Transformers.2007

“Time is up,” Ironhide snarled, cannons deploying.

Lennox straightened his uniform. “Then we buy you a window. How long do you need?”

He turned to Lennox. “Tell your world we did not come as conquerors. Tell them… we were lucky. The Decepticons came for their planet. We came to save ours. And we will not forget the ones who helped us.”

And Optimus Prime, holding the AllSpark like a fragile child, looked up at the fading stars. transformers.2007

Optimus placed a hand, larger than Sam’s entire torso, gently on the boy’s shoulder. The pressure was immense but perfectly controlled.

A roar of jets split the sky. Not F-22s. A different, sharper sound.

Lennox frowned. “A tomb?”

“Is dead,” Optimus said, the words heavy, not triumphant. “But his ambition is a poison that spreads. The AllSpark cannot remain on this planet. It will call to every Decepticon in the galaxy. It will turn your machines, your phones, your very toasters into enemies.”

“He would do it again,” Jazz added, his lean, silver frame flickering with residual energy damage. “It is the way of our spark.”

Optimus gave one last look at Sam. Then, with a surge of blinding light, the Ark’s space bridge tore a hole in reality itself. The Autobots—carrying Bumblebee, carrying the Cube, carrying the memory of a battle fought on a strange little world—stepped through. “Time is up,” Ironhide snarled, cannons deploying

Above them, the jets engaged. The war was over. But as Lennox would later write in his after-action report, ‘The war is over. But the watch has just begun. Because out there, in the dark between worlds, a giant robot is carrying our future in his hands. And he is not alone.’

Sam nodded, watching the last trace of light fade. “Yeah,” he said, finally allowing the tears to fall. “They always do.”