Two weeks passed after Megatron’s warning reached Vos.
A year had passed since Starscream first watched Devastator stand.
Vos continued to drift through the upper atmosphere, its flight corridors filled with the steady movement of Seeker patrols. Training never stopped. New wings formed while older ones rotated through defense assignments around the city’s outer rings. The Aerial Combat Brigade was operational now, not theoretical, and every cycle made it sharper.
The message Starscream had prepared remained exactly where he had left it.
Queued.
Ready.
Unsent.
The Senate convened again.
Starscream arrived as he always did, with Skywarp walking beside him through the corridors of the Senate complex. The chamber looked the same as it had every other session: tiers of platforms circling the central floor, senators gathering in small clusters as aides moved between them with datapads and projections. But the atmosphere had changed. Security units stood visibly along the entrances and upper galleries, not intrusive, but present enough to remind every mech in the room that Sentinel Prime no longer trusted the walls to protect him.
Starscream noted their positions automatically.
Skywarp leaned slightly toward him. “Crowded today.”
Starscream said nothing. He stepped onto his platform and looked across the chamber as the remaining senators arrived. Vos. The empty platform of Tarn. Several industrial representatives. Trade houses. Then his gaze moved to Kaon’s position.
He paused.
Soundwave was not there.
Starscream narrowed his optics slightly.
That alone told him enough.
Skywarp noticed the shift in his posture. “What?”
“Kaon’s platform,” Starscream said quietly.
Skywarp glanced across the chamber. “Oh.” He leaned back slightly. “No Soundwave.”
Starscream folded his arms behind his back.
Megatron had given him only one instruction.
Be prepared to vacate quickly.
If Soundwave was not attending this session, then whatever was about to happen had already begun.
The session proceeded as most of them did at first. Trade disputes. Production quotas. Energy allocation. Starscream listened without speaking, his attention divided between the debate and the chamber itself. Senators argued in predictable circles while aides whispered along the lower platforms.
Nothing unusual.
At least at first.
Then the chamber lights flickered.
Not completely. Just a brief fluctuation, there and gone, but enough to make several senators pause mid-sentence. A moment later, the doors at the lower entrance burst open and a security officer rushed inside, stopping short at the center of the floor.
“Sentinel Prime!”
The entire chamber turned.
Sentinel rose from the central dais. “What is it?”
The officer did not hesitate. “There’s an attack on Iacon.”
A ripple of alarm spread through the chamber.
Sentinel’s red optics narrowed. “Clarify.”
The officer swallowed once. “A… a giant robot.”
That did it.
The Senate erupted. Voices rose across the tiers as senators stood from their platforms, some demanding explanations while others were already activating communication channels to contact their escorts.
Skywarp leaned slightly toward Starscream. “Well, that was fast.”
Starscream said nothing.
Sentinel slammed one hand down on the console. “Silence!”
The command echoed through the chamber. Gradually, the shouting faded.
Sentinel looked toward the officer again. “One machine?”
“Yes.”
Sentinel’s expression hardened. “I will handle it.”
He turned sharply and strode away from the dais toward the lower exit corridor. The two security units that had been shadowing him moved immediately to follow. The chamber erupted again the moment he left, senators shouting over one another, some already trying to leave, others demanding to know what had just attacked the capital.
Starscream remained perfectly still.
Beside him, Skywarp tilted his head. “That sounds familiar.”
Starscream’s optics moved briefly toward the exit Sentinel had just taken, then back to the chamber.
Devastator had arrived.
The chamber was still erupting in argument when the central display ignited.
No one touched the console.
The projection simply activated.
Several senators froze mid-argument and looked down toward the floor of the chamber, then around at one another.
“Did someone—”
“No.”
The display resolved into a live visual feed.
Iacon’s outer defense wall filled the projection.
And something enormous stood before it.
Green. Purple. Towering over the fortifications like a moving structure rather than a machine.
Devastator drove a massive fist into the barrier.
The impact shook the wall and sent a ripple through the energy shield surrounding it. The chamber fell silent. Another blow landed, stone and armor plating fracturing across the defensive line as the giant leaned forward and struck again.
Skywarp leaned slightly toward Starscream. “Yeah. That’s him.”
Starscream did not answer.
Around the chamber, senators stared at the projection in open disbelief.
One voice finally broke the silence. “That’s impossible.”
Another senator pointed down at the display. “What is that thing?”
Devastator swung his arm again.
The wall buckled. The live feed shook with the force of the impact.
Someone whispered the obvious question. “Where did it come from?”
Starscream folded his arms behind his back.
Across the projection, Devastator struck the wall again, and the defense line of Iacon shattered under the blow. The display flickered. For a moment, the image vanished. Then the feed shifted.
Now the projection showed the exterior of the Senate complex.
Sentinel Prime burst through the main doors, striding across the landing platform with his two guards close behind. Security units scattered as he transformed mid-stride, engine igniting as he launched into the sky toward Iacon’s defensive perimeter.
The projection held on the image only briefly.
Then it shifted again.
Devastator reappeared on the display, hammering the wall as chunks of armored plating and reinforced concrete collapsed beneath his blows. The Senate chamber watched in complete silence.
The feed flickered once more.
This time, the image changed to the Senate Hall itself.
The same chamber they were standing in.
The angle was from the upper gallery, looking down across the tiers of platforms toward the central floor. For a moment, no one spoke. Then several senators began looking around the chamber, trying to determine where the feed was coming from.
Skywarp leaned slightly toward Starscream. “Well. That’s new.”
The chamber froze in confusion. Some senators stared up at the projection of their own chamber while others spun in place, searching for a camera, a hidden relay, anything that would explain the feed. No one had touched the console. No one in the chamber controlled it.
Starscream watched the display for another second.
Then he leaned slightly toward Skywarp. “I think that’s our cue to leave.”
Skywarp did not hesitate. “Works for me.”
Starscream gave the smallest nod.
Skywarp vanished.
For an instant the space beside Starscream distorted, the air snapping inward with the familiar violent pull of Skywarp’s teleport field. The chamber was too busy watching the projection to notice. A fraction of a second later, the distortion returned.
Starscream disappeared with it.
The distortion snapped shut, and Starscream and Skywarp reappeared on a narrow maintenance platform attached high along one of Iacon’s communications towers. Wind rushed across the structure, catching against their wings as they steadied themselves. Below them, the capital stretched outward in clean lines of towers and terraces.
Beyond the city stood the outer wall.
Devastator struck it again.
Even from this distance, the impact rolled across the air like distant thunder. The giant leaned forward, slamming another massive fist into the defensive barrier.
Skywarp leaned against the railing. “Yeah… that’s definitely Devastator.”
Starscream watched carefully. Each strike kept the defenses focused outward. Exactly where Megatron wanted them.
Skywarp lifted a hand and pointed toward the sky. “There.”
Starscream followed the gesture.
Sentinel Prime streaked across the skyline toward the wall, engines blazing as he accelerated toward the giant machine battering Iacon’s defenses.
Starscream nodded slightly. “The bait worked.”
They watched for another moment as Devastator struck the wall again.
Then—
BOOM.
A deep concussion rolled through the city behind them.
Both Seekers turned.
The Senate complex stood several towers away, but even from this distance they could see the building shudder under the force of the impact. Smoke and fragments of shattered plating burst outward from the structure’s upper levels.
Skywarp’s red optics widened. “Well. That’s not subtle either.”
Another blast followed.
Starscream recognized the sound immediately.
Megatron’s fusion cannon.
But it was not the only sound reaching them now. From the streets below the Senate complex came a rising roar. Hundreds of voices. Maybe thousands. Shouting, metal striking metal, engines surging, the chaotic thunder of a mass of bodies driving toward the building.
Skywarp tilted his head, listening. “…Hear that?”
Starscream did.
The gladiators.
Workers.
Miners.
The lower castes who had followed Megatron out of Kaon’s pits.
From this height, they could not see them clearly, but the sound of the uprising was unmistakable. Starscream looked back toward the smoking Senate building. Devastator had pulled Sentinel away.
And now Megatron’s army had come for the Senate.
Another cannon blast tore through the upper structure, sending a spray of molten metal and shattered stone outward into the air.
Skywarp watched the damage spread across the façade. “Megatron really doesn’t like that building.”
Starscream listened to the noise rising from the streets below. Metal striking metal. Engines. Voices. Hundreds of them. Possibly thousands.
He opened a private command channel.
Thundercracker answered immediately. “Go.”
“The broadcast.”
Thundercracker did not ask what he meant. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
A brief pause followed.
Then Thundercracker answered, “It’s sending.”
Across Vos, hundreds of receivers lit up simultaneously. Every member of the Aerial Combat Brigade received the declaration at once.
Skywarp glanced over. “Your recruitment letter?”
“No,” Starscream said, watching the smoke rising over Iacon. “The declaration.”
Far above the city, patrol wings began breaking formation as the message reached them. The declaration was simple, sharp, and unmistakable.
Vos was a free state.
Vos would not kneel to a Senate that had tried to ground it, silence it, and use it as a number in an energy ledger.
Vos would command its own skies.
Skywarp grinned slowly. “Oh. This is going to get interesting.”
Skywarp was still watching the smoke rising over the Senate district when a new signal cut across Starscream’s private frequency.
Not Thundercracker.
The channel opened without a request.
Soundwave’s voice came through the comm. “Starscream.”
Starscream did not look surprised. "Soundwave.”
Skywarp glanced over. “Oh good, the surveillance system is online.”
Starscream ignored him.
“Transmission received,” Soundwave said.
Starscream had not sent the broadcast to him. Yet Soundwave had it, which meant Megatron had it as well.
Starscream folded his arms behind his back. “I assumed as much.”
There was a brief pause on the channel before Soundwave spoke again.
“Megatron requests your presence.”
Starscream watched another section of the Senate building collapse under cannon fire. “Where?”
“The Senate front.”
Skywarp grinned. “Oh, that sounds fun.”
Starscream kept his optics on the battlefield below. Megatron wanted him visible now, which meant the next move was about to begin.
He looked to Skywarp. “Take us back.”
Skywarp did not argue. “Gladly.”
The air snapped inward again as Skywarp triggered the teleport field. The city vanished in a violent distortion of light and sound, then returned a heartbeat later.
Starscream and Skywarp reappeared on the shattered plaza in front of the Senate building.
Smoke rolled across the courtyard. Sections of the outer façade had collapsed under repeated cannon blasts, and debris lay scattered across the steps leading to the entrance. Megatron stood near the base of the stairs, fusion cannon still glowing faintly from the last discharge. Soundwave stood beside him, red visor steady amid the smoke and chaos.
Around them, lower-caste fighters pressed forward through the broken security lines, their numbers spreading across the plaza.
Starscream had only a moment to take in the scene before he spoke into the command channel. “Thundercracker.”
The reply came immediately. “On my way.”
A distant roar answered the words.
Starscream looked up just as Thundercracker’s jet form tore across the sky above the plaza. The Seeker cut his engines and dropped hard, transforming as he descended before landing beside them with a heavy thud.
Skywarp folded arms. “Right on time.”
Thundercracker glanced once at the ruined Senate façade, then at Megatron. “Well. This escalated.”
Megatron glanced toward Starscream only once.
“Cover the exits.”
The instruction was simple.
No one leaves.
Starscream gave a single nod.
This was the moment. Not a speech. Not a declaration. Not an oath spoken under ceremony.
An order.
A battlefield role.
And Starscream accepted it.
He lifted one hand and pointed.
Thundercracker understood the signal immediately, transforming and launching into the air above the plaza. Skywarp vanished in a flash of violet light, reappearing along the upper edge of the Senate structure a moment later.
Starscream transformed as well, his tetrajet frame snapping into place before he lifted off the shattered courtyard.
Within seconds, the three Seekers spread out across the structure. Thundercracker took the airspace above the main plaza. Skywarp patrolled the upper terraces and balconies where fleeing senators might attempt to escape. Starscream climbed higher still, circling the building with careful precision.
Below them, the attack continued.
Workers and gladiators poured through the ruined entrance of the Senate building. From above, the Seekers watched every corridor, every landing platform, every exit route.
Starscream’s voice came calmly across the trine channel.
“No one leaves.”
Thundercracker answered, “Understood.”
Skywarp’s reply came with a hint of amusement. “Not a single senator.”
Starscream continued circling the building as the sounds of the assault echoed through the structure beneath them.
For the first time in its history—
The Senate of Cybertron was under siege.