Chapter 256: You've Been Played!

“What are space bridge pillars?”

Sam’s outburst was met not by a heated argument, but by Yevgeny’s puzzled voice once the former cosmonaut gathered his wits.

Until today, Yevgeny had always assumed those strange, scattered stones were the least valuable objects on the lunar surface. Now it seemed the truth was quite the opposite.

He apparently knew far less about the cosmos than this random young man standing before him.

“Devices the Autobots use to build a space bridge,” Sam explained, using his hands to gesture. “It’s like… whoosh, taking something from one spot and beaming it somewhere else entirely. Instant relocation.”

“How do you know that?” Yevgeny’s suspicion didn’t fade; the concept sounded like pure science fiction.

“Optimus just brought five of them back from that crashed ship on the Moon. They were discussing them right in front of me, so I heard the whole thing.”

“Then where did all the other pillars go? Why are they missing?” Simmons interjected, frowning as he held two photographs side by side for comparison. “They were clearly scattered all over the ground in ’59, but by ’63, every single one had vanished.”

Chuck, who hadn’t said a word since entering the vault, leaned down and whispered into Simmons’s ear, “Sir… is it possible someone stashed them away?”

Stashed them?

“Chuck, you’re a genius!” A bolt of clarity hit Simmons, and he pointed firmly at the prints. “That’s it! Someone moved them! They were hidden before our astronauts ever set foot up there, and the culprit has to be the Decepticons!”

Although the Autobots shared considerable tactical intelligence with the government, human leadership still had no exact timeline for when the Decepticons first reached Earth.

The revelations behind the battle in Egypt had already shaken foreign ministries to their core.

World leaders had never imagined that the world they governed had been visited by these metal giants millions of years ago, let alone turned into a planetary battleground.

A war fought across deep time, leaving ancient ruins, buried machinery, and dormant casualties behind.

If something that absurd had actually happened, nothing in humanity’s brief history could be considered surprising anymore.

“Wait, that doesn’t add up…” Sam shook his head after turning the theory over in his mind. “If the Decepticons hauled off the pillars, why leave five behind?”

The Autobots and Decepticons were locked in a blood feud; mercy was completely out of the question.

“Besides, Sentinel Prime explicitly said only he holds the command codes for the pillars. That means stealing them does the Decepticons no good. They had the chance to destroy Sentinel in that wreck, so why spare him? Unless…”

Sam trailed off, freezing mid-sentence as his eyes met Simmons’s.

A shared realization sparked between them, and they blurted out the conclusion at the exact same moment:

“Unless they still need him to power the space bridge!”

Sam couldn’t sit still for another second. “We have to alert the Autobots right now, meet with Sentinel Prime, and get him into secure lockdown!”

“The Decepticons want to abduct Sentinel and force him to open a portal… to bring through an entire invasion army!”

Without waiting for the others, Sam burst out of the vault, pulling his phone from his jacket as he ran through the back storage area.

A few vagrants were loitering near the bar’s rear exit, looking for discarded scraps in the shadows.

Ignoring their stares, Sam punched a number into his phone the moment he cleared the doorway.

Ring… ring… ring…

It rang for several long seconds before a curt voice picked up on the other end:

“Director Mearing.”

“Director Mearing! It’s Sam. Sam Witwicky.”

“Sam? Do you know what time it is? Why are you calling this line?”

She paused, her tone sharpening. “More importantly, how did you get my private number? Did Colonel Lennox hand it to you?”

“That doesn’t matter right now, Director!” Sam wiped a layer of cold sweat from his forehead. Piecing together the Decepticons’ shadow game had chilled him to the bone.

His voice rose with frantic urgency.

“Director, listen to me! This is critical!”

“My contacts and I uncovered what the Decepticons are actually after! Their true target is Sentinel Prime! We have to move him immediately and get him into deep cover!”

On the other end of the line, Mearing, who had just stepped away from her desk to rest, fell silent for a beat before letting out a weary sigh.

“Sam, I thought I made myself abundantly clear earlier.”

Her first instinct was not to scramble transport for Sentinel, but to wonder why this kid was spinning wild tales in the middle of the night.

“We have protocols in place for Sentinel Prime. Strategy against the Decepticons is not your responsibility, so do not call this line again. Goodbye.”

“Wait, don’t hang up!” Hearing the dismissal in her voice, Sam practically shouted into the receiver. “Listen to me!”

“The entire lunar operation was a trap! The Decepticons left Sentinel there on purpose so Optimus would revive him, because only a Prime could jump-start his spark!”

“Go on,” Mearing said, a faint flicker of caution creeping into her voice.

“Sentinel holds the sole control keys to the space bridge. All the Decepticons have to do is take him hostage, the exact same way you’d kidnap a rogue scientist…”

“And just like that, they open the gate and drop their legions right onto our world! Swarms of Decepticons marching into our cities! Earth won’t stand a chance!”

While Sam paced back and forth, shouting into the phone, neither he nor Simmons and Chuck—who had just stepped out into the alleyway—noticed a massive, still silhouette perched atop the tenement roof across the street.

A mechanical titan, melting silently into the dark.

Sentinel isn’t being coerced, Skygnaw thought, listening to the frantic human chatter below with a quiet scoff. And he isn’t trying to bring through an army… he plans to pull an entire planet into orbit.

Skygnaw had visited the Sears Tower area once before when he first returned to Chicago, right around the time Laserbeak was tying up loose ends.

Tracking specific humans across an urban slum was tedious work, but locating the Autobots?

A convoy of distinct sports cars in a run-down alley stood out like a flare in the night.

Locate the Autobots, and the humans trailing them fell right into your sights.

The man beside Sam looks familiar… Sector Seven’s old operative, Simmons, Skygnaw noted, shifting his focus. He has decent instincts, but his compass is pointing in the wrong direction.

Sentinel did possess the technical secrets of the space bridge, but whether only Optimus could revive him was an open question.

In the original timeline, Optimus had used the genuine Matrix of Leadership to awaken Sentinel, even offering to hand over command on the spot.

Now, with the real Matrix resting safely inside Skygnaw’s own chest plate, Optimus had still managed to revive his teacher using residual energy resonance. The notion that Sentinel’s return depended solely on Optimus was purely circumstantial.

Megatron’s earlier journey to the Moon hadn’t been a sightseeing tour, after all.

Still, what happened to those missing pillars?

The pillars in that vintage photograph likely scattered across the dust during the impact, only to vanish by the time the next probe flew over.

The Decepticons couldn’t have moved them back then; Starscream’s vanguard didn’t land until long after Megatron went dark on Earth. The timeline doesn’t line up. Did Sentinel hide them himself before entering stasis?

No matter. Bumblebee’s team is down on the curb…

Skygnaw cast a calculating gaze toward the idling vehicles parked down the street. He had lingered on this rooftop long enough.

They will head straight for Sentinel Prime to regroup. Tracking them will lead directly to the safehouse.

A single spark, and the stage will be fully set…

Diego Garcia, Autobot base.

A convoy of patrol cruisers swept through the security gates with flashing strobes, followed by armored transports packed with armed personnel.

“We’re here… thank God nothing went wrong…”

Sitting in the front passenger seat of the lead armored SUV, Mearing watched the quiet, orderly hangars of the base come into view. The heavy knot in her chest eased, and the tight scowl on her face softened by a fraction.

Heaven knew it had been years since she felt this kind of panic.

That kid’s frantic warning had set her entirely on edge.

Thirty minutes earlier, once she realized Sam wasn’t playing a late-night prank, Mearing had severed the call, mobilized every available tactical asset at the regional station, and raced for the island facility.

Throughout the flight, Sam’s desperate words had echoed through her thoughts:

“You only hold five pillars, but the Decepticons moved hundreds of them! You’ve been played!”

“Optimus warned us that Skygnaw is an active Prime, backing Megatron.”

“Two against two, the line won’t hold! We need Sentinel in hiding while we regroup…”

On paper, matching two Primes against two enemy commanders suggested parity.

In operational reality, engagements never worked that way.

The attacker always held the initiative, while the defender was forced to react to invisible moves. With the Decepticons operating from the shadows and the Autobots tied to fixed installations, the alliance stood at an inherent disadvantage.

Word of Skygnaw’s return had circulated through intelligence channels ever since the clash at Chernobyl.

Because he had maintained deep radio silence while managing his own assets, the civilian sector remained blissfully unaware.

Yet Lennox’s classified debriefs, corroborated by Optimus Prime’s warnings, had painted a grim picture for command.

Ordinary citizens went about their routines in peace, while high-level officials spent their nights staring at satellite feeds in quiet dread.

The pressure weighed heavily from the top down.

That looming threat was the sole reason Mearing had moved with such desperate haste the moment Sam’s warning began to make sense.

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