The Underground Maintenance sector Dorymathos, Suburb 7, District corridor 14, seemed like a labyrinth at simple sight. However, it was a city in itself, where it contained a population of 4 million inhabitants.
The entirety of the sector, a conglomerate of 20 sectors, amounted to 64 million lives, living in the deepest entrails of all the platform destined to the viltrumite elite.
To see the sun for its inhabitants, was more than a luxury destined to the highest class of their society, although they all knew well, they belonged to the empire, as slaves destined to the interests of beings as despicable as the viltrumites were.
The whole sector was a complete boiling mass of inhabitants crammed into a space that originally had been designed to house machinery instead of living beings.
Despite the fact that the great space rose to hundreds of meters towards the surface, sustained with gigantic columns, the improvised buildings seemed overcrowded.
As for the streets, invaded by extreme poverty, they barely seemed corridors with barely two and a half meters of width, where their inhabitants constantly circulated, heading to their duties, brushing shoulders and waiting for the hours of a day, to accelerate.
As the centuries passed, the health problems due to the settlements and the poor ventilation, added to the great amount of inhabitants, had supposed a lot of respiratory problems, infectious diseases and more than lamentable mental disorders for the species.
And among the lowest classes, skin infections had exploded in the last 5 orbits, spreading like wildfire among the offspring, turning the future of the species into an announced tomb in which its tombstone would be carved the word extinction.
The side alleys to the paths of all the infrastructure, were narrow and dangerous. The same was full of improvised food stalls with ingredients of doubtful origin, traders of businesses composed of tools, devices, armament and energy rations, while the females of the sector exercised prostitution among back rooms carved towards the interior of the caverns, completely improvised.
The gangs controlled certain territories, at the expense of the supervisors of the sector. And the murders for credit debts or disputes of power, something very common among the lowest zones, seemed to increase with the passing of generations.
The trash accumulated in the corners due to the collapse of the collection since already innumerable orbits, and the smell of decomposition mixed with the oil of the machinery and the smoke of some stoves where the elders, incapable of working and abandoned to their death, cooked the bugs and creatures of the sewers to calm their stomachs.
The mere existence was hard, unjust, a curse imposed by the wrong decisions of the lithari race.
But it was not always like this. The lithari, now in their inevitable decadence, once were a powerful power with a great control over a quarter of sector in the galaxy.
In that time, long before the viltrumite empire extended its shadow of death and dominance throughout the galaxy, they were the great and powerful Lithari civilization. They lived eight constellations away from the planet Viltrum, sufficiently close so that the viltrumites could detect them, but far enough so that the lithari believed to be safe from what they called at that time, the madness of the sage of viltrum, that so called venerated argal.
They were many things, and their titles covered a great part of the credit sector of the galaxy. After all, they were mainly merchants and bankers.
Their reputation ran from system to system, especially because despite having a strong war capacity to be feared in all the galaxy, they did not venture into the sale of weapons nor were they interested in the commercialization of slaves.
Their commercial ships, were a familiar image in the ports of more than 100 thousand worlds, being received with veneration among the other races of their locality.
But more importantly, the lithari were a warrior people. Despite not being expansionists, they were proud to the marrow, and they lent their war services for credits and habitable zones for their species throughout the galaxy.
An armed lithari was worth by hundreds and thousands of soldiers of any other race, and so it was, during their time of glory.
But all this was a fact, until they met the viltrumites.
Their fall was not due to irresponsibilities. In fact, they had a good relationship with viltrum, to the point of serving as commercial insignias of the empire. The diplomacy between both peoples was stable, to the point of supplying the credit debts through loans for rented territories of the empire after falling into red numbers due to the excessive expansion in their conquest.
Much less did they think that they would be stabbed in the back, taking into account their war capacity in the galaxy, compared to the few most powerful weapons in all the universe. The simple fact of entering in war, after disposing of such weapons, was more than sure that the destruction of civilizations in a matter of hours could be possible. Their annihilating moons were to be feared in all the galaxy. One shot, and an entire solar system could be extinguished.
But a simple carelessness, or comfort before the wellbeing of that moment, perhaps, caused that they lowered their guard towards the viltrumites. As soon as they allowed to integrate those beings into a simple inspection to their defenses, it only took them six hours to destroy a thousand years of accumulation of knowledge to create a definitive weapon.
The lithari generals died in their posts, confused, without understanding how their positions had been mapped with such precision. And years later, it had been discovered that it had been possible due to a traitor.
With the disarmament consummated, the empire offered what they determined a generous term. To be part of their imperial ranks as elemental settlers, the closest thing to being second-class citizens, with their unconditional surrender. It was that, or the definitive extermination.
The lithari, warriors, but without the adequate weapons with which to counterattack, chose to live in order to find an opportunity to return the vile and shameless blow.
But the cycles passed, and their race, with a life expectancy of only 100 years, soon was forgetting their true greatness.
They were turned into technical slaves for the empire. Their manual skill, by possessing four appendages capable of working in synchronization, added to a great strength capable of lifting skyscrapers, made them perfect for the maintenance of viltrumite machinery.
They were also perfect opponents for viltrumite children that served as training.
The misfortunes to which they were subjected diminished their hope to live.
But the resistance, resentful in its just duty, still lived, despite so much time having already passed.
Among one of the work areas, a figure of grayish skin worked in silence, his arms moving with precision, adjusting a sensor valve for the upper doors of the viltrumite building located above their heads.
His two large eyes, with their pupils divided into four segments like a honeycomb, blinked slowly while he scanned the data that a holographic screen showed.
This was a lithai miner, called kaelen-thor.
At his side, another worker appeared, of his species, who had begun to calibrate the amount of sensory flow, without even paying attention to him.
Kaelen-thor did not raise his gaze when he felt the presence of Veth-ak at his side. At the same time, he used one of his arms to generate a micro frequency noise that avoided the capture of the conversation that would be present.
His four arms continued working, but his lips were doing their own.
"the tunnel?". asked Veth-ak in a low voice, without looking at him, his fingers sliding over the console that one of his lower arms had.
"done it is", responded Kaelen-thor, adjusting a bolt with his lower hands while the upper ones checked a meter. "we have supervised it carefully, according to the plans, it reaches the key point without deviations".
Veth-ak nodded barely, almost imperceptibly.
"and our men, how many do we have?"
"4000, of the strongest and most determined. They will be destined for the creation of the isolation field when the moment arrives". said Kaelen-thor, his voice hardened at the end. "no third party will be able to approach, not even a viltrumite".
"not even a viltrumite, you say. Do you take into account the emperor? It is said that that demon can pierce any form of defense. can our plan survive that monster?".