Starscream: Rise of the Air Commander

The Tarn Research Complex was quiet. Too quiet. Starscream stopped in front of the sealed laboratory door while Thundercracker folded his arms beside him. “Still think this is a good idea?” Starscream studied the access panel. “Yes.” The answer came without hesitation, though the stillness of the corridor pressed against his systems in a way that made even the air feel monitored. The research complex should not have been empty. Tarn did not build facilities like this for display. Laboratories here were meant to function: shifts, assistants, security, technicians, cargo traffic, data transfers, power cycling through high-load equipment. Instead, the corridor outside Shockwave’s lab held the thin silence of a place cleared too deliberately. Starscream entered the credentials he had pulled from the research registry. For one moment, the panel remained dark. Then the lock released, and the door opened. The laboratory lights were already on. Starscream stepped inside, and the figure standing in the center of the room turned toward them. For a moment, none of them spoke. Shockwave’s frame was unmistakable, but everything else had changed. Where once there had been facial features, there was now a smooth metal faceplate, cold and featureless beneath the line of his cranial armor. Where two red optics had watched the Senate chamber, only a single optic remained, bright yellow and fixed with terrible steadiness. His hands were no longer hands, but altered clamps, precise and mechanical, built for function rather than expression. The rest of his frame stood rigid and intact, but the changes were not repairs. They were punishment. Skywarp blinked. “Oh.” Thundercracker’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Scrap.” Starscream stepped forward slowly. “Shockwave.” The yellow optic focused on him. “Starscream.” The voice was the same. Calm. Measured. As though nothing unusual had happened. That, more than the altered faceplate, made something tighten behind Starscream’s own optics. Shockwave should have sounded angry. Or shaken. Or furious. Or even cold in the way a mech became cold when rage had been deliberately contained. Instead, he sounded exact. Too exact. A perfect measurement delivered from a frame that had just been mutilated. Starscream studied him carefully. “They removed you from the Senate.” Shockwave tilted his head slightly. “Correct.” Thundercracker looked uneasy. “They also removed your face.” Shockwave’s optic brightened faintly. “Also correct.” Skywarp glanced between them. “So… you’re not going back, right?” Shockwave turned toward the work console beside him. “No.” The answer had no hesitation. No bitterness. No grief. Starscream watched him. “You held the floor because the Senate was acting illogically.” Shockwave activated a projection field displaying several energy distribution graphs. “Yes.” “You could have continued arguing your position.” Shockwave turned back toward them, the single optic glowing steadily. “That would be illogical.” Thundercracker frowned. “How?” Shockwave gestured toward his altered head with one clamp. “The Senate demonstrated its response to logical opposition.” A brief pause followed. “They cannot be reasoned with.” Starscream said nothing. “If logic cannot exist within the Senate,” Shockwave continued, turning back toward the console, “then my presence there serves no purpose.” Skywarp scratched the back of his head. “Well, that’s one way to quit your job.” Starscream was still studying him. There it was again, that impossible calm. No tremor in the voice. No visible anger in the posture. No sign that Shockwave regarded what had been done to him as anything more than data added to an existing conclusion. The Senate had not simply altered his body. They had tried to alter his response. “Did they do anything else?” Starscream asked. Shockwave paused briefly. “Yes. An inhibitor device was installed during the Empurata procedure.” Starscream’s optics narrowed. “Empurata.” Shockwave inclined his head. “Correct. A punitive body-alteration procedure. Rare in modern application. Reserved for extreme political, social, or functional correction.” Thundercracker’s wings shifted sharply behind him. “Correction?” Shockwave’s optic moved to him. “That is the official terminology.” Skywarp’s expression darkened. “That’s not correction.” “No,” Starscream said quietly. It was a warning. Shockwave turned back toward the console. “The inhibitor suppresses emotional response and limits affective interference with cognitive function.” Starscream watched him. “That is why you are calm.” Shockwave’s optic returned to him. “Partially.” The word landed heavier than a denial. Skywarp blinked again, then gestured vaguely toward Shockwave. “Wait. So you didn’t just decide to become… this?” Shockwave focused on him. “Negative.” “They took your emotions?” “They suppressed them.” A short silence followed. That distinction did not make it better. Thundercracker’s jaw tightened, and for once he did not have an immediate comment. Skywarp looked as though he wanted to make one and could not find the right shape for it. Starscream held still. The Senate had erased Shockwave from the records, then altered him and expected silence to finish the work. Instead, Shockwave had returned to his laboratory. Back to data. Back to systems. Back to the work the Senate had failed to understand. Skywarp, because he was Skywarp, asked the next question anyway. “So…” Thundercracker’s optics narrowed. “Oh no.” Skywarp continued, gesturing with one hand. “Soundwave.” Shockwave’s optic remained steady. “Yes.” “He works for Ratbat.” “Yes.” Skywarp tilted his head. “Is he your brother or something?” Thundercracker stared at him. Starscream did not move. Shockwave answered immediately. “Affirmative.” The room went very still. Thundercracker’s head turned slowly toward Skywarp. Skywarp looked briefly delighted and horrified by his own success. “I was joking.” “Your statement was accurate,” Shockwave said. Starscream remained silent. The pieces were beginning to align. Ratbat. Soundwave. Shockwave. The Senate. The blue mech appearing near Shockwave’s disappearance. The records ending. The altered file. The empty detention level. Starscream finally spoke. “They tried to erase you.” Shockwave’s optic flickered once. “Correct.” Starscream looked around the laboratory. “But they failed.” Shockwave turned slightly toward the workbench behind him. “That conclusion remains… undetermined.” For several moments, none of them spoke. The change in Shockwave’s appearance still hung heavily in the room, and yet Shockwave himself did not seem to bend beneath it. That was the part Starscream could not decide whether to respect or despise on the Senate’s behalf. They had taken expression from him, dampened emotional response, reshaped the very interface by which a mech met the world, and still he stood among his own instruments, calculating. Starscream was the first to move past it. He stepped closer to the central console. “Shockwave.” The single optic turned toward him. “Yes.” Starscream did not waste time. “What do you know about Kaon?” Thundercracker glanced sideways while Skywarp leaned against one of the lab benches. Shockwave considered the question for only a fraction of a second. “Clarify.” “The gladiatorial arenas.” Shockwave’s optic flickered slightly. “Ah.” He turned back to the console and activated a projection. A map of Cybertron appeared in the air above the workstation, and the southern industrial regions illuminated. “Kaon currently receives a disproportionate allocation of energon resources.” Starscream nodded once. “You attempted to expose that in the Senate.” “Yes.” Skywarp tilted his head. “So the pits are using all the energon?” Shockwave shook his head. “Incorrect.” Several new data streams appeared above the map. “The gladiatorial arenas consume relatively little energy.” Starscream leaned slightly forward. “Then why is Ratbat protecting them?” Shockwave adjusted the projection. “Because they generate capital.” Thundercracker frowned. “Betting?” Shockwave nodded once. “Among other revenue streams.” Starscream watched the numbers scroll across the display. Large numbers. Very large numbers. “Ratbat’s financial networks profit heavily from the arenas,” Shockwave said. Skywarp grinned slightly. “So the Senate bans the pits…” “And the fights continue illegally,” Shockwave finished. Thundercracker sighed. “Which makes them even more profitable.” Shockwave’s optic focused briefly on Starscream. “Correct.” Starscream considered the projection. The Senate had outlawed the arenas believing—or pretending to believe—that prohibition would diminish the movement forming inside them. But if Ratbat profited from legal arenas and illegal ones, then the ban did not harm him. It changed the structure of profit. It forced the fights out of formal oversight and into channels easier for a corrupt senator to tax, skim, or conceal. No wonder Ratbat had remained silent during the vote. He had not needed to win the debate. He only needed the Senate to make the profitable mistake. “Who operates the arenas?” Starscream asked. Shockwave expanded the map again, and a series of industrial districts highlighted across Kaon. “The arenas are constructed and maintained by independent engineering crews.” Starscream studied the highlighted districts. Construction teams. Industrial labor. Mobile infrastructure. The Senate believed the arenas were simple pits, but the data suggested something far larger. Skywarp looked up at the projection. “So if the Senate shut them down…” “They will move,” Shockwave replied calmly. Starscream’s optics narrowed slightly. “Mobile arenas.” Shockwave inclined his head. “Logical.” Starscream looked back at the projection. Somewhere in Kaon, someone was already preparing for that. The notion was almost elegant in its practicality. If the Senate made the arenas illegal, the arenas became harder to inspect, harder to regulate, and easier to relocate. The crowds would follow the fights. The rhetoric would follow the crowds. The profits would follow both. The Senate had not stopped anything. It had made the structure more flexible. Starscream studied the projection in silence. Energy allocations. Financial networks. Arena construction sites. The information was detailed. Too detailed. Starscream looked up. “Shockwave.” The single optic turned toward him. “Yes.” “These figures are current.” Shockwave inclined his head. “Correct.” Starscream narrowed his optics slightly. “The Senate erased you from their records less than a cycle ago.” Shockwave did not respond. “Which raises an obvious question,” Starscream continued. Thundercracker glanced between them. Starscream finished it. “How did you obtain this information?” Shockwave answered immediately. “Soundwave.” Skywarp blinked. “Wait.” Thundercracker folded his arms. “The same Soundwave working for Ratbat?” Shockwave nodded once. “Yes.” Starscream’s optics narrowed slightly further. “Explain.” Shockwave deactivated several data streams and replaced them with a communications network diagram. “Soundwave maintains extensive information channels within Kaon.” Skywarp tilted his head. “So he’s spying on Ratbat?” “Observing,” Shockwave corrected. Thundercracker shook his head. “That’s the same thing.” Shockwave’s optic focused briefly on Starscream. “Soundwave shares information when it is relevant.” Starscream considered that carefully. “Relevant to whom?” Shockwave answered without hesitation. “To Cybertron.” Skywarp chuckled. “Your brother has a funny way of working for Ratbat.” Shockwave’s optic brightened faintly. “Soundwave’s loyalty is… complex.” Starscream looked back at the projection. Ratbat. Kaon. The gladiator pits. Mobile arenas. And now Soundwave watching it all from inside Ratbat’s own office. “Then your brother may be the most valuable source of information on Cybertron,” Starscream said. Shockwave answered calmly. “Logical.” Starscream studied the projection for several seconds. Ratbat’s financial networks. Energy redistribution. Arena construction across Kaon. All of it traced through Soundwave’s information channels. Finally, he looked up. “Does Ratbat know?” Shockwave’s optic remained steady. “Negative.” Skywarp raised an optic. “So your brother is spying on his own employer.” “Observing任務,” Shockwave corrected. Thundercracker folded his arms. “That sounds like spying.” Shockwave ignored the distinction. Starscream’s gaze sharpened slightly. “Why would Soundwave provide this information to you?” Shockwave answered immediately. “Because it is necessary.” Starscream did not look convinced. Shockwave studied him for a moment, then added something unusual. “Soundwave’s position within Ratbat’s office is a facade.” Thundercracker blinked. Skywarp leaned forward slightly. “Meaning what exactly?” Shockwave’s optic dimmed slightly. “That information is not required.” Starscream narrowed his optics. “You are refusing to answer.” Shockwave inclined his head slightly. “Yes.” Skywarp laughed softly. “Wow.” Thundercracker sighed. “That’s helpful.” Shockwave returned his attention to the projection. “Soundwave will continue to provide information when appropriate.” Starscream studied him carefully. Even with an inhibitor suppressing emotion, Shockwave was clearly protecting something. Or someone. It made the facade more interesting. Officially, Soundwave was Ratbat’s information analyst. Practically, he supplied Shockwave with live information after Shockwave had been erased from Senate systems. Strategically, he occupied a position close enough to Ratbat to watch his channels and yet far enough beneath notice that the Senate had not moved against him. Or had not realized it should. Starscream finally looked back at the map of Kaon. Ratbat. The pits. The mobile arenas. And Soundwave, standing quietly inside the center of it all. “Your brother is playing a dangerous game,” Starscream said quietly. Shockwave answered without hesitation. “Yes.” Starscream continued studying the projection of Kaon. Industrial districts. Arena construction zones. Financial flows tied back to Ratbat’s networks. It was an intricate system. But systems always had a center. Starscream looked up. “If Ratbat profits from the arenas…” Shockwave’s optic remained steady. “Yes.” “And the arenas will continue illegally…” “Correct.” Starscream folded his arms. “Then someone must be organizing them.” Shockwave deactivated the projection. “Yes.” Thundercracker glanced between them. “You mean Ratbat?” Shockwave shook his head. “Ratbat profits from the system.” Skywarp leaned forward. “So who runs it?” Shockwave answered calmly. “The gladiator.” The room was quiet for a moment. Starscream considered that. “Megatron.” Shockwave nodded once. “Yes.” Thundercracker frowned. “The Senate thinks banning the arenas will stop him.” Shockwave’s optic flickered faintly. “That assumption is incorrect.” Starscream already knew that. Skywarp tilted his head. “So if we want to know what Ratbat’s actually doing…” “You should locate the gladiator,” Shockwave finished. Starscream studied him carefully. “You believe he is the center of the movement.” Shockwave answered simply. “Yes.” Skywarp grinned. “Well, that sounds fun.” Thundercracker sighed. “That is exactly what worries me.” Starscream turned back toward the projection of Kaon. The gladiator pits. Worker unrest. Illegal arenas already forming beneath the Senate’s notice. Megatron had entered his awareness as a projection in the Senate chamber, a defiant figure used as evidence for a ban. Now he was something else. Not merely a fighter. Not merely a disturbance. A center. The Senate feared him. Ratbat profited from the systems around him. Soundwave watched from the shadows of Ratbat’s office. Shockwave, mutilated and erased, still considered him relevant. “If Megatron is driving this,” Starscream said quietly, optics narrowing slightly, “then understanding him may explain the rest.” Shockwave inclined his head. “Logical.”