The Day We Hailed The Heavens

Chapter 25

"Bumblebee... that was awesome!" he called over frankly, grinning and shaking his head in wonder.

Bumblebee, ever the modest one in their partnership, merely shrugged his wing-like shoulder projections and gave Sam a cheerful thumbs-up. "My dear, sweet child... it's what I do!" a woman's voice reminded him, and Sam grimaced at the fact that he was using a Disney quote.

Then he grimaced again when he realised that he recognised the Disney quote.

He knew that there was no time to have a chitchat - Bumblebee took off again at once, charging back into the thick of the battle to assist a beleaguered Seraphim with his energy cannons out and ready to fire. Sam watched him go before he scanned the rest of the battleground worriedly, searching out any more of his friends among the soldiers and drones.

Apart from Bumblebee and Seraphim, the only one of their group that he could see was Barricade. The black-and-white Decepticon was swinging his weird, bladed hands like giant pendulums, knocking drones out of the way as he powered about the central park that Sam was standing on the edge of. Whenever he wasn't narrowing his scarlet quadoptics at his enemies, he was looking around the area as if searching for someone - probably Rose, now Sam thought about it.

Where the heck was Rose - hell, what about Mikaela? The two of them had gone into the battle together at the beginning, and had become separated from Sam and Miles within five minutes; he hadn't seen them since, and he was panicking about it more than he let on. He needed to concentrate on the fight... but how could a guy help but worry about his girlfriend?

Then again, he hadn't seen Ratchet for a while, so he was probably keeping an eye on the girls.

The walkie-talkie that was hooked onto his belt suddenly crackled noisily and he made a grab for it, shifting himself behind an forsaken lorry to avoid any more drones attacking him. "Hello?" he shouted into the mouthpiece over the commotion that surrounded him.

"Zzzzz... Sam... zz... Starscream...!"

Sam's heart seemed to stop for a second as he felt the shock boot him in the stomach harder than a drone could have done. Starscream was calling him? Looking up and across the skies for any sign of the jet among all the others, he yelled a response back into the portable device. "Starscream? You okay, man - what's up?"

What's up. Jeez, what a response to the all-powerful Starscream... he was going to get his ass kicked if they both survived this.

Starscream sounded urgent, not to mention pissed, when he replied. "... friend... the boy... zzzz... Thundercracker! Get the..."

"What about Thundercracker?" Sam hollered over the high-pitched squeal of a drone as it smashed an unfortunate soldier against a nearby wall with a horrific, bone-breaking thud of a human hitting a hard surface. If the numerous cracks that followed the move were anything to go by, then the poor man had just had pretty much every bone in his body snapped.

Then the God-awful realisation hit him full in the face as he repeated Starscream's words to himself in his mind.

"Starscream, are you talkin' about Miles?!" he almost screamed down the line.

The static suddenly cleared - Starscream had probably gotten in contact with Maggie or Glen at the Pentagon to sort the interference out. "Yes, you outrageously stupid boy!" the ex-Decepticon roared at him, and Sam nearly dropped the walkie-talkie in panic at his furious tone. "Thundercracker has disengaged me - probably afraid, the unsightly coward - and he's heading for the park that you are currently situated in. Your friend needs to move his worthless human aft, NOW!"