Cybertronian Civil War 15: The Vok

[7Knight-Wolf]

Finally, the truth about the Aliens begin to come clear. And the secret star that Springer has stumbled upon will stun the whole team...
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15: The Vok

On their way to Cybertron, Cheetor and his group encountered trouble sooner than expected. They were barely out of the Earth’s atmosphere before a large ship tailgated them. A drone’s voice radioed in: “Pull over. You are subject to interrogation by order of Administrator Megatron.”

Cheetor laughed into the comm. link. “Since when does old Megs own this joint?”

“Empress Airsweep ordered the Administrator to secure the border of this planet,” the automated reply came. “Before leaving the limit of Earth you must file a report and…”

“And be arrested? Ha. Eat my dust.” Cheetor accelerated the small ship’s speed.

Topazor was awakened by the sudden velocity. “What’s going on, Cheetor?”

He was answered by the sound of an explosion and a tremor of the ship. “We’re hit!” Tigatron gasped.

Cheetor remained calm. “It’s okay; just a bit of smoke on the top of the hatch. I can go up there and fix it in up no problem. Tigatron, man the guns and cover me. Air Razor, try to slow that big craft. Topazor—“

“I can’t!” exclaimed the already-stressed wolf-bot. “You know piloting isn’t my thing!”

Cheetor was frustrated. “What is your thing?”

“Political debates?” suggested the scrawny canine. Then, seeing Cheetor’s frown, “Oh, alright! I’ll try.” He sat down and started to drive the spacecraft forward cautiously.

Meanwhile Cheetor emerged on top of the ship’s hatch and found a small electrical fire beginning to fry the circuitry. He was at work immediately trying to put it out, but the ship bucked under Topazor’s hesitant steering. Steeling himself, Cheetor tried again to reach the tiny flames.

With a screech, Air Razor took off. She beat her wings furiously, heading to the enemy ship although there was not a breath of wind to aid her. A volley of flaming plasma balls advanced with appalling speed to stop her flight. Tigatron, however, was ready with a counterattack from his ships’ guns. The ammo from both crafts met in an awesome explosion. Now there was nothing in Air Razor’s way. She was only a few yards from the black, humungous stern of the perambulation-craft. With a bloodcurdling battle cry, the bird-bot fired her tiny missiles.

They bounced off the ship’s impenetrable metal sides, hitting the brave falcon with momentum. She screeched in pain, and another volley of missiles approached to finish her off.

But suddenly Cheetor was there. “No worries!” he exclaimed, catching Air Razor on his furry shoulders. He had successfully doused the electrical fire, and now he took off at rocket-speed back to Topazor and Tigatron.

“Faster!” Tigatron kept shouting at Topazor. “It’s no good to moving at a snail’s pace.” As he spoke he fired a final well-aimed shot at the perambulation-craft. It hit the fuel cargo area, and the big ship’s insides were soon alight with explosions. They were safe for a little while.

“I’ll take over piloting,” said Cheetor, and Topazor was glad to comply.

Cybertron was in sight when a disturbance showed up on the ship’s radar. “It’s probably just a traveler’s vessel,” shrugged Cheetor; “though it is a little strange in this area.”

Tigatron and Air Razor exchanged worried glances. “I think we should investigate it,” suggested the falcon.

“Well, I guess we could spare a few minutes,” Cheetor said. He started steering the ship toward the disturbance.

Topazor glanced back at the Beast Warrior pair, feline and fowl. He remembered overhearing Miratron’s words to Tigatron: “I know you’re hiding something.” What was the secret and what did it have to do with this strange blip on the radar?
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Chris’s freedom fighters took shelter in a strong metal building. They posted sentries, expecting Megatron’s forces to advance at any moment. In the meantime Miratron dragged Springer into the well-fortified basement; it took a lot of effort to haul his huge new body. Thanks to the reformatting, Springer’s shoulders shone gold, and he was equipped with two massive, intricate buffer swords. In his alternate mode, he was no longer a helicopter but a battleship. Springer’s Stasis cycle had ended after a few hours, and he began to reawaken.

“Springer?” Miratron whispered. “Oh, why do you always have to be the one in the line of fire?”

“I’m a soldier,” he replied with a smile. “It’s my job to get toasted.” The usual joking mood seemed to leave Springer suddenly, and his sky-blue optics were solemn. “What happened, Miratron?” he asked. “How did I survive?”

“There was this big shiny blue thing,” explained Miratron. “It reformatted you.”

“It did?” Springer looked stunned as a flood of memories came back to him. “Of course! That shiny blue thing was the treasure that I tried to take from Megatron. Where is it now?”

“You’re still holding it.”

“Oh, right. Well, after Stasis Lock came on, I was still awake in my core consciousness.” Springer hesitated. “Miratron…I saw something. If I tell you, will you promise not to think I’m crazy?”

Miratron was puzzled and concerned, but she nodded. “After all, you can’t get any crazier than you already are.”

“Well,” began Springer with a deep breath, “I saw this Thing come close to me. I thought it was my Grandfather, the dude who meant the most to me the world. But I was embarrassed because I wasn’t a good enough soldier to make him proud.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he wasn’t my Grandfather. He said he was already proud of me. He reached into my chest and cleared away all the messed-up circuitry that was blocking my Spark. And he breathed into my Spark and helped me stand up. Next thing I know, I’m here.”

“Maybe you went a little heavy on the energon snacks.” Miratron smiled. “Just kidding, mate. I don’t know what you saw, but I know you’ll find out sometime. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Me too.” Chris walked into the room. “You look more like a General than a soldier now.”

“Chris,” said Springer, sitting up and speaking quickly. “Megatron’s got fifty bots, but half of them are just security drones. They’ll be easy to beat if we can just get you humans some battle gear.”

Chris heaved a sigh and slumped down onto an empty crate. “Not gonna happen, Springer. Megatron is smarter than that. He’s already calling for reinforcements. I’ve just got a message from Topazor, and he says the whole planet is being patrolled by battleships. Airsweep isn’t trying to help Earth; she’s trying to rule Earth. We can’t fight against so many, especially not if some are invisible.”

There was a short, foreboding silence. Then Springer pulled out the code he had copied from the ship. “Hey, I think this can tell us what exactly this blue star thing is. How about translating?”

“Sure,” said Chris, typing the code into the DR-C. “It’s hard to decipher…. The code seems to mean, ‘sum of power,’ or ‘presence of power…’ or ‘matrix.’ The form of the word indicates that it’s specific, it’s The Presence of Power or The Matrix.” Chris stopped short. His face flushed.

There was a stunned silence. “The Matrix,” whispered Miratron. “The Matrix?! You mean, the Transformer Matrix that Hot Rod wielded to defeat Unicron? That’s impossible!”

“Maybe the code’s wrong,” said Chris breathlessly. But he knew deep down that it was indeed the Transformer Matrix, also called the Allspark, which now rested in Springer’s hand.

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“We’re here,” said Cheetor. “That’s strange; there’s nothing there. Maybe this radar is busted.”

“No,” said Topazor in puzzlement. “There seems to be a fracas in the normal magnetic field. Something, probably a large stationary object, is causing it.”

Cheetor grunted. “Uh, translation please?”

“It means there is something here after all,” explained Topazor. “It’s not a ship…more like a small space colony. But it’s invisible. Cloaking ships has been done before, by the Tri Predacus Council; but nobody’s ever managed to cloak something as big as this.”

Cheetor looked grim. He leaned back and tried to process the disturbing thought that had just crossed his mind. “Legends say that the Vok are descended from the Swarm. The swarm was a techno-cancer capable pf destroying huge areas. It was eventually discovered that there was a central intelligence inside the bug-like cloud. Whoever was controlling it, though, could not be seen by robot optics or human eyes.”

“The Vok have the rare ability to polymorph,” inserted Tigatron. “The Aliens took the form of Unicron’s head when they talked to Optimus. And when they captured Air Razor and I, they appeared as heads of bare bone. But it seems that they can also be invisible. This proves that Megatron and Airsweep have the Vok working for them.”

Cheetor whirled around angrily. “Tigatron, Air Razor, you knew about all this? This was what you were hiding?” His voice remained calm despite frustration. “Why are you protecting the Aliens?”

“We thought they might be good beings,” said Air Razor guiltily. “We knew that long ago, Optimus Prime purified the Swarm. Obviously the Vok are still bad, but there are some good Aliens too.”

“Good Aliens?” asked Topazor. He was interested in knowledge and new discoveries.

“The Vok are incredibly powerful polymorphs who have been messing with Transformers for many centuries,” began Tigatron. “They have the ability to override our programming and core consciousness, controlling us like puppets. Being brilliant, the Vok were able to manipulate time and space to create the wormhole which Optimus and the Beast Warriors encountered. The way they mess with time travel, and the awful things they did to hinder the triumph of the Maximals: it proves that the Vok are our enemies.”

Air Razor took over. “But there have to be some good ones, too,” she pointed out. “Remember the wonderful Floating Island they made? Optimus said the Floating Island was a reenactment of an old story; a story about a Paradise which was destroyed by power-hungry beings. Maybe there were trying to show us something by that Island.”

“So there are good Vok and bad Vok,” Cheetor mused. “Back on Earth, the humans have stories of possessive polymorphs. They’re not called Aliens; they’re called evil spirits.”

Tigatron continued. “I’ve been researching old Cybertronian stories. Legend says that Primus, the maker of Transformers, created Cybertron as a beautiful paradise. His evil brother was called Unicron. Primus gave his people a choice: to obey his teaching or to rebel like Unicron, in search of harmful knowledge. The people, the Transformers, chose Unicron. The Paradise ended. Now doesn’t that sound like the Floating Island? And here’s something else,” said Tigatron with a ######### eye. “Something interesting. The Aliens had abandoned that base in space; the one Optimus went to destroy. He blew up with his ship, but in dying he saved us from harm. I think the Aliens planned it that way. They planned for Optimus to die and be restored.”

“But why?” asked Topazor.

“You know the history databases,” replied Tigatron. “Optimus Prime fought the Great War against the original Megatron, and he was a son of Primus. Optimus died, but his power and heritage of Primus was resurrected in the form of Rodimus Prime. Rodimus saved us from Unicron. Primus passed into legend, but many bots believe the old stories, including myself.”

Topazor’s head swam as he tried to understand. “So the Aliens knew all about our history! They showed us reenactments of our own legends! Why?”

“To make us believe again,” said Cheetor, grasping the concept; “to remind us that Primus still exists somewhere in the universe. This can only mean one thing: the invisible beings known to us as Aliens are servants, angels, of Primus. The bad Aliens are the Vok, who created a wormhole and now have a hand in the war.”

“When I heard that there were Aliens outside of Cybertron,” Tigatron concluded, “I wanted to protect them in case they were the good guys. But it’s clear that they’re the evil Vok. Now, I figure if the good Aliens work for Primus, chances are the bad ones work for Unicron.”

“And that means somewhere, Unicron is still alive,” added Cheetor forebodingly. “Optimus said that the Vok appeared to him in the form of Unicron’s head: but I think it was actually Unicron’s real head talking. I think the Vok are bringing him back to destroy Cybertron. They hired Airsweep to take over while the Maximals and Predacons were too busy fighting. And they have Megatron on their side, too. That explains why he’s suddenly so obedient: he’s under the influence of the Vok.”

“So Unicron does exist.” Topazor was stunned. “How can we stop all this?”

“We start by pinpointing what we know,” answered Cheetor. “The whole Unicron scheme is led by three supervisors: Administrator Megatron, President Airsweep, and that unidentified invisible Vok. Springer and Chris are trying to take out Megatron before he can call reinforcements. Meantime, we’ll take out Airsweep. It will be a process of quiet, secret elimination. We’re in no condition for open war.”

“We’ll need help getting through security,” Topazor pointed out. “What about the GSC? The Green Scientist Club has many allies. Only a few are warriors, but all of them are clever and capable. They have been known to see past pretences like government schemes; their perception is extraordinary. Some bots say that being around natural organisms gives them this special sixth sense.”

“I had thought about them,” said Cheetor.

“Excuse me,” interrupted Air Razor. “What exactly is the Green Club?”

Topazor answered smilingly, glad to talk about something he understood. “Oh, they’re the scientists who started the Great Orchard Project. They try to plant trees all over Cybertron, and introduce organic animals. Deep down at the core of the planet, there is greenish fluid called Gaborg which regulates the flow of oxygen and carbon-dioxide on Cybertron. It also enhances organic life. Anyway, the first step is to find them. And that may be difficult. Look.”

All around Cybertron were immense battle-crafts. They raged in the sky, erupting into huge explosions when hit. The air shook with the sound. Precariously, Cheetor managed to get through the battle area unharmed. There was some rough steering along the way, and the ship was pretty beat up. It took a few hours for Cheetor to find a secluded place to park. When that was done, the foursome filed cautiously out of the ship and into the dark streets.

“Game on,” said Cheetor.