"I need to see Optimus."
"He's not in a good mood. He hasn't wanted to talk to anyone lately."
"What is this supposed to be? The silent treatment?"
"We've seen him like this before," Wheeljack said, gesturing toward the Peterbilt truck parked deep inside the hangar. "This time it's worse. Something serious must have happened."
"Right, he's been this way ever since we got back from Ukraine," Dino chimed in. "He seems furious. I'd advise against getting on his bad side right now."
"What if I told you that's the exact reason I'm here?" Mearing countered, playing her trump card. "I have the intelligence he wants. The origin of that debris, the location of that ship—my people have tracked it all down."
Clank.
Before Mearing could finish, the semi-truck that had sat motionless suddenly shifted.
Metals aligned, mechanisms locked into place, and a towering figure rose within the hangar.
Thud!
"Humans, you lied to us!"
Optimus brought both fists down against the concrete, slamming the ground barely three feet from Mearing. The shockwave rattled the floor, leaving her face pale.
"You assured us that you had shared every piece of information your world possessed about our kind! Then why was wreckage from Sentinel Prime's lost ship found on your soil?!"
"What? Sentinel Prime?"
"Optimus, is that true?"
A collective gasp swept through the hangar, erupting into an immediate uproar among the Autobots.
They knew Optimus had been brooding ever since returning from Ukraine, and they knew the recovered fragment was an engine component from an ancient starship.
They had never imagined it belonged to Sentinel Prime.
Sentinel Prime was Optimus's mentor, the former supreme commander of the Autobots, and the spiritual anchor of their entire cause.
Ever since Sentinel passed the leadership mantle to Optimus and mysteriously vanished during the final stages of the civil war on Cybertron, no Autobot had known his fate.
Hearing that Sentinel might be on this very planet sent a jolt of hope through the ranks.
None of them were fools.
With Skygnaw and Shockwave surfacing, more Decepticons were undoubtedly on their way, if not already planet-side.
Pieces began clicking into place.
It explained why Skygnaw and Shockwave had been lurking around that nuclear facility.
The Decepticons had caught wind of Sentinel's whereabouts and were racing to find him first, intending to eliminate the legendary leader before he could rally the Autobots.
If his ship had reached Earth while Sentinel himself never made contact, he was likely in critical condition. Perhaps he had launched the vessel from Cybertron during the war, only to suffer a catastrophic crash landing on this world.
The Autobots swiftly wove the narrative together.
Even though Sentinel's survival remained unconfirmed, hope colored their assumptions.
Optimus had arrived at the exact same conclusion.
Had Skygnaw been there to witness it, he would have smirked at how effortlessly the Autobots filled in the blanks.
Any seams in Megatron and Sentinel's scheme were neatly ironed out by their own deductions.
"Quiet down, everyone! Let Optimus speak!"
Ironhide, the Autobot second-in-command, raised a heavy hand to silence the chatter.
He stepped up beside Optimus, rapping his knuckles against his leader's chest plate. "Optimus, tell them yourself."
Before Optimus could speak into the quiet hangar, Mearing stepped forward to explain.
"Optimus, we were completely in the dark about that ship. Until Sector Seven was dissolved, even the President didn't know the unit existed."
Mearing waved back to an assistant. "Bring me the bag."
The aide hurried forward, frantically sorting through several designer bags until Mearing cut in, exasperated.
"Enough. The Birkin. The green ostrich leather."
"Right away, ma'am."
Mearing took the bag, pulled out a thick dossier, and held it out toward Optimus. "This was a buried secret. Nearly everyone who knew the truth has passed away."
The intelligence community had pulled the records Optimus needed. Tracking old paper trails was second nature to them.
The bad news: the ship was not on Earth.
The good news: it rested on Earth's Moon.
While Optimus scanned the documents, another aide escorted several elderly gentlemen into the hangar. Their hair was silver, but they carried themselves with quiet dignity.
"Welcome, gentlemen."
Mearing shook hands with the guests, then turned to introduce them to Optimus.
"Optimus, allow me to introduce two of the founding directors of the space program, alongside legendary astronaut Dr. Buzz Aldrin. He is one of the first two men to walk on the Moon, and the only one still with us."
Stepping close to Buzz, Mearing whispered, "This is Optimus Prime. He wants to hear about your mission."
"Understood," Buzz nodded, turning toward the massive alien commander without a trace of fear. "From one space traveler to another, Optimus, it's an honor."
"Greetings, human," Optimus replied, his tone softening. "I hope you can shed light on what occurred."
Optimus held no grudge against an innocent witness.
"In truth, our entire space race in the sixties was a direct response to a single event," Buzz began, recalling the days of his youth. "Before launch, Pete and I couldn't believe what they were asking of us."
"They ordered us to reach the far side of the Moon and inspect an alien craft that had crashed there."
Pete was Pete Conrad, his fellow explorer, who had passed away years ago.
"At first, I thought high command had lost their minds, until they showed us telemetry tracking an extraterrestrial impact. They had undeniable proof an unidentified craft had struck the lunar surface."
"That was the true catalyst for the first crewed lunar mission."
"Under strict orders, Pete and I were sworn to complete secrecy. Simply put, it was a mission that could never be acknowledged. Across the entire agency, fewer than thirty-five people knew the real objective."
Though Buzz took his time weaving through personal history, not a single Autobot interrupted him.
"Of course, our rivals launched uncrewed probes of their own. What they recovered is known only to them..."
"Buzz," Mearing interjected gently, keen to keep cold war rivalries out of the conversation. "Tell them what you saw on the surface."
"Right," Buzz nodded, returning to the core of the matter. "It was an enormous vessel. Even now, I can still feel the awe that gripped me the moment we laid eyes on it."
"Pete and I stepped inside the breach, and right away, we came face to face with a massive metal face."
"Like us?" Mudflap crouched down, curious.
"Yes," Buzz looked at Mudflap, a wry smile touching his lips. "Though not quite as handsome. His face was covered in corrosion, the features worn down by time."
"Hey, I like this old guy," Mudflap chuckled.
"From the outside, the damage was catastrophic, and the interior was far too vast for us to explore thoroughly," Buzz continued. "With only minutes of oxygen remaining, we snapped photographs, gathered a few surface samples, and began our ascent."
"One thing I can state with certainty: we detected no signs of life inside the hull."
"After we splashed down, the lunar initiative was quietly shelved, leaving Pete and me among the few who ever set foot there."
"I can verify that," Mearing added, pulling up a tablet. "The samples they brought back were sealed under maximum security by the space agency."
"As for the engine part you recovered, it may have been retrieved by an automated Soviet lander years ago, or thrown into orbit during the impact and eventually dragged down by our gravity..."
"Give me the exact coordinates of the crash site," Optimus said, rising to his full height.
The pieces made sense. It had not been a deliberate deception by current leadership, but a Cold War secret buried beneath layers of red tape.
"If my assessment is correct, the Decepticons have pieced this together and are searching for the wreck."
"Optimus, what exactly is aboard that vessel?" Mearing asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
"I cannot say for certain," Optimus replied, his expression grim. "I only know it was a private flagship, and it may still carry its commander."
"Its commander? Who was he?"
"The former leader of the Autobots, Sentinel Prime. He was my mentor. He led our resistance against the Decepticons before vanishing in the war."
Optimus turned toward the hangar exit, his voice echoing with urgency. "We must reach him before the Decepticons pinpoint the location. We have a ship capable of making the crossing."
"Pray the Decepticons have not beaten us to the site, or your world will face a catastrophe beyond imagining."
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