Starscream continued circling above the Senate complex while Thundercracker held the upper sky and Skywarp flickered along the balconies and terraces below.
At first, the noise from inside the structure was chaos. Shouting, metal striking metal, weapons fire echoing through the massive interior chambers. Then, slowly, it began to change. The sounds of fighting faded. The shouting shifted. What had been panic became something else.
Cheering.
The roar rolled out through the shattered entrance of the building and across the plaza below.
Thundercracker heard it too. “That doesn’t sound like senators.”
Starscream glanced toward the broken façade. “No.”
It did not.
Another moment passed, and the glow of Megatron’s fusion cannon at the base of the stairs faded. The weapon powered down. Silence spread across the plaza in a way that felt more final than the fighting had.
Starscream slowed his orbit slightly and watched the entrance of the Senate building. Whatever had just happened inside was over.
He completed another pass above the Senate complex when a new signal cut cleanly across his comm. Not the public network. Not Senate channels. A frequency he had never seen before.
Soundwave’s voice came through it, calm and precise.
“Decepticon channel established.”
There was a brief pause.
Then the report.
“Senate—obliterated.”
The word carried no emotion. Only information.
Starscream glanced toward the shattered entrance of the building as the cheering below began to disperse into movement.
Soundwave continued. “All units withdraw.”
Thundercracker answered immediately. “Understood.”
Skywarp appeared briefly along the roofline. “That was quick.”
Starscream angled his wings and began descending toward the plaza. He understood the meaning behind the order. The objective had been achieved. The Senate was gone, which meant the next force to arrive would not be senators or guards.
It would be the security forces responding to the attack on the capital.
Megatron had no reason to remain for that fight.
Starscream’s voice came across the trine channel. “Regroup.”
Thundercracker peeled away from the upper airspace, and Skywarp vanished again in a flash of violet light. Below them, the fighters from Kaon were already pulling back from the shattered Senate entrance.
The revolution had made its statement.
Now it was time to disappear.
Starscream had just begun to pull away from the Senate complex when another signal cut across his systems.
Direct.
Private.
Megatron.
Starscream did not slow his orbit. “Yes.”
Megatron’s voice came through the channel, low and controlled.
“With me.”
Nothing more.
Starscream understood the meaning immediately. He angled his wings and dropped altitude.
Thundercracker noticed the change in his flight path. “New orders?”
“Megatron.”
Skywarp reappeared briefly alongside him in the air. “Ah.”
Thundercracker’s voice cut in over the trine channel, quieter now. “We heard it.”
Starscream knew he meant the title before it had even been spoken. Not because Megatron had used it yet, but because the structure had already taken shape around them. The Decepticon channel. Soundwave’s withdrawal order. Megatron’s private command. Starscream being pulled from air cover to Megatron’s side while his trine held position around the ruined Senate.
This was no longer observation.
It was command.
Starscream descended toward the shattered plaza where the entrance to the Senate building still smoldered from the cannon strikes. Megatron stood near the base of the steps, already turning away from the destruction behind him. Soundwave moved beside him, red visor steady as they headed toward the lower structure beneath the building.
Starscream transformed as he landed behind them.
Megatron did not look back. He simply continued down the damaged stairwell leading beneath the Senate complex.
Starscream followed.
Thundercracker and Skywarp remained above, holding the airspace as instructed.
The bunker beneath the Senate awaited.
Megatron did not slow as he led the way through the lower corridors. He moved directly through the passageways, past abandoned security stations and darkened control rooms, taking the same path Starscream had followed once before. Almost as if he expected no one to interfere.
Almost as if he dared them to try.
Starscream kept pace behind him. Soundwave moved alongside them, silent as ever, every step measured and exact. The destruction above them did not touch his composure. If anything, he seemed more precise now, as if the fall of the Senate had simply moved the next sequence into place.
It did not take long.
The war room door opened.
The chamber was exactly as Starscream remembered it: tactical displays glowing across the walls, the central table projecting a rotating map of Cybertron as information flowed through the system. The room had not been abandoned. It had been waiting.
Megatron stepped into the chamber and turned.
His red optics settled on Starscream.
“I see you made your choice, Air Commander.”
The title filled the room without ceremony.
Not suggested.
Not promised.
Declared.
Starscream held Megatron’s gaze for a moment. Outside, somewhere above them, the Senate of Cybertron lay in ruins. The institution that had tried to ground Vos, erase Shockwave, protect Ratbat, and dismiss the lower castes as incapable of organization had been broken open by the very movement it had underestimated.
Starscream had covered the exits.
He had obeyed the battlefield order.
The choice had already been made before Megatron spoke the title.
Starscream inclined his head once. “I did.”
Megatron studied him for a moment, and the slightest nod followed. Not distant. Not dismissive. Recognition, brief and precise, given without wasting the moment on ceremony.
“Then hold the skies,” Megatron said.
Starscream understood the order for what it was.
His first command.
Not a full briefing. Not the shape of the whole war. Those orders would come later. This was simpler, immediate, and more important than any formal declaration.
Above them, the city was still unstable. Security forces would converge. Sentinel would return when he realized Devastator had drawn him away. The Senate building was broken, but Cybertron had not yet understood what that meant.
The skies would decide how quickly the truth spread.
Starscream inclined his head again. “It will be done.”
Megatron turned back to the tactical table as the map of Cybertron shifted across its surface. Soundwave moved to the communications console without a word, red visor already fixed on the streams of data beginning to flood in from across the planet.
The message was clear.
The Senate was gone.
The war had begun.
And Starscream now had a command to hold.
He turned and left the chamber, already opening the trine channel as he moved back toward the surface.
“Thundercracker. Skywarp.”
Thundercracker answered first. “Here.”
Skywarp followed. “Still watching the wreckage.”
Starscream’s voice remained calm. “Hold the airspace until withdrawal is complete. No pursuit leaves Iacon uncontested. No security flight reaches Megatron’s forces without passing through us first.”
There was a brief pause.
Thundercracker understood the weight of it. “Understood, Air Commander.”
Skywarp’s voice came next, lighter but no less certain. “About time.”
Starscream climbed back toward the ruined plaza while the revolution spread across the planet.