Lockout: A Transformers Story

Chapter 17: I should've stayed in bed

Pulling onto the dirt road, my headlights gleaming brightly through the dark mountains. No one was out this late. No one indeed. I transformed, grunting at the rocks in my joints.

"Never doing that again," I paused, reaching my fingers to my comm link. "What are we looking at, Shockwave?" Barricade pulled up next to me, transforming. We activated our headlights, illuminating the darkness.

"Over that hill should be an old airplane hanger, abandoned." I stepped over the hill to sure enough, reveal the hanger. I listened to his next words carefully. "Once in, at the far corner of the place, there is a large crate. That's what you're retrieving."

"Loud and clear." I gazed around at the surroundings my company and I needed to avoid. One teeny little problem, a human house rest no more than 100 feet from the hanger.

Barricade stopped next to me, gazed around, then slid down the hill with ease. Once at the bottom, his lava orbs met with mine. "Are you coming?"

I nodded, hesitant. "Yeah- I-I'm coming." I stepped forward and slid down the hill, the mech on the bottom catching me so I wouldn't fall. I don't know what scared me more, the fact that humans were nearby, or that an Autobot could attack.

"The quiet is disturbing me."

"Why is that?" The cop car let his hand transform into a blaster, optics wandering our surroundings.

A light illuminated from the top room in the human house. Someone was there. "We aren't alone tonight. Watch yourself." I rested my back against the hanger door, it was cracked open. "Be on high guard." I whispered. A loud bang suddenly startled me.

Peering into the steel base, my breath caught in my throat. I had frozen, the one mech inside, an Autobot, had opened the crate.

This Autobot wasn't someone like Optimus Prime or Bumblebee. No- No, this mech was far worse. He was dark, ruthless even.

Ironsteel.

"Lockout?"

I broke from my thoughts, voice shivering. "We're going to die if we go in there without backup."

"What was it?" He pestered, lava orbs darkening. "What did you see?"

"Ironsteel." I breathed. "He opened the crate."

The temptation for revenge held me back. A mech so strong with Decepticon weapons wasn't a good mix. Megatron showed me that. I couldn't trust this would end well. Only Decepticons could open crates like those. So how did he get into it?

"We need to go in unnoticed," I peered into the hanger once more. "Quietly."

The mech pulled me over toward the human house. "Why are you so concerned?"

"I-"

"I'm going first." I heard a loud click, gazing down at my now cuffed wrist. I was stuck.

"No!" I snarled, pulling at the cuff. "Get back here, idiot!" I attempted to use almost every method, but it hadn't worked.

A few moments had passed, I listened to a loud bang echo through the hanger. I, again, pulled at the cuff, finally defeated, I sat down, the cuff sliding down the metal pole.

"Excuse me," a very, very little voice came. Optics wandering, they finally met with the grass. The human was small and cute, she was a female. "You're that princess right? The one that signed my autograph book!" I tilted my helm in wonder, it was indeed the same girl I signed an autograph for in Disneyland. "The cop guy called you 'Lockout'."

"How did you hear us."

"You were pretty noisy. My window was open, I always wait at this time of night for our Decepticon friends!"

"How-"

"He was white, red, and blue. His name was Jetfire. I remember he was tall, and he was kind."

"Jetfire." He was long dead. Megatron had killed him not much longer after he abandoned the Decepticons. He was the best first lieutenant.

"Do you know him, Princess Lockout?"

I nodded, I hadn't heard of him in ages. "He was my commander. He... was my friend."

She took a small key out of her pocket, motioning to the cuff. "Allow me." The little human crawled onto my leg, up my hair and landed onto my shoulder. She smiles gently as she slid down my arm and to my wrist.

"That won't work."

"Don't believe me?" She placed the key in one of the small holes and unlocked the cuff with ease, it clattered onto the grass. "I'm Liz!"

"Thank you, Liz." I took the girl into my palm, carrying her to the front door of her home. I gave her my comm number. "Use it for emergencies." She smiles and giggled. "Only for emergencies."

"I will."

"Good."

I collapsed to the steel floor, throat filled with energon. I couldn't plead for help, Barricade was already wounded, wounded enough that he couldn't get up to help. I coughed up energon, letting my vents free to breathe once more. I grasped at the floor, heaving, breathing like no other. Ironsteel slowly crept closer as I grit my teeth through my pain, our optics met.

"I won't let you touch them," I spat, growling through gored lips.

"Look at you," he kneeled down to me, grasping my neck and tossing me onto my back. My back screamed. "You won't survive this."

I pulled up my leg, slamming my foot into the side of his helm, knocking the mech back. He spit energon through his lips. I got to my feet, grabbed barricade and attempted to get him out of the hanger.

Ironsteel had taken the polarity gauntlet from the crate and began to pull me toward him. I took my dagger, launching it at the button next to the door. The steel base was now in immediate lockdown, the doors had sealed. We were trapped.

I stood when he let the gauntlet release me, pulling out my sword. I took a few harsh breaths, energon streaming from cuts and wounds that littered my frame.

"It was never my intention to survive."