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❝ CHAPTER 3 ──
EXTREME HEAT ❞
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━━━━━ STEPHANIE STOOD NEXT to Lennox on the plane as they looked at the remaining piece of robot that had attacked them.

"It's like a self-regenerating molecular armor." Stephanie took a closer look at the robot. "Look at the scorch mark where the sabot round hit. Melted right through. Hey, aren't sabots hot-loaded for, like, a 6,000-degree magnesium burn?" Lennox asked, looking over at Epps.

"Close to it. It melts tank armor." Epps replied looking at Lennox and Stephanie.

"So this metal skin must react to extreme heat." Lennox said.

The blonde moved out of the way as the tail lifted itself off the table. It moved itself towards Epps, who had just enough time to move out of the way. Stephanie sighed looking over towards Epps.

"I thought you said that thing was dead, man!" Epps shouted. They watched as it removed itself heading back down towards the table it was on.

"Strap it down! Strap it!" Lennox ordered. Stephanie moved forward grabbing the straps, to wrap it around the robot tail. "This thing is wicked!" Lennox informed the team.

Stephanie moved away from the robot tail looking towards Lennox and Epps.

"All right, get on the horn with Northern Command. Tell them that our effective weapon is high-heat sabot rounds. Recommend we load them on all the gunships. Go." Lennox ordered Epps.

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The blonde stood in her uniform, next to Lennox. "Team attention! Present arms!" Lennox shouted. Right after everyone lifted their arms up as people started to pass them.

"At ease. Captain, Sergeant's. Got your Intel. Excellent work." The Defense Secretary informed them.

"Thank you, sir. What about the gunships?" Lennox asked in return.

"They're being retrofitted with sabot rounds now. If they hit us again, we'll be ready for them. But it won't do us much good if we can't get world communications back up." He replied.

Stephanie looked back to see her brother in the distance, she was unsure why he was here so she stayed back. "I'll catch up with you guys." Stephanie informed Lennox and Epps who only nodded in response.

"Steph, what are you doing here?" Sam asked her as he pulled her into a hug for the first time in a while.

"We were attacked, and whatever we were attacked by, it isn't over yet." Stephanie replied, pulling away from the hug. She looked over to the girl, as confusion fell on her face. "Who's this?" Stephanie asked, looking at her brother.

"This is Mikaela." Sam answered.

"This isn't something I had in mind when I started hanging out with Sam." Mikaela said, looking towards the blonde.

"Well, trouble always finds us Witwicky's. Excuse me." Stephanie said, turning away. She walked away from them catching up with Lennox and Epps.

"All right, here's the situation. You've all had direct contact with the NBEs." Simmons informed everyone as they walked down a path that led them underground.

"NBEs?" Epps questioned him.

"Non-Biological Extraterrestrials. Try to keep up with the acronyms." Simmons replied as they entered a tunnel.

"What you're about to see is totally classified." Banacheck told them, Stephanie looked up to see a robot in the distance with ice covering it. They all came to a brief stop looking at the robot.

"Dear God. What is this?" Keller asked.

"We think when he made his approach over the north pole, our gravitational field screwed up his telemetry. He crashed in the ice, probably a few thousand years ago. We shipped him here to this facility in 1934." Banacheck told the group.

Stephanie looked towards Lennox as he looked at her. "This is way above my pay grade." Stephanie told Lennox watching him crack a small smile. Everyone came to a stop in front of the icy robot, looking towards it.

"We call him NBE One." Simmons said.

Stephanie looked around as men walked around the area, she only assumed that they were checking to make sure the robot was still frozen.

"Well, sir, I don't mean to correct you on everything you think you know, but, I mean, that's Megatron." Sam said with his arms crossed over his chest. Stephanie looked towards his brother, confusion falling onto her face. Simmons turned around to look at Sam. "He's the leader of the Decepticons."

"He's been in cryostasis since 1935. Your great-great-grandfather made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind." Banacheck spoke pointing between Sam and Stephanie.

Both Lennox and Epps looked at her and she only shrugged her shoulders. This was the first time she had been finding out about this, she picked up that Sam had known something about this.

"Fact is, you're looking at the source of the modern age, the microchip lasers, spaceflight, cars, all reverse-engineered by studying him. NBE One. That's what we call it." Simmons said, walking over to Sam, and shoving his face into Sam's personal space.

"And you didn't think the United States military might need to know that you're keeping a hostile alien robot frozen in the basement?" Keller asked Banacheck looking towards Megatron.

"Until these events, we had no credible threat to national security." Banacheck answered. "Well, you got one now." Keller said, causing Stephanie to place a smirk on her lips.

"So why Earth?" Lennox asked, still looking at Megatron.

"It's the All Spark." Sam announced, causing everyone to look at him.

"All Spark? What is that?" Keller asked Sam.

"Well, yeah, they came here looking for some sort of cube- looking thing. Anyway, Mr. NBE One here, AKA Megatron, that's what they call him, who's pretty much the harbinger of death, wants to use the Cube to transform human technology to take over the universe. That's their plan." Sam informed everyone. Stephanie tilted her head slightly, looking towards her brother.

"Well, that sounds about right." Stephanie spoke softly.

"And you're sure about that?" Simmons asked him.

"Yeah. You guys know where it is, don't you?" Sam asked, looking over at Simmons.

"Follow me." Banacheck ordered.