning to the skyline this morning, the stockpile was already primed.

Using the ancient translocation technique carved into Jetfire's salvaged frame, Skygnaw had slipped back to Chicago from the eastern seaboard in a heartbeat.

When he had materialized directly upon the flight deck, Megatron had eyed him with lingering suspicion, but had said nothing.

At the Prime tier, Skygnaw had no reason to hide his capabilities.

Let the warlord stare.

In cycles past, you treated me as disposable vanguard metal, Skygnaw mused coldly. Now you must measure every step before you speak.

A short distance away along the flight deck railing, Carly observed the trio gathered around the console, whispering nervously to her companion:

"What are they doing with that rod?"

Beside her, Dylan seemed thoroughly at ease, having recovered his swagger after observing the disciplined legion standing watch across the deck.

Regardless of the origins of the unfamiliar humanoid troops lining the bulkheads, they marched under the Decepticon standard. And anyone flying that banner was an ally to his survival.

With such crushing superiority holding the field, why shouldn't he savor the moment?

"Do you see the spire in his hands?" Dylan asked, smoothing his collar.

"I see it. What does it do?"

"The specifics are technical," Dylan shrugged with casual arrogance. "What matters is that it represents the cornerstone of the entire operation. Brought all the way from the Moon by our esteemed defector."

Carly nodded slowly, keeping her eyes pinned to the crimson pillar, etching its heavy, layered silhouette firmly into her memory.

"Sentinel claimed they came here for our raw materials to restore their home world," she murmured, fishing for insight.

"Indeed. Specifically, an irreplaceable resource native entirely to this rock."

"Irreplaceable?" Carly frowned, playing along.

"Quite," Dylan smiled, thoroughly pleased with the sound of his own voice as he indulged her curiosity. "You have a sharp mind, Carly. Tell me: when an empire sets out to rebuild an empire from ashes, what is the single most critical asset?"

"Rations? Fuel? Advanced schematics? Manual labor?" she ventured cautiously.

"Precisely that last one," Dylan beamed, resting an arm on the balustrade. "Without a massive, expendable workforce of human laborers to pull the levers, their ruined civilization remains dust."

"You mean the resource they want... is humanity?" Carly gasped, genuine horror breaking through her composure. "They intend to round up billions of people and ship them into deep space?!"

"How many thousands of heavy rockets would that even take?!"

"No one is launching rockets, Carly," Dylan leaned close, his grin taking on a sinister edge. "They are bringing their world to our doorstep. Once it anchors overhead, we simply walk across the bridge."

"So that's what that machine is building..."

"Look at the staging pallets," Dylan pointed toward the stacked pillars on the lower deck. "Those are the relay keys. Within hours, drop carriers will scatter them across every continent."

"Then, with the throw of a switch, their metallic homeworld drops directly into our sky."

"You are completely out of your mind!" Carly recoiled, revulsion plain on her face. "And you... you are utterly shameless."

"I am merely a realist," Dylan replied, wholly unfazed by her scorn.

"You should view this as high-level corporate negotiation. If you wish to survive the turn of an era, you yield to the prevailing current."

"Did you honestly believe I invited this upon myself?"

"I simply inherited an existing arrangement from my father's ledger."

"It boils down to a very simple equation: you must cooperate with me to preserve your life, and I must cooperate with them to preserve mine. I am merely trying to ensure I live to see tomorrow."

"They may be your clients," Carly spat, her words sharp as glass, "but the moment their world enters this atmosphere, every human being becomes cattle."

"I imagine Sentinel and Megatron will need a token administrator to keep the livestock in line. A decorative puppet in a fine suit. You fit the profile perfectly."

"You and your backers will get the crumbs you begged for, bought and paid for on your knees like a faithful hound."

Carly's tongue was every bit as razor-sharp as her features. Yet Dylan didn't flinch, nor did he instruct his private contractors to silence her.

When Megatron and Sentinel turned from the console, Dylan stepped forward with an eager nod.

"Handle the staging, Skygnaw," Megatron rumbled, stepping toward a awaiting shuttle with Sentinel.

As their transport lifted from the deck, Skygnaw turned around, catching Dylan's approach.

"Lord Skygnaw," Dylan bowed from a respectful distance.

"Dylan," Skygnaw rumbled, waving his hand toward the inner hatchways. "Your presence is unnecessary on the flight deck. Take your retinue and remain within the living quarters below."

"Keep your personnel out of the operational lanes."

"Right away, Lord Skygnaw!"

Dylan let out a quiet breath of relief, nodding vigorously before ushering his guards toward the service lift.

"Ensure Miss Spencer stays under guard," Dylan whispered to his men as the hatch hissed shut. "Aboard this vessel, our safety is guaranteed. Do not disturb the Lord's focus."

Dylan felt a heady rush of ambition surging through him. To stand upon the primary warship of an extraterrestrial army with full diplomatic immunity was unprecedented.

Perhaps Carly's bitter words about a human administrator weren't so far-fetched after all.

Unconcerned with the human's fantasies, Skygnaw stepped toward the flight deck precipice.

The Nemesis hovered barely a few hundred yards above the burning heart of the city. Skygnaw leaned over the railing, watching smoke billow from shattered commercial avenues.

It would not be long before this metropolis was reduced to the same blasted alloy skeletons that defined the dead city-states of Cybertron.

Below, the light assault shuttle carrying Megatron and Sentinel banked toward the downtown corridor, heading for the city's tallest high-rise.

In many respects, Sentinel Prime mirrored the calculating pragmatism of old Decepticon tacticians, harboring a cold, rigid obsession with his own grand strategy.

"Time to arrange the secondary lines," Skygnaw muttered to himself.

Turning away from the rail, he checked the positions of the Martian auxiliary troops stationed along the interior bulkheads before heading into the bridge tower.

Washington, Kennedy Space Center.

After scouring the smoking debris field to no avail and finding only shattered booster hull and scorched titanium plating, Sam hurried toward the vehicle bays, desperate to find Simmons.

"I need your help right now!"

Simmons was seated in his wheelchair preparing to board a private van, and Sam's sudden sprint nearly startled the man out of his seat.

"Easy, kid!" Simmons caught his breath, adjusting his dark glasses. "Every time you pop out of the brush, my insurance rates skyrocket. I should have stayed retired, though I have to admit, you've handed me enough chaos to fill three more chapters."

"Spill it. What broke this time?"

"I took a direct call ten minutes ago," Sam panted, cutting straight through the banter.

"And?"

"It was Carly's employer. Dylan Gould. He's the primary human operative coordinating with the invaders, and he's holding Carly as leverage."

"The billionaire with the high-end roadster?"

"That's him."

"Ah. Driven by love, are we?" Simmons let out a knowing chuckle. "What's the play?"

"I need to trace the transmission line and pin his exact coordinates."

"Child's play!" Simmons snapped his fingers with complete confidence. "Chuck!"

"Right here, Mr. Simmons," Chuck stepped out from behind the transport van.

"We have a target to acquire," Simmons briefed him briskly.

Chuck took Sam's phone, examining the interface with focused calm. "Ten minutes, sir. That's all I need."

"Work your magic."

Chuck signaled an aide to retrieve his hardened field kit, jacked the handset into the terminal, and set his fingers flying across the keys.

"Connection isolated. Encrypted route locked."

Dense strings of routing code cascaded across the portable display. Sam leaned over the technician's shoulder, his knuckles white. "Can you tell me where he is?!"

"Working the cell towers... got it. Routing through regional nodes in downtown Chicago. Target handset is active right in the center of the city."

"Of course he is..." Sam cursed under his breath, turning on his heel to move toward the motor pool when Chuck spoke again:

"I pulled a backchannel handshake through his forward optics. Scrubbing image cache now... logging frames from ten minutes ago."

Tap.

Chuck struck a final execution key, and a sequence of still frames rolled across the screen.

The images were heavily compressed, but the framing was unmistakable.

"Where is that supposed to be?" Sam muttered, squinting at the display.

The backdrop was bizarre. The camera looked out over vast stretches of open sky and cloud banks, punctuated by heavy plumes of black smoke drifting in the far distance.

Then, a massive, jagged armored shoulder edged into the corner of the frame.

Sam and Simmons stiffened instantly.

An armored invader.

As the image sequence refreshed, more towering mechanical warriors appeared across the wide metal terrace, surrounding the user's position.

The truth was laid bare: Gould was standing on the open flight deck of a warship hovering high above the metropolis!

"Kid..." Simmons's voice lost all its mockery, turning heavier than it had been when facing the pyramid diggers in Egypt.

"Your girl didn't just get snatched by her boss. He's got her locked aboard the lead alien dreadnought. The man is deep in bed with them."

"I can see that," Sam replied, his voice shaking with furious resolve. "She has nobody else up there. I can reach the perimeter within fifteen hours."

"I'm getting her out."

"Have you lost your mind?!" Simmons barked. "With who?! You? Me in this chair? What army are you bringing?!"

"Count me in."

A gruff, commanding voice broke the argument.

Robert Epps walked toward them with an uneven, heavy limp, his boots clicking firmly against the asphalt.

"If this run involves putting lead into invaders, I'm on the manifest."

"Sergeant Epps?" Simmons looked him up and down with a grimace. "Brilliant. A limping veteran, a crippled author, and a college kid who hasn't even framed his diploma."

"Tell me how storming an extraterrestrial dreadnought isn't an express ticket to a closed casket."

"The difference is we take down a few of those bastards before we go," Epps countered, his eyes burning into Simmons. "They're burning a city to the ground. We don't just sit on our hands."

"Why put yourself on the line for me?" Sam asked, looking at the former sergeant with genuine surprise.

"Because they put down a lot of good men who wore the same uniform I did."

Nobody outside the unit knew that Epps's closest friend had fallen during the initial firefights in the Middle East.

While active duty kept the grief buried beneath relentless field drills, retirement had cracked the door wide open. Every night, the faces of lost teammates haunted his sleep.

As long as those machines walked free on this earth, those memories would never let him rest.

His earlier claims about enjoying a quiet retirement had been an outright lie.

"I still have contacts stationed at the regional reserves outside Chicago," Epps added, looking at Sam. "Men from the joint unit who were discharged when the treaty fell apart. I ran the plan past them, and they're ready to roll."

"Colonel Lennox is mobilizing a volunteer team to meet us at the checkpoint."

Epps rested a heavy hand on Sam's shoulder. "Those men remember what you did in the desert. You broke their line more than once and pulled all our necks out of the fire."

"First, we pull your girl out of that flying fortress. Then we find their reactor core and blow that damn ship out of the sky!"

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