lithone: chapter 1

7/31/2019 Lithone: Chapter 1

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/lithone-chapter-1 1/7

Lithone: Chapter 1The crew assembled next to the main shiplock. Everyone seemed to be takingthe situation rather well except Perceptor, whose face appeared to have grownpaler (if that were possible), and who no longer was able to maintain the

bearing of a captain.Kup naturally assumed control of the situation. “All right, we'll make ourstand here,” he began. “Perceptor, Thesys, and Natalie, pile those crates upand hunker down behind them. Wait for the lock to open. Bika and I willdistract whoever boards the ship as they come through, and then we'll allattack together. Starstreak, attack the docking passage from outside as soon aswe go. Got it, kid?”

“Oh yeah,” Starstreak conrmed over the comm.

Without another word, Kup and Bika transformed into their respective pick-up truck and superbike modes and drove down the hallway leading back to

the core of the ship. They spun around to face the lock, waiting for it to open,engines idling softly.

The rest of the crew quickly built up a barricade and took their positions behind it. Natalie fumbled for a moment, and nally cajoled her exo-suit intoconverting to armament mode; the forearms of the suit rotated andrecongured into barrel-shaped ries.

As they all waited silently, Thesys realized with some surprise that he wasnow in the middle of an adventure the likes of which he had been dreamingof less than a megacycle ago. And now that it was here, he wanted nothingless. It all seemed like a nightmare, and that he wasn't really hiding behind

crates ready to blast Decepticons as they burst into the ship. He wasn't evensure he could aim his blaster correctly. This was no place for a scientist likehim. He looked over at Perceptor, who was staring at the lock, his blasterready. His normally jolly expression was gone; there was none to replace it.

Several thuds sounded from behind the lock. Its indicator light began to blink rapidly. Kup and Bika revved their engines, and the rest steadied their

blasters. Finally the lock indicator glowed steadily, and the doors parted.From the hallway came the sounds of tires squealing and motors accelerating.The chamber lit up with the reections from Kup's and Bika's headlights, asthey raced back down the hallway toward the door.

Through the glare Thesys was able to make out several troopers as they

entered through the lock. He could tell that they were roughly the same sizeand conguration as Autobots, and that their guns were drawn but were

being held close to their bodies, defensively. They certainly weren't ring.Decepticons, he was sure, would have started shooting immediately. Kup andBika were close now, and the troopers were holding their arms up to shieldtheir optics, blinded by the dazzle.

Perceptor shouted, “Wait! They aren't Decepticons!” He had hesitated asThesys did, and also had come to the same conclusion. He also had thepresence of mind to swat Natalie's rie-arms down before she red. Nataliepromptly fell over, face-rst this time.

Bika and Kup were almost upon the boarders by the time they heardPerceptor. Bika pulled herself hard to the left, skidding sideways with a



screech. Kup instead lifted off the deck and transformed, attempting to roll ordive out of the way. Instead, he crashed headlong into one of the troopers,and they both fell back into the lock with a loud clang. As Bika stopped just atthe foot of the troops and quickly converted back to robot mode, the bangingaround back in the lock nally subsided. The troopers quickly aimed their

weapons at Bika, Kup, and the makeshift barricade.“Starstreak, hold your re! Do not attack!” Perceptor yelled. He stood up,hands open, and the troops tightened their aim on him. Thesys decided thatremaining under cover was probably still a good idea at this point, but hepeered through the crates to get a better look at the troopers. They werehumanoid in shape, and only slightly shorter than the Autobots. Their armsand legs were ared at the ends, and their heads were of varying angularshapes. They had ornate striped patterns on their bodies, each unique. Whowere they?

“Lithones! I am Perceptor, an Autobot, and captain of this ship. We apologizesincerely for our attack on you, but we assumed from your ships' design thatyou were Decepticons! Please, we truly mean no harm ...” Perceptor trailed offwhile the troopers unwaveringly maintained their positions.

Kup nally got up from inside the airlock, and helped up the trooper he hadtoppled. His nonchalant attitude contrasted sharply with Perceptor's.“Lithones!” he said congenially. “We haven't seen you folks in a while. Whatare you doing out here?” Kup remained relaxed, despite the fact that theLithones had not slackened their aim on him or his companions.

One of the troopers started speaking into a mouthpiece attached to hisuniform. Kup lackadaisically walked back to the barricade, tracked by theends of several blaster ries. Perceptor smiled lopsidedly at the troopers, as if

to apologize for Kup's behavior.“Relax, Cap'n,” Kup reassured Perceptor. “Lithones have a procedure andprotocol for everything, and before they will stand down they'll get clearancefrom their command. Everything they do is with the precision ofstonecutters.”

After a moment, the lead trooper nodded. He turned to the rest of his party.“Stand down. There is no conict here. These are friends.” The trooperslowered their weapons, and a pair of them helped Bika up. Thesys andNatalie slowly rose from behind the barricade as the lead trooper approachedKup and Perceptor. “I am Colonel Zurell, commander of the Lithonian troops

in this system. I was informed by my command that we did not identifyourselves to you as Lithonian forces, and so your attack on us isunderstandable. Still, I have been ordered to escort you back to my ship.”

Perceptor regained his bearing surprisingly quickly. “Greetings, Colonel.Once again I apologize for this confusion, and I am pleased that no one has

been hurt. We shall be happy to go with you. I would only ask that my pilot be permitted to stay here to watch over our ship.”

“Agreed,” Zurell replied. “We will be proceeding to our command vessel.Please have your pilot, and your other craft, follow us.”

Perceptor turned and nodded to Bika, who perked up and grinned widely.

“Yes, sir!” she saluted, then turned and jogged down the hallway.As the group turned toward the airlock, Starstreak's voice crackled through



the comm. “Captain! What's going on? Is everything all right?” Everyonepaused, and Perceptor quickly answered, “Oh, Starstreak! Yes, we're all right.They are not Decepticons after all. They are ... friends.”

Soon the crew of the Alafex was aboard the Lithonian command ship. Thevessel was at least ten times as large as the Autobots' ship, and yet was stilldwarfed by the leg nearby. A dozen Prometheus cruisers patrolled the area.

Zurell and his troops led the Autobots and Natalie to a meeting room. Theroom was long with a low ceiling. A large table dominated it, running itslength. The wall at one end was adorned with the seal of Lithone, a sphere cutthrough with short line segments at various angles which together composeda face.

When Natalie saw the seal, though, all she could think of was a soccer ball.She turned to Thesys, exasperated at not knowing the full story of what wasgoing on. “Who are these guys?!” she whispered as loudly as she dared.

“They are Lithones,” Thesys replied. “We believe that they are distantrelatives of the Autobots and Decepticons. There aren't that many of them,though, and they usually keep a low prole. We didn't even know of theirexistence until about fty Earth years ago.”

Natalie looked back at the solemn troopers posted behind them in the room.“They seem kind of grim.”

Thesys just sat down at the table. “You would be too if Unicron consumedyour planet and everyone on it.”

“Oh,” was all Natalie could reply. She still needed to nd out what Unicron

was, but now was not the time, it seemed.The Autobots had all settled down on one side of the table. A door across theroom opened, and two Lithones entered. Their chiseled faces were as grim asthe troopers', although one's had a softness behind it. He began to speak asthe pair sat down.

“My name is Krellix. I am Director of the Project. My associate here is Tarsen,secretary of security for the Lithone Authority.” Tarsen nodded, his long metalmustache remaining stiff with the motion. “I feel it is important to say thatnormally we would not have been so hostile towards unexpected visitors, butdue to the Project's importance, we do not want to take any risks.”

Kup spoke up. “So you're undergoing a project that has something to dowith ...”, he cocked his head, “that?”

Krellix looked at Tarsen, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat and grunted alittle. “Yes,” Krellix then replied, “and I feel we owe you an explanation. I amnot averse to the Autobots being aware of what is happening here, now thatyou have discovered us.” He leaned forward on the table and clasped hishands together.

“As you know, shortly before the Cybertronians encountered Unicron, andthen destroyed him, Unicron devoured our home planet of Lithone. Even

though prophecy had foretold the demon's return and our beloved world'sdestruction, many of us had dismissed him as a myth. Obviously, they were



wrong.

“But some of us had chosen to heed the prophecy and to create a safe havenfor our kind. With the help of our Holy Church, we established a retreat onthe world of Tarada. While most Lithones used the planet only as a vacationworld, those who lived there worked to accumulate as much knowledge and

resources as we could, in case the worst happened. We also convinced someothers to join us, although not as many as we had hoped. Then again, whocan be fully prepared for the annihilation of one's homeworld?

“After Unicron destroyed Lithone, the only traces of our kind left were onTarada and our remaining colony worlds, all either minor outposts or miningplanetoids and therefore sparsely populated. It took us a long time toreestablish our government, but what was formerly our retreat became ournew capital.

“And yet we yearned for our homeworld. As you may know, it is our beliefthat our planet was a being, our mother ... and we grieve for her loss. We

would do anything to have her back, if only to atone for the folly of ourpeople ... most of whom died in the smelting vats within Unicron.

“Our scientists hypothesized that Unicron could not have completelydigested the mass of Lithone before being destroyed. And we knew, fromseeing recordings of Unicron's destruction over Cybertron, that pieces of himwere blown off prior to the nal explosion, including his arms and legs. Thehope was that what remained of Lithone was stored somewhere in thesegargantuan scraps. And so we began a search along the last trajectories ofthese pieces, determined from those recordings, in order to nd them.

“It did not take us long to locate both legs and one arm. Our priests andscientists were able to determine that what was left of Lithone was in one ofthe legs. It had not moved as far from Cybertron as the other pieces, since itwas burdened with our planet's mass. While our scout ships started to pushthe leg into a slower velocity, our church and government worked to decideour next course of action.”

Natalie muttered quietly to Thesys, “So Unicron could eat so much becausehe had a hollow leg.” Thesys looked at her quizzically.

Perceptor broke in at this point. “Amazing! You are to be complimented foryour investigative skills! And so, the leg is now here.”

“Indeed. It took us thousands of your megacycles, and all of our remaining

eet, to move the leg into a nearby solar system ... this one. We set the leg intoorbit adjacent to a small rocky planet that was at an acceptable distance fromthe local star. And now we are undertaking our grand Project that will restoreour world and bring life back to our people.”

There was silence. Then Starstreak spoke, feeling a bit dumb for asking. “So ...you're going to rebuild your planet?”

Krellix smiled. “Yes. Over a long period of time we will stream the remainingmass of Lithone from the leg to the planetary core we selected and recreateour home. And then, the priests have assured us, the soul of our planet-mother will return to us.” He leaned back in his chair with satisfaction.

While Natalie and the younger Autobots sat in a mixture of awe and



skepticism, Perceptor pressed on. “Once again, I am amazed! Planetaryreconstruction has never been successfully undertaken, according to mydatabanks. How can you be sure of your success?”

“We have already begun the process,” said Krellix. “Did you not notice thestream of material being siphoned off from the leg? Well, perhaps the leg itself

obscured it. But, as for assurance of our ultimate success, we have none.However, when the whole of your civilization is bent on achieving one goal,miracles tend to happen.”

Kup now spoke. “Your advanced planetology techniques also help, I'll bet. If Iremember right, Lithones excel at working with metal and rock. If anyone canmake a planet out of rubble, you can.”

“We appreciate your vote of condence,” huffed Tarsen.

“There's only one thing I don't get, sir,” interjected Thesys. “Your ships are aDecepticon design. How is it that you have these ships in your eet? Arethey ... helping you?” Thesys suddenly had a frightening vision of a horde ofDecepticons jumping out from the shadows of the room.

Instead Tarsen, the security ofcer, began fuming. “What business is it ofyours how we acquired those ships? Are we not entitled to defend ourselvesand the Project?”

“Please, Tarsen,” Krellix gestured to his associate. “They are our friends.”Tarsen eased back, although his expression remained foul.

“Tarsen is duly concerned with the protection of the Project, but it does noharm to tell you this as well. You see, the leg is indeed vast, and alsodeceptively intricate in its construction. When we explored it, we discovered alarge data repository, perhaps some sort of backup system for Unicronhimself, or only a local nexus, if you will, for the leg's functioning. In any case,the repository contained the plans for the Prometheus cruiser. We simply usedmaterial from the leg to construct ourselves a local defense eet.”

“That does make sense,” Kup said. “The rst ship of that class was built byUnicron as a agship for Galvatron. I wonder what other information is inthere.”

Krellix continued. “Even though we have ships to defend ourselves here, theyare too few, and we are still vulnerable. Also, this system is, as you know,close to Decepticon territory. So I hope you now understand why we have

been so secretive, and hostile toward you when you arrived.”

“Of course, of course,” reassured Perceptor. “This is certainly a sensitive andextremely important project.” With a look at Kup for afrmation, he said,“Perhaps we can offer our assistance to you, to help guard and protect thissystem, in case the Decepticons do nd out about it.”

Kup agreed. “Absolutely! Hey, none of us needs to see this place getransacked. We can provide ample protection for you.”

Tarsen huffed again. “For what price? Resources? Technology from Unicron'sdatabanks?” Thesys felt that jump in his spark again: the prospect of newdiscoveries! Of course, that prospect was pretty bleak if Tarsen's tone was anyindication. “We can continue as we have been, quietly and unnoticed!”

Again Krellix tried to calm the secretary. “Tarsen, please. It is a generous offer,



and we shall conduct evaluation protocols on it later. For now, we mustadjourn. Being the director, I have many duties I must attend to.” The Lithonestood up, and the rest of the audience followed suit, with Natalie onlystumbling slightly. “In the meantime, please be our guests. We are about todepart for the Site, and I imagine you would like to observe our progress.”

“Thank you, Director,” Perceptor gave a little bow. “We would be honored.”Colonel Zurell stepped forward. “This way, if you please.” As the crew of theAlafex led out of the room, Natalie turned to Thesys and asked, moreearnestly than last time, “OK, now will you tell me, who's Unicron?”

“All right, here's the deal. Unicron was a transforming planet.” Thesys, Bika,Natalie, and Kup were seated in the central area of a lounge in the Lithoniancommand ship. Perceptor was peering out of the window into space, eager toget his rst glimpse of the Site, while Starstreak leaned against the wall nearthe door. Bika was occasionally glancing over at him, while Kup leaned back in repose.

“Whoa!” Natalie said. “How come no one on Earth ever heard of this? Thatsounds pretty major, even for the secrets you guys normally keep from us.”

“Easy, there, kid,” Kup said. “We informed your government about it, butthey decided to keep it to themselves.” He paused, then continued on. “I don't

blame them either. Everything about Unicron is dangerous, even the thoughtof him. Never seen anything like it...” he trailed off, recalling his rst glimpseof the monster over Cybertron.

Thesys went on. “He appeared out of nowhere at the same time as the Battleof Autobot City, and, like Director Krellix said, ate the planet of Lithone. Thenhe ate Cybertron's moons. And anyway, to make a long story short, he endedup attacking Cybertron. The only reason that he was destroyed was becauseRodimus Prime opened the Matrix of Leadership inside of Unicron himself,and the energy unleashed from it caused his systems to overload.”

“Then, kaboom,” said Bika eagerly. “I saw the vids from that battle. It waspretty awesome. I would have loved to have been there, ghting alongside ...Rodimus.” She swooned a little thinking of the dashing Autobot leader.Thesys raised his hand to his face in embarassment.

“And so now,” Natalie said, “the Lithones are going to use Unicron's remainsto rebuild the planet that he destroyed. I guess that's poetic justice.”

“They only seem to care about their planetary material, but I want to take alook at those databanks,” Thesys said. “I bet there is a lot of fantasticinformation in there.” For a moment, the idea of being a librarian actuallyappealed to him. He saw in his speculative imager an ofce door with aplaque reading, “Thesys, Chief Librarian of the Unicronian Archives.”

“I still don't like this,” Kup murmured. “The Lithones have some veryadvanced technology, but even they can't conceive of something asenormously complex as Unicron except as some sort of demon. Messing witheven a leftover part of him is not a good idea, if you ask me. We should just letsleeping arbats lie.”

Natalie ignored the old-timer. “You think you want to get a look at thosedatabanks? Earth has a lot more use for that information. You already keep



enough technology to yourselves.”

Thesys started to object, but Perceptor gave a yelp. “Oh! Oh! It appears we arearriving at our destination.”

Lithone: Chapter 1 © 2005, 2011 Bill Havanki

“Transformers” and related terms are trademarks of Hasbro Inc. andTakara Ltd.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. To view a copy of this license, visithttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ or send a letter toCreative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305,USA.

lithone: chapter 1

Documents