Nightmares and Monsters

Part 17

(Picture is of Jazz's Holoform.)

Previously in Chapter 16:

"Hey, Cali? Ya a'ight?" asked Jazz as I walked over and ran my hand across his hood. Shaking my head slightly I sat down in the driver's seat after he opened the door to his Alternate Mode and said, "Just drive meh back to mah Office if ya would Jazzy, this idiot is gonna be a bigger problem den we all expected, and ah wanna know who thought givin' 'im Security Clearance was such a good idea? He knows nothing, absolutely nothing about how you DON"T talk about Secure Information over a Vid link-up, even if it is Secure! There is no such thing as being too secure, because there is always someone/something that can hack into it and screw you over the hard way." sighing as I finished my mini-rant I looked over at Jazz's rear view mirror, "Ah'm sorry ah blew up on ya, ah didn't mean ta ya know. Ah mean Galloway just makes meh sooo mad."

Dun worry 'bout it Cali. Ya know ah know dat ya didn' mean ta take it out on meh. But ah do agree dat dis idiot Galloway is a bunch of bad news, not just fer us but fer ya whole planet if he's not careful." he replied as we finally pulled up to my office. After climbing out, I patted his hood gently and told him that I would see him later, but that I really had to finish up here before we could drive out to my place off Base and relax for the weekend. Revving his engine in understanding he drove off slowly back to the hanger to see what else was going on and probably to have a chat with Prime about the moron that was in our midst.

Now on to the next Chapter:

It was about 4 hours later, when Jazz's Holoform walked into my Office and plopped himself down in the chair opposite me. Glancing up at him from the papers I was going over that needed my signature before going off to the Pentagon and General Morshower, I asked him what he was doing here and he replied with a rather cheeky, "Ya been workin' in 'ere fer jus' over 4 hours now, ya need a break befer ya go and do somethin' tha' ya may regret later."

Nodding at his common sense - which was weird since I really didn't think that the words 'Jazz' and 'Common Sense' belonged in the same sentence - I signed the last bit of paper, shoved it back inside the file it was supposed to be in, and placed what had been done into my 'Out' Box on my desk ready for the Airman who was my Secretary to collect and mail on out.

Standing up and stretching I felt my vertebrae crack in relief after being sat for as long as I had been according to Jazz.

Switching my headset back on - which I had taken off and switched off due to doing Paperwork without distraction - I was shocked into a halt at what I heard coming over the channel.

-"Black Lion X-Ray, this is Black Lion Tango. We have activation of motion sensors on the western perimeter fence."-

-"Breach at B-14. Go, go, go, go!"-

-"The shard's gone."-

Shaking my head in disbelief I turned to Jazz and tapped my headset making sure he understood what I was talking about before his Holoform fizzled out and I heard the sound of his engine gunning at the door to the building I was in.

Running for all I was worth by this point - whilst managing to not knock over any other personnel that were walking through the corridors - I made it to the entrance and to the awaiting open driver's door of Jazz's Alternate Mode. Jumping in I told him to head to the Command Hanger and to make it fast because something was going down at our supposedly Secure Bunker where the AllSpark Shard was being kept.

After hearing that, I swear to anyone who would listen that Jazz tried to break the sound barrier as we drove. Meanwhile as we were moving at insanely high speeds, I was still listening in through the headset to what was going on.

-"Contact! Take it down!"-

-"Which way?"-

-"Shoot left! Knock it down!"-

By now I was anxious to figure out what had happened, and by some kind of luck - also known as Jazz's insane driving - we made it to the Command Hanger. After getting out and letting Jazz transform to his Bi-pedal Mode, he gently, yet quickly picked me up and placed me down on the gantry that served as the Command Post for my Base as part of NEST.

Reaching the Techs in charge, who were also following the interaction and taping it for future listening at the Pentagon, I asked them to open the link so that I could speak to whoever was in charge of the group engaging the as of yet unknown contact.

"Patch me through Sergeant, I want to know what exactly is going on there and they will give me the answers to what is amounting by the second as a Major Clusterfuck."

"Right away Ma'am." came the response and soon I was talking to one of the men on Security Duty around the Shard's hiding place.

"Someone better tell me what in the Nine Levels of Hell is going on here!" I yelled through the mic attached to my head set, as Jazz watched what footage was coming through from the Secure Bunker - and let me tell you right now, what we were seeing was gory, as if we were back in the Middle East and being attacked by Hostiles.

"We have 2 unknown Contacts, Ma'am. One looked like a Mechanical Cat and the other was a Mechanical Mantis looking thing that literally ran and sliced through Petterson's body before he could get a shot off." came the response, which admittedly made me shiver at the thought of what were most definately Decepticons attacking the Secure Bunker to get the Shard. Turning to face Jazz, he nodded that he understood and hacked into my head set to talk to the guy talking to me.

"The 'Cons ya describing sound an aweful lot like Ravage and Reedman, soldier. What eva ya do, don't underestimate these two, they are sneaky, dangerous sons of glitches and if they are leavin' you alive then consider yerselves lucky. But da fact dat they took da Shard is worrying to meh and everyone else here. Ah'll contact Prime and let them know what is going on, just try to stay alive, if ya can. Jazz Out!" nodding in my direction I noddd back in understanding that he was going to talk to Prime and then come back and get me.

I watched him leave and then continued to get the Techs to record everything that was being said so that Lennox and the others could listen to what happened. As far as I was concerned what just happened at the Secure Bunker had been FUBAR'd from the get go.

I sat down in a vacated seat and placed my head in my hands, this day had gone from bad to fragged up in the worst possible way and I really didn't see it getting any better any time soon. I could only hope that Prime and Jazz could come up with something that would help us with this situation and fast.

End Part 17