*Omega Supreme's Note*- As of this writing (12-10-98) not much of the long-term plot of the "War Planets" story line is known. If any inconsistencies appear in the future it is only because of this. For now, though, enjoy the story of the crossing over of the characters of the "Beast Wars" and "War Planets" story lines.
*Beastbot's Note*- This story does NOT take place in my series. This is a stand-alone story. It is highly recommended that anyone who reads this not only has seen the episodes of Beast Wars and knows the characters, but also that you need to be familiar with War Planets.
"Father, Father! I won't leave you!
Noooooooooo!" Princess Tekkla awoke from her sleep, screaming in fear.
"Princess Tekkla, your vital signs
are irregular. Do you require medical attention?" The metallic Vox said,
coming to life and hovering at her shoulder level.
"No, Vox, I'm, I'm alright, I just
need to take a walk, that’s all."
Tekkla opened the door to her quarters
and began to walk down the hall toward the outside window. She strode past
the quarters of fellow alliance members Jade, Prince Pyrus of Planet Fire,
and finally Graveheart. She stared out at the Night Sky on Planet Ice.
The night was perfectly clear for viewing the stars. Just then a door opened
behind her. She swiveled around to see a distraught looking Graveheart
emerging from his quarters.
"You couldn't sleep either, Princess?"
Graveheart said, with just a hint of a smile.
"No my friend, it seems none of us
has rested well since I first brought you the warning of the Beast Planet,"
she said, somewhat insinuating that somehow this was her fault.
"Princess," Graveheart went to console
her, "When you first came to us you considered your warning a gift, and
that is true. What good would it have been for us to spend the last few
months of our lives warring with one another, and then await our doom at
the hands of the Beast Planet? Now that our four worlds are nearly aligned,
we do stand a chance, don't we?" A sense of fear swept over his face as
he uttered those last few words.
"I don't know," she said after hesitating.
"Both Water and Tek as well as the other worlds of my system fought bravely,
yet were unsuccessful against the power of the Beast."
"Then is our cause without hope?"
"No, Never!" Tekkla said almost defiantly,
"I have sworn that the Beast would be stopped and it will be. Still, I
have an idea I wish to suggest to the council at day break."
"Okay Princess, that sounds fine,
and besides, you have peaked my curiosity. But for now, let's just save
what is left for the evening and return to our quarters."
"Agreed, my friend," Tekkla said
as they walked the few steps to Graveheart’s room.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight Princess," Graveheart
said as his door closed behind him.
On planet Remora, the Beast forces
were busy preparing for another attack, and, as usual, Blokk and Lamprey,
who were chosen to oversee the conquest of the star system, were arguing.
"My next plan to undermine the alliance
will not fail," Lamprey argued.
"Bah, we've heard that all before,"
Blokk said with nothing but insult in his voice. "It would be so much simpler
to take an entire fleet to planet Ice and DESTROY them!" This sort of bickering
was endless between the two. Lamprey, being the sort for covert operations
and arousing distrust among allies, whereas Blokk was just a straight military
machine. To overwhelm and conquer was what he did best. Lastly there was
Void. Void never spoke, but he was the decision-maker, and neither Blokk
nor Lamprey ever argued his verdicts. The argument reached an unparalleled
tone, then, finally, a voice thundered through
"Enough!! Both of you be silent,
or be silenced!" They both turned to Void in horror, not knowing that he
could talk, but in fact it was not Void talking. He extended his arms and
a being came through in similar fashion to the way Blokk and Lamprey came.
The figure was not quite as large as Blokk, but certainly more intimidating.
Blokk rose a hand toward him, but just then, a blast of energy sent him
flying backwards. The female Lamprey chuckled ever so quickly before this
new entity could notice.
"Who, might I ask, are you?" she
asked confidently,
"I, Lamprey, am the one whom our
master sent to ‘encourage’ you to speed up your progress. Call me Karad."
"Karad, eh??" Lamprey said, moving
from in front of his left to his right. "How come we have never heard of
you before?"
"Fool!" he said, almost striking
her, "I was overseeing the destruction of planetary systems for our master
before you ever existed. I am here to put you back on schedule." Uncharacteristically,
he helped Blokk get back on his feet. "It's time you both put your differences
aside and get to the task at hand." Karad then produced a circular disk.
"With this, you should have no problem conquering this system."
"How is that thing supposed to help
us?" Blokk protested.
"Just watch, ingrate!" Karad roared
and soon after an image appeared. It was of the Alliance council beginning
a meeting.
"We can now see all their plans and act
accordingly," Karad said as he turned to face Void. "But of course,
as always, the decision to take this action is yours," referring to Void.
Both Blokk and Lamprey were stunned. Even this "High and Mighty" Karad
submitted to Void, it seemed. Void first looked to Lamprey on his left,
then Blokk on his right, then to Karad in his center. Void extended his
hand toward Karad. "Excellent, thank you. Today, the Alliance falls. FOR
THE GLORY OF THE BEAST!"
The Alliance members gathered in their
usual fashion. All were sitting around a circular table, and yet, Emperor
Femur of Planet Bone always thought he should be at the head, but where
was the head of a circular table?
"So tell us, princess," Graveheart
started out, "What is the agenda for this meeting?"
Tekkla then slowly rose and began
her almost "prepared" speech.
"Greetings my friends, as you know
the Beast Planet threatens this entire system."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, get
to the point!" Femur rudely interrupted. All in attendance gave him harsh
looks as he lowered his ears in embarrassment.
"Please continue," Chryos gestured
in his usual well-mannered fashion.
"Thank you. As I was saying, I believe
in my heart that we have a great group gathered here. A strong group that
has the best chance in history of defeating the Beast, but I wish to put
a plan in motion that will give us added assistance."
"And what would that be?" Prince
Pyrus asked curiously.
"To travel outside our system for
help."
"That is a noble idea princess, but
we don't have the technology-"
Graveheart was stopped short.
"Perhaps you don't, Rocko, but I
know who does," Femur said, proudly pointing at himself. Tekkla continued.
"After examining the data from each
of your collective inputs, I have concluded that both Femur's and Chryos'
space craft are worthy of interstellar travel."
"But even so, where would we go?
Not much is known to us about other planet systems," Prince Pyrus noted.
"Ahh, but I believe I can help with
that. Vox, produce image," Tekkla commanded her assistant as a star map
came up above the council table. "Before our destruction, planet Tek had
many allies and trading partners in other systems. According to your resources,
I believe that Chryos' star cruiser has the greatest range. As you see
here, we could easily make the travel to Planet Reptizar, and further out
perhaps Planet Octozoid. Both are friendly races, and would be of great
assistance against the Beast."
"That sounds feasible. But, how do
we decide who is going?" Jade asked, with a sense of skepticism.
"Well, as you know, we all cannot
go, so this is what I have decided," Graveheart said finally. "Tekkla will
go because she knows these people, and Chryos will accompany her because
it will be his craft we are using. Now all we need is a third member."
"Well, I think that choice is obvious,"
Tekkla mentioned, "You will come with us," gesturing towards Graveheart.
"Yes, I agree. Besides, I have no
desire to travel," Jade mentioned. Femur was about to object to that, but
then he thought about his opportunity to be with Jade and a huge grin crossed
his face as Jade just shook her head in disgust.
As the council adjourned, Karad and
the other Beast followers watched closely with anticipation.
“Perfect!” Karad began, “Now, here
is how we will crush the alliance with one stroke. I will follow the scouting
party to the system they seek assistance from. While I am gone, both of
you(referring to Blokk and Lamprey) should easily be able to organize an
attack against the alliance planets.”
“And what do you intend to do after
they arrive, Karad?” Lamprey questioned.
“Oh, I have no intention of letting
them arrive safely. Once they have entered the planetary system, my forces
will destroy them, and the bonus will be, he he, our master will have it’s
next target! Now, I am going to prepare my forces. Do not blunder this
operation, for the Beast does not tolerate failure”
“Rest assured Karad, it will be done,”
Blokk said in a deep, confirming voice.
“Final systems, check,” Chryos announced.
“All is in readiness. Commence launch
sequence,” Graveheart responded. The Aurora, Chryos’ flagship, was not
much to look at, but it was a superior piece of technology. Its takeoffs
and landings were hardly noticeable, and before they knew it, they were
out of their own system, en route to Planet Reptizar. But what they did
not know was that a sizable Beast force was following them, just outside
of sensor range.
Two days of solid travel passed, and
finally Graveheart and the alliance members had an approach vector for
planet Reptizar.
“Ahh, yes, excellent. Dive in and
fire on my command!” Karad said as his slanted eyes widened with anticipation.
Aboard the Aurora, every alarm that
could sound was suddenly going off all at once.
“What is it, Tekkla?” Graveheart
commanded.
“A large fleet of Beast Drone ships
closing in! They must have followed us,” Tekkla reported in disbelief.
“That’s impossible, no one knew of
this mission, not even my own peo- ahh!” Chryos was cut short as a blast
hit their aft engine.
“We’re loosing control, sublight
engines are throwing us way off course,” Tekkla again announced.
“No, No! You fools!” Karad roared.
“You were supposed to hit them directly. Lay in a pursuit course immediately!”
“Course is erratic, only a 75% chance
of successful pursuit” the drone announced emotionlessly.
“I don’t care. Lay in pursuit course
now! Even if we are delayed, I will not lose my objective!”
The Aurora continued to tumble out
of control, occasionally entering, then exiting hyperspace. Finally, the
auxiliary systems came online, and the ship slowly came into stability.
“Damage report,” Chryos asked.
“It looks as though our subspace
capabilities are heavily damaged, we’ll have to set down for repairs somewhere,”
Tekkla answered. “But the worst part is that we were thrown nearly 10 light-years
off course. There’s no way we’ll reach Reptizar in this condition.”
“Well, where is the nearest planetary
system?” Graveheart wondered, looking at the starmap display in front of
him. “Ahh, this looks interesting.”
Graveheart punched up a display on
the main view screen of a nearby system. Once they entered it, Vox made
a thorough scan of the system.
“Nine orbiting planetary bodies,
only one- the third planet from the central star- contains life.”
Then, all of a sudden, Vox bleeped. Its
circuits danced with light as it processed the information from the third
planet. “Only two small clusters upon the planets surface contain sentient
life with which we can communicate.”
“By the Great Glacier,” Chryos said
as his eyes scanned the information in wonderment. “We must have stumbled
upon a planet whose populace has just begun to come into existence.”
“Negative,” Vox countered. “Sentient
beings are not of the same origin as this system. They are alien.”
“As are we, it seems,” Tekkla motioned.
“But you did say that we can communicate with them?”
“Affirmative.”
“Well then, it seems as though we
are going to be paying these beings a call. I just hope they are friendly,”
Graveheart said as he set in the landing coordinates near to one of the
clusters on the third planet.
The new Maximal base was under heavy
construction. After the loss of the Axalon there was not much to work with,
but the Ark’s technology did help significantly, even if it was ancient
technology to the Maximals.
“Oh, man!” Rattrap bellowed as a
loose circuit sparked and caused him to favor his right hand for a moment.
“Repairs, repairs, repairs, seems like that’s all we’ve been doin’ lately.”
“With good reason,” Rhinox came over
to assist his friend. “Megatron is more determined now than ever to get
his hands on the Ark, and you know we can’t let him do that.”
“Yeah, Yeah I know. It’d just be
easier if--” His last words were drowned out by the sounds of alarms. Optimus
and Silverbolt were out on a scouting mission searching for another Maximal
who had just recently made his way to Earth, named Depth Charge. Now was
not the time for a Predacon attack.
“Primary alarms, stand down,” Rhinox
said as Rattrap and Cheetor looked on in confusion.
“Rhinox, what are ya doin?” Cheetor
asked. “Those Preds are gonna toast us any second!”
“Scanners show no Predacon signatures.
It’s an incoming alien ship.”
“Oh great, probably the Preds sent
another ‘covert agent’ to help us out,” Rattrap reasoned.
“I don’t think so, sensors show no
match of any Cybertronian design to any faction. What’s even more curious
is that it is landing in a standard formation, with weapons withdrawn,
it appears even to be damaged.”
“So, are we just supposed ta go outside
and say, ‘Hello?’” Rattrap asked sarcastically.
“That’s exactly what I’m gonna do.
You can follow if you like.” Rhinox countered.
Rattrap motioned to Cheetor, pointing
towards his head and making circling motions as if to question Rhinox’s
sanity. Cheetor just grinned affirmatively as they both hesitantly followed
Rhinox out to meet their visitors.
The three Maximals stood front and
center as the hatch began to open. It was clear to them that these beings
were smaller than they were, due to the ship’s scale exit ramp. The first
out was Chryos, followed by Graveheart, then Tekkla. Rhinox was fascinated
at their appearance, all being so diverse. Then the first one spoke.
“My name is Graveheart; these are
my friends, Chryos and Tekkla. We come hoping for your assistance. Can
you help us?” Graveheart said this in a loud, slow, drawn-out voice as
if he were talking to children. Rattrap smiled and was about to answer
sarcastically but Rhinox covered his mouth and answered in a more dignified
way.
“Yes, we understand you perfectly
well. I am Rhinox of the Maximals. This is Cheetor and Rattrap. I don’t
know if we can help you, but we will give it our very best try.”
Graveheart smiled, and looked to
his left, then to his right,at his companions.
“Thank you, Rhinox, you don’t know
how relieved we are to here that,” Graveheart said, in a tone that reflected
the truest expression of his demeanor that he could portray.
Cheetor transformed to his beast
mode, with jet engines swinging out of his sides.
“Hop on, uh….Chryos,” Cheetor said
cheerfully, forgeting the ice creature’s name for a moment. “We’ll take
you back to the base. I’m sure Bigbot will welcome you with open arms,
once he gets back from patrol.”
Chryos twisted his eyebrows in confusion.
“Bigbot? Is he your king?”
“Commander, actually. We’ve crash-landed
on this planet like yourselves,” Rhinox corrected as he transformed to
beast mode, Rattrap following suit.
“Hey, we goin’ or not?” Rattrap asked,
already in vehicle mode and warming up his engine.
“Yeah,” Rhinox sighed as Graveheart
carefully got on Rhinox’s back in a riding position. Tekkla sat on Rattrap,
and Chryos rode on Cheetor as the three headed back to the Ark. Vox stayed
behind with the ship, doing a systems check, just in case.
Karad yelled as the Beast ship entered
Earth’s atmosphere. Since he and the Beast drones had been busy tracking
the Alliance ship, they had not noticed a stray asteroid strike their ship.
The asteroid had been destroyed, but it had taken a quarter of the ship
with it. The Beast ship, on its erratic couse, got caught in Earth’s gravitational
pull, and now Karad watched helplessly as the distance between the Beast
ship and the surface of the Earth quickly lessened.
Megatron stared at the main view screen.
What he was seeing could not be true….could it?
The scanners reported that a large
object was entering the Earth’s atmosphere, its predicted impact point
only a few klicks from their base. It wasn’t a stasis pod…all those had
already fallen from orbit. The computer had said that there was a
90% chance that the ship and its occupants were 99.9% null matter. Megatron
was baffled that any ship, much less its occupants, would be made almost
entirely of null matter. Still, he had to find out….
“Inferno, Quickstrike, Tarantulas…”
The three quickly came up to Megatron
on their hover platforms.
“….go to Sector Zeta, coordinates
5, 7, 86. There is a mysterious ship that is supposed to crash land there
and I want to find out what it is, yes.”
“As you command, Royalty.”
The trio hovered out of the command
center, ready to carry out their orders.
Karad slowly stepped out of the ship
onto the firm, dusty ground. He had a pounding headache from banging his
head against a wall at impact, and a few of his Beast drones had perished
in the crash. The remaining drones, seven of them, slowly crept out of
the ship after him.
“You fools! May the Beast have mercy
on you! We are now stuck on this deserted planet with those Alliance idiots,
who could be anywhere!” Karad yelled at the Beast drones, who were cowering
before him, “And if that isn’t enough in itself, our ship is completely
out of commission, and our radio transmitter is broken!”
Karad sighed as he put his hand to
his forehead to calm his aching headache and sat down on a nearby rock.
A few minutes later, Quickstrike,
Tarantulas, and Inferno stood behind a nearby hill, watching Karad yell
at his troops. All were in beast mode.
“Hey, this tinhorned toad ‘mind ya
of someone?” Quickstrike whispered, chuckling slightly.
“Megatron, no doubt,” replied Tarantulas,
stating the obvious.
“THE ROYALTY IS OUR COMMANDER! DO
NOT TAUNT HIM!” Inferno suddenly yelled, more out of anger than common
sense.
“Get back in the ship and see if you
can somehow get it working ag-“
Karad was interrupted rudely by a
loud shout from behind a nearby hill.
“THE ROYALTY IS OUR COMMANDER! DO
NOT TAUNT HIM!”
Karad turned towards the source of
the sound, his face twisted in a mixture of surprise and intrigue.
“Hmm....perhaps this planet is not
deserted after all.....you may yet live, my troops.”
Tarantulas clamped one of his legs
around Inferno’s mouth, just as the ant-bot got his last word out.
“Quiet, you idiot! We are supposed
to spying, not attacking!”
“But-“
“Shut up!” whispered both Quickstrike
and Tarantulas at the same time. Inferno reluctantly obeyed.
Tarantulas then quickly backed up,
toward a nearby large rock. Quickstrike looked at him quizzingly.
“What’re ya doin, Spidey?”
Tarantulas sighed.
“I’m going to hide, you idiot. You
want to stay here and wait for those creatures to find you?”
Quickstrike and Inferno both glanced
at each other, then followed Tarantulas.
After the shout, Karad heard some
faint conversation near the same spot.
“All right,” he whispered, turning
around to face his drones, “Alpha, you take Gamma and Delta and head west
about a hundred meters. Do NOT attack until we have confirmed whether they
are....expendable or not. Omicron, you take Zeta and Nu and head straight
east about the same distance as the others. Sigma, follow me and we will
see exactly how intelligent the life is here. Go!”
As soon as Karad uttered the commands,
the drones quickly marched off to their respective positions. Karad and
Sigma walked straight toward the area where he had heard the shout.
Inferno, Quickstrike, and Tarantulas
had all transformed to robot mode and were peaking out of the corner of
the large rock outcropping. They saw Karad and another Beast drone march
into view.
Tarantulas turned toward his teammates.
“All right, here’s what we’re going
to do. I’m going to go out and converse with them, if they understand me.
You two wait here, and if you see it isn’t working, start firing at the
two creatures when I utter the word, ‘now’. Got it?”
“Who are you to order a loyal follower
of the royalty, spider?” Inferno questioned.
Tarantulas ignored him and walked
out into the open.
Karad almost opened his mouth wide
with shock when he saw the creature that had walked out from behind the
rock, hands raised.
He recognized the species.
Optimus, Rhinox, Chryos, Tekkla, Graveheart,
Cheetor, and Rattrap all sat around an ovular table in the command center,
discussing the current situation.
“So, you were being chased by these
creatures made of null matter, who you call the Beasts, when they hit your
ship, causing you to crash-land here?” Optimus asked.
“That’s about the size of it,” Graveheart
replied.
“Well, we’d love to help,” Rattrap
said, “we really would, but, eh, we’re kinda busy wit our own problems
right now, if ya hadn’t noticed.”
Rhinox, who was the closest to the
transmetal rodent smacked Rattrap in the face softly.
“Cut it out, Rattrap,” Rhinox said,
picking up the conversation. “We’d help if we could, but we don’t have
anything to get us off this planet, so I doubt we could help you.”
Tekkla sighed.
“But what about the Beasts? If we
don’t stop them, they could destroy our entire system, and more after that!”
“I’m sorry, Tekkla,” replied Optimus,
“but we just don’t have the resources to get off this planet. The only
robots on this planet that have what you asked….what is it….a standard
3X engine?……would be the Predacons, and they have it extremely well guarded,
as it’s the only engine in their entire ship.”
“Well, we’ll just have to assault
their base,” replied Graveheart, standing up from his chair. “Otherwise,
our entire system will be doomed without help, and billions will die.”
Optimus thought for a moment.
“Well, it’ll be extremely risky,
even possibly fatal, but, as long as you can get back to your system safely,
I guess. Meanwhile, let’s get some needed rest. Cheetor will show you to
your temporary quarters. Graveheart, you’ll be sharing rooms with Cheetor,
I’ll tell Blackarachnia she’ll be sharing rooms with Tekkla, and Rattrap,
you’re sharing a room with Chryos.”
“Aw, why do I have to-“ Rattrap groaned,
interrupted by another slap in the face from Rhinox, a bit harder this
time.
“Rattrap, you have your orders. Obey
them.” Optimus said, his voice a mixture of anger and humor. “Everyone,
we’ll reconvene at 0900 tomorrow. See you then.”
With that said, Optimus and the others
got up and went to their quarters.
To be continued….