Chapter Fifteen:

Little Human, Big Ship

“Get down!”

One look at the large barrel gun pointing at his head was enough warning for Bumblebee scoop up Taylor and jump out of the way. The blast was loud and shook the earth. It hit one of the tanks a few miles behind it and exploded. Taylor was unharmed, but Bumblebee seemed a bit shaken up. He unfolded his arms to let Taylor go. “You okay?” She asked. “Yeah, I’m fine,” Bumblebee sighed, shaking his head, “My sensors are just a bit thrown off.” Taylor felt a chill down her spine as she detected a uneasy presence. She slowly turned around. From the smoke was a dark shadow, a shadow with glowing purple eyes, and a smile with razor-sharp teeth. “Taylor, get behind me!” Bumblebee hissed. Taylor took a step back, her fingers triggering, expecting to blow something up real soon. “Well, well, well, look who it is: The Autobot hybrid” A low, voice spoke. The Autobots knew very well who that voice belonged to. “Megatron” Taylor announced. She took another step back. Megatron: The leader of the Decepticons. The entire cause of the Third Cybertron War. The one who killed its very core, and almost finished the entire Autobot faction with one fell swoop. “How do you know who I am?” she instantly regretted asking. “Oho, I know all about you: Knightingale, Captain of Squad Delta, death by the vacuums of space, reborn as part human, hiding and forgotten, a monster in the shadows.” Megatron emerged from the shadows. He was tall, and bulky. His jagged, purple dark energon blade gleamed through the smoke, staring down at the small human, with strength and superiority. “Leave her alone!” Bumblebee snapped, grinding his teeth, drawing his sword.

“Leave the children alone, Megatron!”

Megatron turned around. Optimus Prime appeared, his red battle axe gleaming in the last light of day. Megatron smirked. “Now this is who I wanted to see.” Bumblebee slowly moved Taylor along, cautiously, around Megatron, and back behind Optimus Prime. The other Autobots were there too, guns drawn, ready for anything.

“Megatron, walk away from this now. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can work together to survive. Don’t bring the fight to this planet as well as condemn its inhabitants to the desolation of your war.”

“Our war, Optimus,” Megatron corrected, “you tend to forget that it was because of your rebellion that this has become what it is.” Megatron gestured to Bumblebee and Taylor. “Did you really want these…sparklings to fight to the death in our war?”

Optimus Prime retorted, gripping his battle axe tighter. It wasn’t very often that the other Autobots would see Optimus Prime irked by Megatron’s accusations, but this one seemed to make him angry. He straightened his posture, then said, “Very well, if you won’t comply, I’ll have to end you!” “Oh, I’d like to see you try, Prime!”

All of the sudden, Decepticons came from all directions. The Autobots were shocked by how many of the enemy soldiers that Megatron had on his side. How was it that he had so many, and there were so few Autobots? “What was that about ending me, Prime? Not with all of my Decepticons, you can’t!” Megatron sneered. The Autobots froze. They didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t take all of these Decepticons on, not when there was little to no cover. Taylor saw a hand forcing her backwards. It was Bumblebee, moving her to the back of his right leg to protect her. “Well Prime, what’s your decision? Are you going to surrender? Or are you going to fight me, and still be blasted to bits? Either way, you and your Autobot scrap heaps are gonna die” Megatron asked. Optimus was quiet for a moment. Then, he announced:

“Let it be known on this day, one shall stand…One shall fall!”

He swung his axe at Megatron, who immediately dodged, then changing his left hand into a purple, spiked mace. The Autobots each took a side and fired at the Decepticons. Bumblebee grabbed Taylor again and back rolled out of firing range. He put her down on the other side of the dust the 60 feet robots were kicking up. “Knightingale! Get out of here! Now!” he ordered. “No, I can help!” Taylor pleaded. “No! You get somewhere safe and out of danger!” Bumblebee slashed a Decepticon in half. Taylor froze. She didn’t want to leave! Bumblebee could see very clearly her hesitance. “Knightingale…Please…” he pleaded. Taylor bit her lip. She knew that the two of them didn’t have time to argue. She picked up her pace, and started to run in the opposite direction.

It hurt her to run. Every moment she heard a gun fire, it made the pain worse. She hated being human! Weak…feeble…foolish…slow… More than ever, she missed being a Cybertronian. She had more credibility. One of most coordinated and cunning of the Autobots, fast…Strong. As she thought of this, she also thought of something else. She paused, and turned around. She looked beyond to the Power Plant. She remembered that airship, full of energy cubes.

“Decepticons could be inside loading energon cubes while they’re distracted” she thought to herself. She stood there a moment, pondering what she should do. “If nothing else, I can do at least do this. I can’t let the Decepticons get away with it!” And with newfound confidence, Taylor took off back towards the power plant, past the Autobots, and past the army tanks.

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There were many Decepticons still inside the plant, clawing and scraping at the wall to rip them open and escape. There were two additional ships that had arrived. Taylor carefully crept in and hide behind a pile of energy cubes. She squinted her eyes to look at the new cargo ships. “Those…Don’t look Cybertronian…” she thought. They looked like the HC-130s she had seen at the Coast Guard Station back in Michigan, only they were bigger, and painted dark green and purple. They had a peculiar symbol, one she couldn’t make out because she was so far away. Taylor shook her head. “Focus” she told herself. Two Decepticons ran out of the room seconds later. Taylor crept out of her hiding spot and rushed to the small, armored cargo ship. The button to open the back was high, but Taylor managed to reach it. It whirred as it slowly lowered. She looked around cautiously, her blaster secured to her arm and ready to fire. Suddenly, three Decepticons came stumbling into the room and quickly spotted the human standing behind the aircraft. “It’s you again!?” one of them exclaimed. It was Starscream. “Shoot it! Shoot the red-maned fleshling!” “My name is Knightingale you scrap heaps!” Taylor shouted. She powered up her gun and fired. She missed Starscream, but managed to singe his top left wing. Thundercracker and Skywarp fired after her. Taylor ducked behind the ship for a moment, before jumping back out to fire. This time, she shot the arm gun off one of the seeker’s arms. “Rgh! You’ll pay for that!” she heard one of them shout. Finally, the back shaft completely opened in the aircraft. With a deep breath, Taylor jumped out of her hiding spot and was gonna make a break for it, but when she got out, she had a hot laser shoot right at her feet. She yelped, and stepped back. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” Starscream growled, “Do you really think you can beat us? You? Tiny little fleshling!?” Taylor glared at him. “Nope! And yes, yes I do!” She blasted again, this time, she kept firing at a rapid pace, trying to confuse them as she attempted once again to creep into the aircraft. She got inside and jumped to press the button for the hatch to close! “Use your swords you fools! Use your swords!” She heard Starscream scream. She heard swords sheathing out. Taylor kept shooting in anyway she could, but fortunately, the door had finally shut.

“Don’t let it get away!” she heard a muffled shout. Taylor whirled around. The cockpit turned out to be a lot bigger than she originally anticipated. “Oooh, okay” she mumbled, uncertainly. She ran over to the pilot seats near the front of the ship. Taylor leaped, and heaved onto one of the seats. “Okay, let’s see if I remember how to do this” Taylor said to herself, then added in a scoff, “Let’s see if I can remember to do it while being the size of a cybercrawler.” Taylor climbed onto the control board and began slamming on buttons, while mumbling out loud. “Okay, close the door, start the engines, accelerate to liftoff.” The engines began to rumble as ship rose into the air. “Okay, how am I going to steer this thing?” she asked herself. She grabbed the humongous handlebars and began to move it towards the entrance while also struggling to see. “Rgh! Isn’t there some kind of navigational screen I can use? Who built this hunk of scrap metal!?” Taylor exclaimed, annoyed. She managed to find the autopilot button and climbed onto the dashboard to see where she was going. She could hear constant thuds of blasting coming from the rear end. She saw a number flashing up and a voice in Decepticon tongue announce, “85% shielding remaining.” Taylor sighed. “Okay, I gotta get out of here before those seekers poke more holes in the shields” she thought out loud. She got back into the seat and had to rely solely on her instincts to navigate through the plant. She listened carefully for the screeching up against the walls and prayed silently not to ram into a heat engine.

Then, when she looked up to see where she was going, she could see the last blip of sunlight peeking over the horizon. “Yes, okay! Just a little further!” She pleaded. She revved the engine up a little more, accelerating it forward even faster.  When she got to the ruptured wall, she scrambled to find the button for the cannons, as she had seen a holoscreen with at least four missiles loaded. “Come on, come on!” she cried. She yelled raging, frantically pushing every button she could find. “One of them HAS to work!” Finally, after the twenty-fourth beep, and as she was about to collide with the wall, the cannons deployed from the undercarriage, and promptly fired. “YEAAAAHHHH!” She cried, as she burst through and into the open air, “Woohoo! Take that Decepti-stinks!” She missiles had automatically reloaded, and then changed to gatling guns. “I bet Optimus would LOVE some firepower from the air!” she cried. She pressed the comm link in her ear. “This is Knightingale calling Autobots, I just happened to come across an airship and thought it would come in handy! Get ready to duck!” Then, she pressed the fire button, while also atop the dashboard. Decepticons were littering the field like ants overwhelming the four Autobots. They must’ve managed to get her message, because Ratchet had managed to activate a forcefield around them. The purple robots dropped like flies as the bullets splattered the green countryside with disturbed dirt, pecking little holes throughout it. “Yahoo! Nice job, Knightingale!” a voice shouted through her link. She beamed. It was Bumblebee. “See? You’ve still got it!” Taylor’s cheeks quickly turned red. But then, she noticed something wrong. She couldn’t see Optimus Prime. Where was he? If he was still facing off against Megatron as she suspected, she could really do something good! But she couldn’t find him. Suddenly, before she could even realize what happened, something had exploded from the cargo pit. Taylor was thrown off the pilot seat, hit her head on the armrest and she hit the ground, unconscious. She could’ve sworn she heard someone scream her name…

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