Free Transformers Dark of the Moon by Peter David Page A

“Everybody abort! Move topside! Now!”
    That was when the room erupted in a blast of dirt and rubble, and for a moment Lennox was back in Qatar, with the ground being torn apart by the attacking Scorponok.
    But this looked different, felt different, and, most particularly, sounded different. He was hearing whirling tendrils coming up from below. It sounded like something was … drilling.
    He didn’t have to see the entirety of what was coming for them to make an educated guess as to where its allegiances lay.
    “Take cover! Decepticon!” he shouted, trying to make his voice heard above the arrival of the attacking creature.
    Metal tentacles emerged from the floor, grabbing two of the scientists who had simply been trying to get away.It thrust them upward, and they screamed for mercy, but their appeals were in vain as the tentacles crushed them against the ceiling, killing them almost instantly. More and more of the creature was emerging from the floor below, from underground.
    Lennox flattened himself against the wall as the tentacles whipped past him, just barely missing him. He was trying to discern what it was that he was seeing, but it was beyond huge, beyond vast. It was hauling itself out now, bringing itself into full view. As near as Lennox could determine, the closest analogue the thing had to species that dwelled on the earth was a giant squid. Its body, or at least what Lennox could make of it, looked like a massive torpedo, with a half dozen or more tentacles extending from it. And on the end of each tendril was some manner of whirling cutting apparatus that had chewed through the rock-hard lava as if it were cotton candy. His pure guess was that the thing was, tip to tip, about a hundred yards long and thirty feet in diameter.
    And it was barreling straight toward the surface.
    “Optimus! Whatever this thing is, it’s heading your way! Optimus, do you read me?
Optimus!
”

v
    Optimus Prime was waiting.
    Even as the creature from below, which had so ruthlessly mowed through several hapless scientists, punched through the roof of the once-potent nuclear power plant, the blue and red tractor trailer rearranged its surface, parts clanging together, overlapping and taking on the size and stature of the leader of the Autobots. The trailer he had been hauling changed as well, making itself over into a horseshoe-shaped weapons pack mounted on his back.
    In seconds Optimus Prime was standing poised andready, confronting something that had absolutely no business being there.
    It was a Driller, and it dwarfed Optimus. It was the size of a football field, and Prime, for all his stature, was comparable to a bunch of football players. If the field decided to annihilate the players, they wouldn’t have much of a chance.
    Drillers were of Cybertonian origin, semisentient at best. They were essentially beasts of burden that obeyed simple commands and developed fierce loyalty to whoever their particular masters were. Typically they were used for mining operations, but not this one. This one had been bred for use in military operations and was much larger than any typical Driller, bigger than any Driller that Prime had ever seen.
    Quickly Prime extended his arm swords and sliced deep into the Driller’s tendrils.
    The Driller was holding what Prime recognized as a fuel rod, but it slid from its tentacles and clattered to the ground. Surprised by the attack, it slipped back a bit into the hole it had come from. Despite its military breeding, its instinct was to recoil in the face of danger or, at the very least, in the face of a being as powerful as Optimus Prime. Even though it was many times larger than Prime, its impulse was to submit to him and the authority—and weaponry—he wielded. The only way it would battle him would be if some guiding mind told it to.
    And then a cockpit in the Driller slid open, and a form became visible within it. It seemed to look about, surveying the area. It was massive and gray, with