Starscream burst into the command chamber.
Thundercracker was already at the primary console, exactly where Starscream expected him to be. The main display had changed from patrol rotations to structural warnings and engine telemetry. Red indicators filled half the board, and every update made the situation worse.
Vos shuddered again beneath them.
Starscream stepped beside him. “Report.”
Thundercracker did not look away from the display. “Three engines down. Output collapsing across the grid.”
Starscream scanned the readings. Altitude was still dropping. Engine Three was offline. Engine Five was gone. Engine Six had been destroyed from within. The remaining engines were straining against more mass than they had ever been meant to carry alone, and the city was beginning to answer gravity.
He immediately began adjusting the engine controls. “Throttle the remaining units evenly. I want a controlled descent, not a tumble.”
Thundercracker nodded and routed the command through the system. Across the underside of Vos, the remaining lift engines shifted output, stabilizers adjusting to keep the enormous city level as it sank through the clouds. For a moment, the drop steadied. It did not stop, but it steadied.
Then another warning lit across the board.
Thundercracker swore under his breath. “Engine Four is overheating.”
Starscream leaned closer to the readout. The stabilizer rings around Engine Four were glowing beyond safe limits. The remaining engines were working far beyond their designed capacity just to keep the city balanced.
“If that one goes—”
“We’re done,” Thundercracker finished.
Starscream began adjusting the load distribution across the other engines. “Bleed output from Four. Shift the strain to Seven and Eight.”
Thundercracker started rerouting power. The city lurched again as the engines compensated, and outside the command windows, evacuation traffic had filled the sky around Vos. Hundreds of flyers were peeling away from the aerial platforms while emergency beacons guided them clear of the falling city.
Skywarp appeared beside the railing in a flash of violet. “Half the outer platforms are clear.”
“Keep them moving,” Starscream said without turning.
He focused on the terrain grid now expanding across the lower display. If Vos was going down, it needed somewhere to land. Thundercracker noticed where he was looking.
“You’re trying to steer it.”
Starscream pointed to a wide stretch of open terrain far from the major cities. “There.”
Thundercracker adjusted the thrusters. “You think the engines will hold that long?”
Starscream watched Engine Four’s temperature climb higher. “They have to.”
Alarms began to ring across the command console. Engine Four’s temperature spiked past its safety threshold. A second warning followed immediately after. Engine Seven was climbing. Engine Eight was climbing. Thundercracker saw it at the same moment Starscream did.
“We’re cooking them.”
Starscream’s red optics moved across the readouts. The remaining engines were carrying the entire weight of the city now. Every second they held was another second Vos stayed in the air. He pulled up the evacuation display and watched the percentage climb slowly across the screen as civilian craft cleared the outer rings and cargo carriers lifted away from the platforms.
It was not enough.
Not yet.
Starscream stared at the number.
They needed more time.
The city shattered again as the stabilizers fought to keep Vos level during the descent. Thundercracker adjusted the load balance again. “If Four goes, we lose the stabilizer ring.”
“I know.”
Starscream looked back at the evacuation counter.
Still climbing.
Still not enough.
He straightened and opened the citywide command channel again. “All remaining personnel—” He paused just long enough to steady his voice. “Leave the city.”
Skywarp appeared beside the command platform again. “The lower districts are almost clear.”
“Good.”
Another warning alarm sounded. Engine Four was entering critical temperature. Starscream looked once more at the evacuation display. They needed every second the engines could give them.
He leaned over the console again, hands moving quickly across the controls. “Shift the load.”
Thundercracker looked over. “Where?”
“Guidance thrusters. Angle them down. Take some of the vertical strain off Four.”
Thundercracker understood immediately and routed the command. Across the underside of Vos, the guidance engines adjusted their orientation, firing downward to help support the city’s weight. The entire structure trembled as the thrust vectors changed.
Engine Four’s temperature steadied for a moment.
Not cooling.
But no longer climbing as fast.
Starscream did not stop there. “Raise pressure on One and Two.”
Thundercracker glanced back at the display. “They’re already pushing it.”
“Do it.”
Thundercracker rerouted the output. Engines One and Two roared harder beneath the city, their stabilizer rings glowing brighter as they took more of the load. The city lurched again.
Skywarp gripped the railing. “That one you felt.”
Starscream ignored it. His optics were fixed on the evacuation counter. More craft were peeling away from the platforms now. More civilians were clearing the city. He pushed another adjustment through the system, manipulating every engine, every thruster, every stabilizer he could still command.
This was not another battlefield.
This was home.
And Starscream was not going to let it fall without fighting for every second he could steal.
The clouds below Vos began to thin. Starscream noticed it first on the forward screens. The gray cover that had hidden the surface was breaking apart. Then the ground appeared.
Cybertron’s metal plains spread out beneath them, rushing upward far faster than he wanted to see.
Starscream gripped the edge of the console. Watching the altitude meter fall was one thing. Seeing the surface racing up to meet the city was another.
He opened the citywide channel. “Everyone still aboard—evacuate immediately. Leave the city. Now.”
Outside the command tower, the sky was full of fleeing craft. Civilian flyers peeled away from the towers in every direction, engines blazing as they cleared the falling city. Starscream kept one optic on the engine readouts. Four was still overheating. Seven and Eight were climbing. One and Two were straining under the added load.
They were seconds from losing another.
Skywarp stood near the railing, watching the ground rise. “That’s getting close.”
Thundercracker did not take his hands off the controls.
Starscream made the decision. “You two go.”
Neither of them moved.
Starscream turned toward them. “That’s an order.”
Thundercracker looked back at the console. “You’re not staying here.”
Starscream’s gaze returned to the ground rushing up beneath Vos. “If the engines hold a little longer, more people get out.”
Skywarp shook his head. “You can’t ride this thing down.”
Starscream did not answer. He was already making another adjustment to the guidance thrusters, trying to slow the fall even a little.
Skywarp looked at Thundercracker. “You go.”
Thundercracker did not move.
Skywarp jerked his head toward the sky outside the command windows. “I can’t teleport both of you.”
Starscream gave a small nod. “Go.”
Thundercracker hesitated only a second longer before stepping back from the console. “You’d better not die here.”
“I don’t plan to.”
Thundercracker turned and ran for the flight platform. A moment later, he launched from the tower, transforming as he cleared the structure and diving toward the evacuation lanes.
The sky around Vos was chaos. Civilian flyers streaked away from the falling city while emergency craft tried to guide them clear of the descent path. Thundercracker cut through the traffic and looked back once at the massive city dropping through the atmosphere.
He saw them.
Two small shapes weaving through the evacuation lanes.
Laserbeak and Buzzsaw.
The cassette birds darted between towers and platforms, guiding civilians toward open flight corridors and physically dragging slower flyers clear of the city’s edge. Thundercracker pushed harder on his engines.
A Seeker wing cut across his path.
Dirge.
Still circling the city. Still helping escort civilian craft away from the falling metropolis.
Thundercracker opened the channel. “Dirge. That’s enough.”
Dirge turned toward him. “Sir?”
“Get clear.”
Dirge glanced back toward Vos. “There are still—”
Thundercracker did not argue. He grabbed Dirge’s arm and hauled him into formation. “We’re leaving.”
Dirge did not fight it. Together they pulled away from the city.
Behind them, Vos continued to fall.
Back in the command chamber, Starscream watched the last of the evacuation signals disappear from the displays. Skywarp stood beside him, red optics fixed on the forward screens.
Then the alarms changed again.
A deeper warning tone rolled through the structure.
Impact alarms.
Starscream looked up.
They were out of time.
The ground filled the forward screens of the command tower. Structural warnings cascaded across the console as the remaining engines screamed under the impossible load. Starscream pushed the controls one last time, trying to angle the city’s descent away from the dense industrial ridges below.
The southern side dipped.
Exactly where Engines Five and Six had been torn away.
The weakened structure folded first.
Vos groaned like a dying machine.
Skywarp looked from the ground racing up to Starscream. “That’s it.”
Starscream did not answer. Another violent tremor ran through the tower as the southern districts began to shear downward. The city was breaking apart.
Skywarp grabbed him.
The world snapped sideways in a flash of violet distortion, and the command tower vanished.
They reappeared high above the falling city.
Starscream barely had time to orient himself before the crash began.
The southern edge of Vos struck first.
The impact was catastrophic.
The entire underside of the city crumpled against the metallic plains of Cybertron, sending an enormous shockwave across the surrounding terrain. Towers collapsed inward as the massive aerial structure tore itself apart along the weakened engine mounts. Sections of the city slammed into the ground in a chain reaction of thunderous impacts. Plating ripped free. Industrial stacks folded. Entire districts shattered as the rest of Vos followed the collapsing southern edge down.
The command tower struck last.
The central spine of the city buckled and collapsed into the wreckage beneath it as the remains of the aerial metropolis settled across the surface of Cybertron.
The dust cloud rose for kilometers.
Skywarp hovered beside Starscream, one arm still locked around him.
Starscream said nothing.
Below them, the ruins of Vos spread across the ground where the city had once ruled the sky.
The dust cloud rolled outward from the wreckage. Fragments of towers still shifted as sections of the city settled into the metallic plains below. Fires were already starting in several districts where energon lines had ruptured during the crash.
Skywarp glanced at him. “Thrusters.”
Starscream’s stabilizers were still folded.
He activated them absently. The small guidance thrusters ignited along his frame, and he steadied himself in the air beside Skywarp.
Neither of them spoke.
Below them, Vos lay broken across the surface of Cybertron.
Starscream’s comm unit began to signal.
He ignored it.
The alert chimed again.
And again.
Skywarp glanced toward him. “You might want to answer that.”
Starscream did not respond.
Skywarp looked at the incoming identifier on the display. “That’s Megatron.”
Starscream remained silent for another moment.
Skywarp nudged him slightly. “You should probably take that.”
Starscream finally opened the channel. “Yes.”
Megatron’s voice came through the line immediately. “Report.”
Starscream did not answer at once. He was still looking down at the wreckage. The remains of Vos stretched for kilometers across the metallic plains. Sections of the once-floating city were still settling into place, towers leaning against each other at impossible angles while fires burned in several districts.
Skywarp’s comm suddenly crackled to life.
“SIR! SIR!”
Skywarp blinked and answered. “Go.”
“One intruder caught trying to escape!”
Starscream did not react at first.
Skywarp frowned. “Say again.”
“A saboteur, sir. He was trying to flee the crash site.”
A short pause.
“He works for Sentinel Prime.”
Starscream’s head snapped up.
The shock in his red optics vanished instantly.
Fury replaced it.
Not loud. Not uncontrolled. Worse than that. It locked through his frame so sharply that his wings flared before he forced them back. His posture went rigid, every line of his body tightening around the force of it. The heat in his optics burned bright enough that Skywarp actually stopped speaking.
Starscream tried to contain it.
He almost managed.
“Alive?” he asked.
The voice on the channel hesitated. "Yes, sir.”
Starscream’s expression hardened into something cold enough to cut. “Bring him to me.”
He cut the channel and finally turned his attention back to Megatron.
“Sentinel sabotaged the lift engines.”
Below them, the broken remains of Vos burned across the surface of Cybertron.
Starscream watched the wreckage. Smoke was still rising from several districts of the shattered city. Fires spread slowly through broken towers while evacuation craft circled the debris field searching for survivors.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then, with deliberate control, he gave Megatron the report he should have given at the start.
“Vos is down.”
Silence answered him.
Not static.
Silence.
Skywarp looked from Starscream to the comm signal still open between them. Finally, he leaned closer to the channel. “We had an intruder. Explosives placed in the engine housings. Three engines gone before we even knew what was happening.” He gestured toward the ruined city below them, though Megatron could not see it. “One of them jumped straight into Engine Six. That’s what finished it. There was no fixing it in time.”
The channel remained open.
Megatron finally spoke. “Casualties.”
“Unknown,” Starscream answered without looking away from the wreckage. “Evacuation was underway before impact.”
Another moment of silence followed.
Megatron’s voice returned, lower now. “Cause.”
“Sabotage,” Starscream said. His wings shifted once, sharp and angry, before he locked them still. “One of the intruders has been captured.”
Skywarp nodded slightly beside him. “Tried to run after the crash.”
Megatron did not answer immediately. Starscream could almost hear the calculation on the other end of the line.
Then Megatron gave the order.
“Bring him to Kaon.”
Starscream’s optics returned briefly to the wreckage below. “What about Vos?”
Megatron’s answer came without hesitation. “Vos will be accounted for. The war continues.”
The words were hard, but not dismissive. Command did not stop for grief. Sentinel had struck Vos because the war mattered, because Starscream mattered, because the skies mattered. Megatron understood that as clearly as Starscream did.
The channel closed.
Skywarp let out a slow breath.
“Well.”
Starscream watched the broken city for another moment longer.
Then he turned.
“Take me to the prisoner.”