Now he stood in the shallow water in his bipedal form and watched with interest as the human female paddled lazy circles around his pillar-like legs. She moved through the water by utilizing an outwardly inefficient un-Autobot-like scissoring of her hind limbs. As he attempted to calculate the energy efficacy of the odd motion, she paused in her swimming and went vertical in the water, pushing her face mask up onto her forehead. These organics, he knew, required a continuous intake of the local atmospheric gas in order to internally fuel their bodies. A most peculiar system. Reaching down, he gently placed a gleaming wet hand beneath her and lifted her out of the water. Droplets flung from her long black hair caught the tropical sunlight as she shook her head.
“I much prefer your appearance with the artificial lens in place over the forepart of your upper skull,” he intoned solemnly. “It gives your face a more mechanical façade.”
Kami grinned. “Your tastes differ from those of the males of my species.”
“Forgive my ignorance. I am still comparatively new to this world and have much to learn about your kind. In his spare time, Ratchet has been mentoring me.”
She looked up at the long, low sound of a ship’s horn. Longarm put her down, and she walked through the shallows to the beach. The sun glinting off her dripping body would have given any man, and even most women, pause, but Kaminari’s thoughts were rarely self-reflexive. The ship had arrived without incident, unless one counted the amusing diversion in the Gulf of Aden, and these days that meant a lot. For once, she wanted to greet this ship at the docks. Wrapping herself in a towel, Kaminari walked toward the barracks. She’d be showered, changed, and on the docks in fifteen minutes.
Gazing at the long, slender island that occupied the side of Diego Garcia’s lagoon southeast of the heavy bomber airstrip, a visitor would be hard-pressed to believe that it concealed anything more powerful than the kick of the semi-wild donkeys that roamed its emerald-green interior. Save for an unusual profusion of satellite antennas artfully scattered among the palms and casuarinas there was nothing to indicate that buried deep in the limestone and bedrock, the hastily constructed center that had been established to coordinate Autobot and human responses to Decepticon incursions pushed out in all directions. NEST was continuing to expand, its reinforced tunnels honeycombing not only the island itself but also the solid rock that underlay the atoll.
The Pearl of India came to rest beside the massive pylons that supported the pier. This was the only location on the atoll that allowed large ships to berth, and it was used infrequently. Given the circumstances, much of the strength of NEST lay in its secrecy, and the atoll did little to give away its true purpose.
Lennox and Epps, along with a third man, walked down the gangplank of the Pearl of India onto the one main loading dock on Diego Garcia. Ironhide and Ratchet disembarked from the side loading bay farther aft. Waiting for them on the wharf was Kaminari Ishihari.
“Dr. Ishihari.” The greeting came from Lennox. “I heard you had arrived. Good to have you on board.” Epps just stared, trying to keep his mouth closed and his eyes front. Front and elevated, that is.
“Please, call me Kami. We’ll be working together closely, and anyway, titles make me uncomfortable. I don’t need people to call me ‘doctor’ all day just to pad my self-esteem.” This was said in an open and self-deprecating way that disarmed the two soldiers. They warmed to her immediately.
“In that case, call me Lennox. This is Master Sergeant Epps, but I’m sure he won’t mind you calling him Epps. We tend to be pretty informal ourselves.” Epps just nodded in agreement; still temporarily speechless, an unnatural state for him.
Standing next to him was a man who looked to be in his late thirties, pink cheeks, blue eyes, close-cropped blond hair, similar to his companions in build, but with the restless eyes of an inquisitive soul.
Lennox continued, “Allow me to also introduce Mr. Petr Andronov, one of the world’s leading experts in artificial and machine intelligence. We met him and his equipment in Sevastopol, where we all boarded the Pearl. Given what we’re up against, we’re expecting both of you to become invaluable members of the NEST team.”
Kaminari eyed the Russian coolly, temporarily allowing the litany of past grievances between their two countries to interfere with her professionalism. But she shook it off: there was a common threat to all humanity, and old feuds must be put aside. Petr Andronov was a colleague now, and they would need to trust each other.
“That’s what we’re here for, and now that you’ve arrived, we can get started,” replied Kami. “A pleasure to meet you, Petr. We need all three of you, and your Autobot comrades, in the briefing room right away. Everyone else is already assembled and waiting.”
“What’s going on?” asked Epps, finally able to find his tongue.
“Trouble. Maybe real trouble,” Kami replied, the urgency now coming through in her voice. “We may have a sighting.”
“Decepticons?” asked Lennox. “Well, we knew this was coming. I suppose it was too much to ask for them to give us the courtesy of being prepared before they made a move.”
“Give us five minutes to stow our gear. We’ll be right behind you.”
Kami turned and walked down the pier, followed by the eyes of every living male creature in the vicinity.
“Damn, that ain’t right,” sighed Epps. “You can’t be putting us in a room with her, not after all this time away from home.”
“Easy there, chief,” replied Lennox, “she’ll kick your ass with one hand while solving Einstein’s theory of relativity with the other. Didn’t you read her file?”
“No, you’re the leader of this team. That means you get to do all the reading.”
“Well, if you had, you’d know that she graduated MIT with a PhD in both physics and engineering at age twenty-two. She’s all kinds of wonky on robots and cybernetics. On top of that, she’s got black belts in four different martial arts and spent three years working for Naicho, the Japanese intelligence agency. Something about doing her patriotic duty, rather than cashing in on all that talent with a private robotics firm.”
“Damn,” replied Epps, “definitely not just a pretty face.”
“Oh, and Andronov?” continued Lennox. “Formerly of Russia’s Spetsnaz. We aren’t dealing with geeks and nerds here.”
“Yeah, yeah we are,” countered Epps, “we’re just dealing with geeks and nerds who are trained to kill. Like I said, ‘damn!’ ”
Lennox leaned forward toward the retinal analyzer that protruded from the wall of the door in front of them. The security device read his retinal pattern, checked it against the records in its data bank, and beeped once. Drawn by an unseen motor, a heavy metal door slid aside to admit them to another hallway. Beyond the security portal they encountered far fewer personnel than previously.
Conversation ceased when Epps and Lennox entered the conference room.
“Glad to have you back, gentlemen.” The greeting came from the colonel, who struggled ineffectively to hide his impatience. “Everyone is in now, so we can begin.”
Epps took the empty seat on the other side of Lennox, across from Kaminari. Lennox and Epps represented the very few at this table, talented though the others might be, who’d had multiple encounters with the enemy. They were among the few soldiers, not to mention technical experts, who were personally familiar with both Autobots and Decepticons. As such, they were more or less immune from the petty annoyances of military protocol. The special patch he and Lennox and the rest of the NEST team wore on their uniforms or civilian attire conferred the kind of immunity even agents from the old, disbanded Sector Seven could not have imagined.
As Lennox shifted sideways in his seat the tall white-haired woman Epps knew only as Ariella rose from hers and walked to the far end of the room. The creases in her dark blue business suit were as sharp and set as those in her face. In her younger years she had been a classic beauty, and even at an advanced age she retained an unshakable attractiveness.
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The flat surface she waved at promptly lit from within to become a wall-sized screen. The ambient light in the conference room dimmed accordingly. Expecting a different kind of image, Epps was surprised to see a map appear, and not one of the Diego Garcia region. A glance around the room indicated that everyone else seated at the conference table was similarly engrossed in the presentation, from the attentive Kaminari and Lennox to the rest of the military–civilian cadre.
Except for one.
Exasperation plain in her voice, Ariella was forced to pause before she had even begun. “Mr. Andronov, this is important. Could we have your attention, please?”
A voice that was almost deep enough to issue from an Autobot boomed from the far end of the table. “You always have my attention, miloshka.”
“And don’t be snide. This is serious business.”
“So is this.” He held up a cupped hand.
Petr Andronov’s fascination with the small and seemingly insignificant stood in stark contrast with his bulk. The delicacy with which his huge hands could manipulate a butterfly without harming it, or nudge a nudibranch from a coral in order to better position it for study, or peel an onion for one of his famous Siberian soups, was something to behold.
Ariella rolled her eyes. While her attitude might verge on the schoolmarmish, there was nothing but steel in her voice. Lennox had heard rumors about her even before she had assumed command of NEST field operations. Stories that she would not confirm or deny, on which she steadfastly refused to elaborate. That she had risen to the rank of colonel in Israel’s Mossad. That in her younger days she had once taken out an entire terrorist cell in the Beyoglu section of Istanbul all by herself and immediately afterward stopped for baklava and tea at a nearby restaurant. That she could disarm or place a bomb with equal skill. And that at any distance over ten thousand meters she could still outrun or outswim almost anyone else on the base’s amateur track-and-field team.
She could even get Petr Andronov to pay attention.
With obvious reluctance, the AI specialist bent over and placed his cupped right hand on the darkened floor. Lennox could not see what tiny lifeform scuttled free from the Russian’s fingers. Presumably it posed no danger to anyone in the room. With the exception of a small scorpion that could deliver little more injury than a bee sting, Diego Garcia’s limited landmass had no room for toxic predators. On the other hand, Petr’s quarters on the Pearl were known to house dozens of small cages and terrariums, and doubtless those now were shelved in his small dormitory. Lennox forced himself to concentrate on the illuminated wall, the glint-eyed woman standing to its right, and the map that had appeared on screen. Like Epps, he was surprised at the image.
Ever since their defeat at Mission City there had been no sign of, nor trouble from the Decepticons. It was known that Starscream had escaped, but not to where. With the aid of the humans, Optimus Prime and his friends had been hunting him ever since, as yet to no avail. In the interim other Autobots had detected Optimus’s signal and had arrived on Earth to join their brethren. Whether any Decepticons had similarly responded, no one could tell. The Autobots as well as their new friends hoped such was not the case, but it was this very eventuality that NEST had been created to deal with.
Like his colleagues, Lennox assumed that any new attack would focus on an important nexus of human civilization, the better to draw the Autobots into battle. London, perhaps, or Tokyo (in such circumstances he always thought of Tokyo).
So he was as surprised as anyone else in the conference room to see that the map that had appeared on the wall was not of North America, or East Asia, or even Europe, but of the southern half of Africa.
Africa. Lennox stared at the map as Ariella’s right hand moved over the proximate controls that had appeared on that side of the wall screen. The view narrowed somewhat, but remained wide enough to encompass multiple countries and an enormous amount of territory.
A now wholly serious Epps leaned toward Lennox and nodded in the direction of the screen. “Long way from where we finished up that last work.”
The captain gestured toward the left side of the screen. “Maybe they’re going to send us to Namibia. You’ll like it there. It’s all desert, you know.”
Epps moaned softly.
As it turned out they were not going to Namibia, but that did not make what Ariella had to say any less absorbing. As she gestured with the index finger of her left hand, a glowing pointer appeared on the wall. When she moved her hand in an arc, the pointer circled the southern portion of one particular country.
“I am going to take a wild guess and assume that none of you in this room has ever spent any time in Zambia.” In response to the silence that greeted her observation, she nodded understandingly. Her pointer moved again, this time to take in a much wider area.
“Two months ago an F-22 Raptor was observed flying over this portion of the continent. Positive identification was finally made with the aid of a satellite-recorded heat signature, the F-22’s being different from that of any other known military aircraft. Apparently, the Decepticon skill at mimicry extends even to the smallest detail. Optimus Prime has confirmed that this ability comes naturally to his kind. When they choose an alternative mode, they duplicate it exactly.”
A hand went up from one of the civilian NEST members near the back. “It’s clear to everyone in this room where you’re going with this, Ariella, but how do we know for certain that it is Starscream?”
Instead of replying, Ariella let one of the senior military officers supply the answer.
“We’ve checked and rechecked flight paths from every base with access to that part of the continent.” The man in air force blue spoke assuredly. “Even equipped with extra wing tanks, there are no F-22s capable of overflying the indicated region from any base that we know of. In fact, the nearest F-22 squadron is based right here on Diego Garcia.” He smiled thinly. “To the best of my knowledge, Starscream is not among them.”
Nobody laughed. Claiming “to the best of one’s knowledge” where Transformers were concerned was insufficient assurance. On several occasions while visiting the installations on the atoll’s main island, Lennox had found himself looking at passing vehicles or parked aircraft. Even up close, it was often impossible to tell a Transformer from a human-made machine.
Thus far NEST’s isolation had protected it, and secondary security was as tight as humans and Autobots working together could make it—but it was not perfect. It was on the morning Lennox had found himself eyeing an obstinate coffeemaker and reaching hesitantly for his sidearm that he had decided to seek therapy. It had been a great help.
But he still found himself looking at every vehicle and every machine he encountered, military or civilian, with a jaundiced eye.
Kaminari spoke up. “This is, however, still a guess, albeit an educated one. While I admit that the indicated speed at which the suspect craft was traveling precludes its being a civilian aircraft, there are many countries that operate illegal overflights of combat jets in that part of the continent.” She indicated the man who had voiced the initial uncertainty. “We cannot be sure.”
Ariella nodded. “Agreed. Additional verification is required. NEST is taking no chances with this.” Her gaze, which was anything but grandmotherly, roamed the room. “Accordingly, all three of the Autobots who survived the clash in America will accompany Captain Lennox, Sergeant Epps, and operatives Andronov and Ishihara on a mission designed to establish the validity of this report. You will be joined by two of our recent arrivals, Autobots Salvage and Beachbreak. Since all Autobots will be traveling in their transformed terrestrial mode, Salvage will transport Beachbreak in his Jet Ski mode.”
“Seems like quite an expedition to confirm or deny a rumor,” one of the other officers commented.
Even before he had finished, the wall behind him dropped into the floor. Revealed on the other side was a much larger room equipped with a bigger wall screen. It displayed the same map of Africa. Hea
ds and bodies shifted and turned to regard the single occupant of the adjoining conference room.
“We will not be journeying merely to substantiate an observation.” Optimus Prime’s head and upper body filled much of the available viewing space while the rest of his enormous form remained out of sight below floor level. “We intend not merely to locate Starscream, but to eliminate the threat he poses to this world.” Appreciative murmurs greeted this announcement.
Another of the civilians spoke up. “Governments in that region tend to complain when their territorial integrity is violated, even if done with the intent of defending their citizens.”
“Hence the need to travel with the secrecy we have all learned to observe.” Ariella’s gaze went immediately to a certain officer. “Captain Lennox, do you think you and Sergeant Epps can manage to be credible noncombatants?”
The two men exchanged a glance. “If Optimus can mimic a Detroit diesel,” Lennox told her, “Epps and I can transform into civilians.”
She looked over at the leader of the Autobots. “As with all NEST combat operations, command will be shared between Captain Lennox and Optimus Prime.”
The massive Autobot nodded. “With all due respect to the captain, I hope he will understand that should we actually make contact with Starscream it must be my fellow Cybertronians and myself who will determine combat strategy.” All eyes in the room turned to Lennox.
“With all due respect to Optimus Prime, I hope he will understand that should we actually make contact with Starscream, my human associates and I will be more than happy to let the Autobots take the lead in any fighting.”
Even Ariella cracked a smile at the captain’s response. “Very well, then. Your cover identities have been prepared. A C-17 is standing by to convey all of you to Lusaka. From there you’ll be able to access local as well as satellite communications. If fortune smiles on us, by the end of the month maybe the wreck of Megatron will have some company.” Murmurs of approval greeted this observation.