Picket Fences out In Space - Transformers Series

4. Sudo Root part 1: Innsmouth

"I don't think they have a runway, Sky Lynx. Just land wherever."

"Even that unpleasant bar had a runway. Perhaps we'd better find a different job to pay off my credit card bill."

"This is the only one from the wall that pays enough. Plus, the person paying the bounty is from Cybertron. Wait, try over there! There are some locals that might be able to help put us in the right direction." Nightbeat pointed through the windshield toward a clearing. They had been attempting a safe approach onto the purple-grey planet for half an hour. Dex was watching alongside Nightbeat, slowly draining their nucleon cube through a bendy straw.

The trio landed just out of earshot of a ramshackle village. The air smelled like a carpeted gymnasium. Nightbeat grabbed his tiny energon flask he got from the bar, adding to Sky Lynx's tab, and fastened it to his hip. "I'll be back when I've found the gem."

"And just what exactly do you propose Dex and I do in the meantime?"

Nightbeat took this into consideration, putting his chin between his pointer finger and thumb. He thought hard on this for several moments. "Charades."

"We are coming with you."

And so they did.

As they approached the village, Nightbeat motioned for them to hide behind a grey, spongy tree with red, fibrous foliage, while they observed. The Natives were tall mounds of grey flesh, shaggy with yellow bristles all the way to the ground. It was difficult to tell where they ended and the moss on the forest floor began. They were assembling a fire, some gathering the "wood," and others roasting "food" above it. The "wood" appeared to be some sort of mineral, already smoldering and crackling before it was brought onto the fire. Sometimes a creature would pick up some tinder and head for the fire, but the substance would sear and sever the arms of the creatures and fall to the ground. Then another creature would pick up the hot stone and continue to carry it just that much further to its destination.

"The fire must be incredibly important to them, if they are willing to assemble it at the cost of their own bodies," theorized Nightbeat.

Dex took the straw out of their mouth. "Maybe not at so high a cost as it seems," said Dex, pointing at one fallen local creature. The mangled bristly person seemed to arise again out of its own body, reshaping a new individual from the refuse of the old, like a phoenix—or a tree, but much, much faster than a tree. It was upright again in minutes.

"I'm going first." Nightbeat strode out into the clearing.

"The devil you are!" Sky Lynx grabbed Nightbeat with his mouth and brought him back behind the tree. "At least, not like that. These people will not do whatever you want just because you ask. You need to assert the facade of a kindred spirit and blend with them. We should project avatars that look like them. Dex, headmaster physiology is similar enough that you can do that, surely."

Dex sucked down the last few drops of nucleon in his cube. The glowing outline of the cube that contained the nucleon evaporated into thin air, as Energon cubes do once depleted. Dex put the straw away in their backpack. "Do you mean cast a holographic image of one of those aliens so I can pretend to be one?"

"Yes, that."

"No."

Sky Lynx stood up straight. "No matter; with my innate acting ability, even performing solo I should be able to convince them to help us. Make way, gentlemen." A new tuberous mound creature visually indistinguishable from the ones preparing the fire materialized as Sky Lynx activated his holomater projector.

"Greetings" was what Sky Lynx meant to say, in a cacophonous overlay of every language he knew at once. The Idea was that the natives would instinctively filter out the languages they didn't know, and only hear the language they did know. This was not common practice for transformers when they met alien races, because it doesn't work. It just sounds like weird noise.

Even though the locals likely had no idea what the holomater visitor was saying, they seemed to welcome him, bobbing up and down and bringing him food. What peculiar food it was. They placed in Sky Lynx's holomater avatar's arms a lump of the red foliage from the trees, cooked on the fire. The grassy blob people gathered and watched their guest in anticipation. It would do no harm to chew up the food with his solid-light teeth, just to show gratitude, thought sky lynx. So crumbled off a bit of the gift, and put it in his mouth. The holomatter avatar disappeared, leaving the partially masticated foodstuffs floating in the air unsupported, until it fell onto the ground with a thud.

Sky Lynx reared up on his hind legs and moaned with disgust. "Ohh it's horrible! The most utterly foul thing there could possibly be in the universe—oh how dreadful!" He was so loud that the trio's cover was invariably blown. The local creatures started to advance towards their hiding place behind the tree, bringing more of the terrible food. And to their utter terror, more of the creatures seemed to pop up from the ground everywhere they looked. Sky Lynx, Nightbeat, and Dex were swarmed on all sides. They were completely overpowered. The swarms of furry people bound them in place and forced the red plant mush into their mouths.