A New Dawn - Transformers Prime (4)

Chapter Seven

   Focus, A.

   That thought made me take a deep breath. Focus. Break up the problem and attack the smaller ones. Right.

   "Finn, Raf," I called out. "What's your progress?"

   Finn looked up, Raf keeping his head down to keep working away. "We've managed to decipher maybe 25%, but it's been slow."

   I shook my head. "No, that's good. Anything useful yet?" Like the travel logs. Those would be great.

   He frowned. "Mostly just specs of the ship. The more important stuff is more heavily encrypted."

   "Of course," I nodded. "I'm going to start Cam on organizing the information as you both decipher it, that way it'll move a little smoother."

   Finn shot me a grateful smile, his eyes catching mine in a way that made my stomach flip. Even a year after being with him, he still managed to make the butterflies go wild. I returned his smile, then pulled out my phone to do so before going back to my pacing. All I could do now was wait; my least favored pass time.

   But I didn't wait for long. An alarm went off, causing an alert to appear on the base's main computer screen.

   C: SECURITY ALERT – HOSTILE ACTIVITY DETECTED. LOCATION - SANTA FE, USA. TIME – 18:24. SUGGESTED COURSE OF ACTION – DEPLOY ARMED UNIT(S) IMMEDIATELY.

   In an instant, my pacing was replaced with action. "Finn, you're with me. Grab whatever weapon you may need from the back room and meet back here in two minutes." He nodded, a serious expression on his face as he hurried off. "Raf, as much as I hate to pry you away-"

   The younger boy shot me a thumbs up. "I'm home base, on it. Setting ground bridge to the coordinates."

   I shot him a grateful smile just as Finn strode back in, an assault rifle strapped to his back and a bag in hand. He tossed me the bag, and I pulled out my pocket staff and a pair of multi-purpose gloves that matched his. The ground bridge opened behind us, and I looked back up at Raf.

   "Comms?"

   "Set up on your phone."

   "And location scan?"

   "In progress. So far, looks like something's making a move on a military lab facility."

   I nodded, turning back to Finn. "Let's go see what's happening."

   We both walked through the ground bridge just in time for an explosion to be set off next to us. Finn reacted first, yanking me towards him to avoid getting hit by the debris. The sound of bullets filled the air, as well as the smell of smoke and ashes. Once the explosion cleared, my eyes widened at what I saw.

   There were fires all over the five building facility. The four side buildings were all destroyed, while the largest, main one was still intact. Helicopters and tanks were burning, and there were military personnel racing around, the few of them armed aiming at the entrance of the largest facility.

   "What the hell is going on?" Finn said next to my ear so I could hear him over the chaos.

   "I don't know," I admitted. "But whatever Cybertronian metal Cam detected is probably in that facility. Watch my back while I scan?"

   "Always."

   I closed my eyes and reached out with my powers, aiming towards the largest building. Immediately, I hit four- no, six- Cybertronian life signals.

   "Six of them," I said, opening my eyes. "But human sized and almost fuzzy."

   "So same as the one we encountered," Finn said, and I nodded.