Chapter 271: The Space Bridge Awakens

RUMBLE…

Just as Carly finished relaying the intelligence she had gathered aboard the Nemesis into the battered drone’s lens, the asphalt beneath their boots began to heave violently.

Down the avenue, a long ridge of fractured concrete tore forward at terrifying speed. Before anyone could scramble back, a colossal mechanical serpent burst through the street, showering the air in crushed stone and twisted rebar.

“Look out! It’s the one-eyed freak, and he brought his overgrown burrowing worm!”

Epps didn’t need to shout the warning. Everyone present recognized the threat instantly.

Perched upon the curved, armored carapace of the Driller stood a chillingly familiar figure: Shockwave.

The purple commander stood motionless, his left arm cannon resting at the low ready. His solitary crimson optic swept across the gathered Autobots and humans with calculating coldness.

Behind him, hundreds of Decepticon ground units converged on the intersection like sharks scenting blood, their engines howling over the wind.

Their strike had been compromised before it could even begin.

Optimus Prime stepped forward without a second’s hesitation:

“Sam, Shockwave cannot divide his attention across multiple fronts. I will hold the line here and draw their vanguard.”

“You must locate Sentinel’s transmission point. Find a way to sever that link!”

“Be careful, Optimus!”

There was no time for lengthy farewells. Sam pulled Carly into Bumblebee’s passenger seat as the Camaro’s doors swung open. Epps and his veteran detail scrambled into the heavy pickups, flanking Wheeljack—the team’s irreplaceable technical asset—as Bumblebee accelerated away from the breach, tearing down an opposing avenue.

“Decepticons… advance.”

Shockwave was a consummate field commander. Seeing the Autobots split their ranks, his logic matrix immediately prioritized the higher-value target: Optimus Prime and the bulk of the Autobot garrison.

Knowing he was outmatched in a solitary duel against a Prime, Shockwave held his high ground atop the Driller, directing waves of frontline skirmishers forward to bog down the Autobots and wait for the main battlegroup to close the vice.

“Autobots, hold your ground!”

Heavy shock troops flooded the intersection from all four directions, flanked by low-altitude gunships banking between the high-rises.

While the massive dreadnoughts and cruisers were too unwieldy to maneuver through the dense urban canyons, these agile strike craft thrived in the labyrinth of concrete and steel, strafing the streets with continuous plasma fire.

“Silverbolt, take the Aerialbots skyward! Clear our airspace!”

“On it, Optimus!”

Faced with Shockwave’s encircling net, Optimus barked orders with steady composure.

Barely a dozen Autobots stood against hundreds of converging brawlers, looking like a solitary skiff battered by a storm.

Yet no matter how hard the waves crashed, the vessel refused to yield.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

Hound braced his feet against the curb, his oversized rotary cannon spitting fire as he took a deep pull from his metal cigar, shredding an incoming warrior who tried to dive from a nearby fire escape.

With Ironhide gone, Hound had taken over vanguard escort duties, stubbornly covering the flanks of Arcee and her sisters.

“Brother, it’s open season!”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself!”

Skids and Mudflap were in their element. Given an open field packed with low-tier grunts, the twins threw their chassis into the scrum with reckless abandon, practically leaving Optimus and his twin energon blades trailing in their dust.

As the engagement raged in the center of the city, the military hammer scrambled by human command finally hammered into the outer perimeter.

Along the southern approaches, a solitary Decepticon sentry paced the ruins of an elevated interchange.

Out of nowhere, an anti-tank missile screamed through the dust, detonating dead against his cranial plating.

BOOM!

A split second later, a storm of heavy-caliber rifle fire tore through his joints:

Crack-crack-crack-crack!

“Cease fire! Cease fire!”

A dozen heavily equipped infantrymen in tactical helmets eased out from behind the rubble of a collapsed bank facade.

Only after confirming the target was fully immobilized did the squad leader wave the point men forward.

This unit belonged to a long-range reconnaissance platoon from the 1st Air Cavalry Division, tasked with probing the outer defense lines, clearing local sentries, and marking secure lanes for the heavy armor columns trailing behind.

“Is that thing dead? Did we drop it?”

“Looks like it.”

“If it twitches, put another magazine through its neck. Look at what these bastards did to our streets!”

The sergeant led his men to the smoking crater. The once-imposing alien warrior lay crumpled against the curb, the faint, erratic flickering of a lone red optic the only sign of lingering power in his core.

“Finish him off.”

“Gladly,” a young rifleman muttered, stepping forward with raw venom in his eyes.

His fury ran deep. His squad had rolled out thirty-six strong that morning; only eight remained on their feet.

“You… miserable… insects… we will… crush…”

BANG. BANG.

A burst of armor-piercing rounds shattered the voice box into scrap. The sergeant keyed his tactical handset, relayed grid clearance to command, and signaled his surviving men to push deeper into the sector.

Behind them, the street—now tagged as a secure corridor on the operational map—began to rumble with the approach of main battle tanks, armored carriers, and attack helicopters flying low beneath the cloud deck.

Similar counter-attacks were erupting across several perimeter avenues.

The nation’s elite formations had arrived, using cold steel and artillery to announce that the city would not be yielded without blood.

Yet who would claim the final victory remained an open question.

High above the clouds, aboard the Nemesis.

Down on the forward flight deck, Dylan Gould stumbled to his feet, battered and trembling, clutching his torn suit as he sprinted toward the bridge elevators.

“The Autobots are alive! The Autobots are in the city!”

He looked like a ghost. His tailored clothes were shredded, his face coated in carbon scoring and dried blood from Bumblebee’s strafing run.

The billionaire collaborator was now entirely alone. Every trusted bodyguard and corporate operative he had brought aboard had been blown to bloody mist across the deck.

“Take me to Lord Skygnaw! The Autobots survived! They extracted the girl—”

“Silence.”

A tall, armored figure stepped into his path, blocking the lift doors with an impassive stare.

Lo-Ha looked down at the disheveled human with open mockery. “Keep your tongue behind your teeth, worm.”

“Lord Skygnaw was aware of their survival long before your boots touched the deck.”

Lo-Ha had spent the last several cycles learning the internal dynamics of the Decepticon ranks. A sniveling human trying to worm his way into becoming Skygnaw’s favored pet was an insult he saw right through.

While the Martian auxiliaries served solely as Skygnaw’s private guard, they had pulled significant weight during the industrial expansion on Olympus Mons, earning a solid rapport with frontline commanders like Razorclaw and Hun-Gurrr.

Treating a frantic human collaborator with respect was entirely off the table.

Dylan’s mouth opened, but the words withered in his throat.

A chilling realization washed over him: to these creatures, his utility had hit zero.

Inside the elevated bridge tower, Skygnaw observed the exchange through the panoramic viewports.

Looking at the trembling, pathetic silhouette of Gould down on the deck, Skygnaw spoke over his shoulder with casual indifference: “Razorclaw, have a transport drop Dylan back into the city.”

A single sentence sealed the collaborator’s fate.

Once the survivors crawling through the ruins below learned who had unlocked the front gates for the invaders, Dylan wouldn’t survive the afternoon.

If human weapons couldn’t touch an armored dreadnought, they would gladly vent their fury on the traitor who welcomed it.

Razorclaw paused, slightly surprised that his commander was casting aside a cultivated human asset so abruptly, but nodded without hesitation:

“Understood, my Lord. I will have Ironfist dump him in a drainage ditch.”

Whether the human liked the arrangement was completely irrelevant.

“Continue your report, Razorclaw.”

“Yes, my Lord. Lord Megatron took the news of Optimus Prime’s survival with extreme displeasure. Shockwave has engaged the Autobots near the southern plazas.”

“Human armor has begun probing our outer cordons. Several screening patrols along the river approaches have gone dark…”

Skygnaw gave a slight nod. The military response was predictable; surrendering a major industrial basin without firing a shell would have broken the state’s very legitimacy.

“Summon Lo-Ha to the deck,” Skygnaw began, stepping forward to adjust the fleet’s defensive arcs. “And instruct…”

He froze.

Skygnaw snapped his gaze toward the eastern skyline, his optics widening by a fraction.

Already?

Sentinel’s space bridge is primed so quickly?

Roof of the Sears Tower.

Sentinel Prime stood before the master control pillar with heavy solemnity. He extended his right gauntlet, depressing the primary activation rune carved into the dark alloy:

“All units… engage the relay pillars!”

HUMMM—

A blinding azure arc cracked across the spire’s surface, siphoning immense currents of power from the city’s power grid.

Simultaneously, across every corner of the Earth—deep within arid deserts, silent old-growth forests, coastal shallows, and ruined metropolitan districts—

Every pillar planted over the preceding hours began to burn with brilliant, pulsing energy, detaching from the soil to hover steadily in the lower atmosphere.

The sudden activation left monitoring stations worldwide scrambling in panic, while miles away in the warzone below, Optimus Prime felt his spark tighten.

He looked up to see a towering pillar of raw azure light erupting from the top of the Sears Tower, piercing the low clouds like an ethereal spear.

The link was forged.

Carly’s warning had been entirely accurate: Sentinel was genuinely preparing to haul Cybertron across the void.

The blue beam surged into the upper atmosphere, rippling like an electric current as it prepared to tear open the dimensional veil.

Every combatant on the street slowed their fire, staring upward in collective dread.

“Do you see it, Optimus?!”

With Shockwave holding the center, the Terrorcons, the Seacons, and Megatron himself had fully deployed onto the avenue.

The brief window of easy skirmishing had vanished.

Though the Autobots on the field were all veteran fighters, the sheer mass of Decepticon shock troops was overwhelming. Flanked by Shockwave and Soundwave, the enemy vanguard was an immovable iron wall.

“Optimus!”

Megatron strode into the center of the avenue, dragging his heavy fusion cannon along the pavement as lines of grunts parted before him like loyal hounds.

Optimus cast aside the mangled torso of a fallen brawler, raising his optics to meet his nemesis.

Across the ruined street, the two old rivals saw only each other.

The boulevard was an open graveyard of crushed metal and shattered masonry, the facades of surrounding towers crumbling into heaps of burning rubble.

“Today, Optimus, our ancient ledger is settled in full!”

Megatron advanced over the scrap of his own fallen warriors, stepping with the same ruthless, blood-soaked cadence that had carried him to the leadership of the Decepticons eons ago.

His lieutenants, Shockwave and Soundwave, shadowed his flank like twin executioners.

Optimus did not yield an inch. Backing toward the tactical container dropped by his support team, he initiated the modular linkage sequence.

In a blaze of shifting mechanisms, the heavy flight rig gifted through Jetfire’s noble sacrifice locked onto his chassis, cloaking his frame in reinforced armor and twin rotary blasters:

“You are right, Megatron. Today, our war ends here!”

A few miles north, well clear of the heavy crossfire pinning down Optimus, Sam and Epps’s truck column rounded an intersection, braking hard the moment the azure beam split the clouds.

Before they could clear the bridge leading toward the Sears Tower, several winged silhouettes dropped through the smoke above.

Wing-suit commandos!

A cluster of forward flyers hit a wall of automated anti-aircraft fire from the surrounding rooftops, disintegrating in mid-air before their boots could touch concrete.

The surviving jumpers banked hard, pulling their release cords and crashing through the shattered upper windows of an adjacent office building to escape the flak.

“Those are our boys!” Epps shouted, slamming his palm against the dashboard. “Lennox made it through!”

The men dropping from the clouds were indeed Lennox’s forward strike team—a genuine suicide detail willing to dive through an active flak corridor to establish a foothold.

Having lost radio contact due to the frequency jamming, Lennox had refused to wait, scrambling his transport transport directly over the lake. Guided by the drone coordinates Chuck had relayed before the line went dark, his transport had slipped beneath the heavy warship screens while the primary Decepticon squadrons were distracted by Optimus.

Seeing the blue beacon ignite atop the skyline, Lennox had ordered the jump immediately.

“Get to that building!”

Epps threw the truck into gear, tearing across the plaza toward the office tower where the survivors had touched down.

By the time the convoy pulled into the underground garage, Lennox and his surviving commandos were already sweeping the ground-floor lobby.

“Halt! Weapons down!”

“Lennox! It’s me, Robert!”

This tower stood roughly forty stories tall, roughly half the stature of the Sears Tower across the river.

Lennox rushed forward, clapping Epps on the shoulder with palpable relief. “Good God, man, it’s good to see you breathing!”

Aboard the transport, Lennox had watched the drone’s final feed cut out amidst artillery strikes, assuming the worst.

“You took your sweet time, Colonel,” Epps chuckled wearily, finding his footing once more.

“You see that blue spire across the water?”

“Hard to miss. Sentinel is posted on the roof, isn’t he?”

“That’s the master control node Carly flagged,” Epps said. “If we don’t bring that pillar down, our atmosphere gets swallowed whole.”

“We need a firing lane,” Lennox said, stepping toward the glass doors to study the layout of the riverfront.

“All long-range comms are dead. I don’t know where our air wings are holding, but during the descent, I spotted heavy gunships engaging targets on the eastern perimeter.”

“The commercial tower across from the Sears Tower has an unobstructed line of sight. If we haul anti-armor rockets up to the trading floors, we can punch directly into their antenna array. But I need a ground unit to stage a loud diversion along the plaza to keep their turrets looking down.”

“My squad takes the ground,” Epps offered without hesitation.

“Not enough firepower,” Lennox countered, turning toward the yellow sports car idling near the ramp. “Bumblebee, we need your heavy cannons on that line.”

“Understood, Colonel,” Bumblebee chirped, stepping forward with his blasters primed.

“I brought forty-two men out of the staging base; twenty-eight made it past the flak. Half will form the street team under your lead.”

“Check your magazines, gentlemen! We move in—”

“Wait! Hold your positions!”

Wheeljack scurried across the lobby, waving his metallic arms frantically.

“I cannot trade fire on the front line with you, but I brought field inventions that you simply must carry!”

The old engineer popped open his chest compartment, dumping an assortment of metallic gadgets, specialized detonators, and segmented harnesses onto the polished floor tiles.

“What are these supposed to be?” Sam asked, picking up an aluminum rod with a glowing red cap.

“Urban combat ordnance!” Wheeljack explained with evident pride. “That piece in your hand is a boom-stick: drives into armor, then detonates thirty seconds post-insertion.”

“Over here are magnetic grapple gauntlets for sheer-face ascension; here are line-launched sticky bombs…”

“And as for this particular item… well… my apologies, its intended function currently slips my processor…”

Wheeljack churned out prototypes so rapidly that half of them ended up tossed into maintenance crates before he even had time to log their schematics.

“Que, you’re a lifesaver,” Lennox said, testing the tension on a grapple harness before slinging a crate of boom-sticks to his squad.

“Gear up, men. We move out!”

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