A flash of light in the darkness of the void.
He opened his eyes. He'd been immobile for hundreds of years, inside that crystal capsule that covered his body like a black ice chrysalis, floating in a dream of dormant life, waiting for a signal.
His systems restarted slowly. He was navigating near Alfa Centauri. The sky in that region of the galaxy was unknown to him and he couldn't identify one single constellation.
Then, he saw the planet.
It rose like a wall before him, its curved, cobalt blue surface reverberating in the blackness. He felt the Spark within him throb. There was life down there... life created by the Cube. A trace of its presence that made every atom of his body shudder. Light in the void. The Allspark.
He prepared the direction engines, drowsy after centuries of ghost navigation. The radio crackled inside his skull for a moment. He heard a background rumour, low and deep, which he imagined was the very voice of the planet. How advanced would technology be down there?
The answer came after a few seconds. He passed by a satellite. The light of the star that dominated the system (a G-type main-sequence star) reflected on its wide panels. For a moment, as he watched that mass of cabling and aluminium polymer, the silence continued. Then the sky cleared, the stars began to dim, and the radio broadcast reached him.
Good morning, L.A. It's 7.30 and we´re ready to wake up...!
El presidente aseguró esta mañana que los recortes no afectarán…
Guten Nacht, Desutschland, es ist Sigmund Hubber und wir haben…
Tell me more, tell me more...
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed... Wait a minute! Someone's crawling out of the hollow top. Someone or... something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks... are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be...
Sweet, he thought. He tuned in to every channel and then diverted them to passive storage. Information began to spread. Then he searched for some kind of global network that could grant him access to more data about the planet. He didn't have to scan for long the waves that surrounded that orbit plagued by space junk. He found what he was looking for and connected right away.
The planet was already around him. The capsule began to rotate, and he felt the fall. The pot's outside started to heat up but he knew that even if it burst into flames, the fire would not touch him.
Images, words, data. Languages to download, music, art, wars, culture, photos, texts. He had to close his eyes again to concentrate more in the process. The Cube. Where's the Cube?
He saw the aliens. They were small. It didn't surprise him. During his journey, he'd learned much about the Allspark's behaviour. Its creations were getting smaller, as if it was trying to give them more space. They were based on pure organic matter. He had been witness to that transition: from materials extracted from the earth (copper, iron, steel) to the ones that were created by the chemistry of the worlds. Water, carbon, haemoglobin, oxygen, bones and flesh. More fragile, less complicated... more harmless. He could not help but think that the Cube was trying to protect itself by doing that. Maybe, just as he did —as every inhabitant of the annihilated Cybertron did— it didn't want to repeat the past.
Suddenly, an orange veil covered the capsule. The violent jolting made him shrink unwittingly inside the pot. The static cracked in the middle of the radio signal.
He'd taught himself to give up hope. To consider impossible to ever reunite with the Allspark. But he felt it, somewhere below.
The atmosphere broke as he fell. An incandescent asteroid crossed the sky.
Light in the darkness of the void.