Continuity: The Seeker Arcs
The planet had no name.
Not yet.
It hung below them in quiet bands of blue, white, brown, and green, veiled in cloud systems that curled across its atmosphere in slow, elegant spirals. Starscream circled above the northern hemisphere, engines balanced against the planet’s gravity, his scanners sweeping the surface through gaps in the cloud cover. The world turned beneath him, primitive and unclaimed, full of atmosphere, weather, liquid water, and more organic activity than any planet that young had any right to possess.
Interesting.
Not strategically useful. Not immediately.
But interesting.
“Atmospheric density is stable,” Skyfire reported over the private science channel. His signal came from several hundred mechanometers below and west, steady despite the interference rising from the planet’s magnetic poles. “Oxygen-heavy. Nitrogen base. Trace gases within expected tolerances for an organic biosphere.”
Starscream adjusted his flight path, slicing along the outer edge of a cloud bank while his instruments drank in data. “Expected tolerances are for planets that behave themselves.”
Skyfire’s answering tone carried the faint patience Starscream had heard a thousand times before. “Planets do not behave. They exist.”
“Then this one exists inconveniently.”
“You say that about most planets.”
“Most planets are inconvenient.”
Skyfire laughed softly across the channel, and Starscream banked harder than necessary, skimming through the upper atmosphere as a new line of readings unfolded across his internal display. Pressure changes. Temperature gradients. Magnetic distortion increasing toward the pole. Wind velocities were climbing faster than projected, but not yet beyond manageable levels.
Starscream filed the readings and opened a new scan path.
Below him, the surface appeared briefly through a break in the clouds. White sheets of ice spread across the polar region, broken by dark ridges of exposed rock and deep blue cracks where frozen mass had shifted over time. The planet’s star caught the ice and scattered light sharply enough to make his optical filters adjust.
A crude world.
A beautiful one, if one allowed imprecision in language.
Starscream did not.
“Polar cap composition confirmed,” he said. “Water ice, mineral particulates, and underlying stone. No artificial structures detected.”
“Same on my pass,” Skyfire replied. “Organic signatures increase closer to the lower latitudes. Nothing technological.”
“Nothing advanced enough to matter.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Starscream rolled through a controlled descent, bringing himself closer to the cloud layer while a ribbon of storm activity moved along the horizon. “If it cannot leave the planet, communicate beyond the planet, or challenge our presence, it does not matter for this survey.”
“It matters scientifically.”
“That is different.”
“Yes,” Skyfire said. “That was my point.”
Starscream allowed himself a brief, sharp smile. Skyfire always did that. He would correct without attacking, disagree without turning it into insult, and somehow make patience sound more infuriating than criticism.
It was one of his better traits.
Possibly.
Their expedition had been assigned to chart unregistered worlds along an outer galactic path far from Cybertron’s political centers. Most of the work was routine: gravity, atmosphere, surface composition, satellite count, magnetic stability, resource indicators, and signs of emerging life or civilization. Starscream had accepted the assignment because deep-space survey work offered rare freedom from administrative incompetence and from Vosian officials who liked the prestige of science but understood almost none of it.
Skyfire had accepted because he genuinely wanted to see what existed beyond Cybertron’s maps.
Starscream had called that sentimental.
Skyfire had called it curiosity.
They had both been correct, though Starscream had no intention of admitting that.
A warning flashed across Starscream’s display.
WIND SHEAR INCREASE: NORTHERN POLAR BAND.
He narrowed his optics and pulled the data into focus. The storm system he had been tracking was growing faster than it should have. Several atmospheric streams had converged along the magnetic pole, colliding with a cold-pressure mass rising from the ice fields below. The pattern was not impossible. It was simply aggressive.
“Skyfire.”
“I see it,” Skyfire answered before Starscream could continue. “Wind velocities are rising.”
“Too quickly.”
“Yes.”
Starscream adjusted his heading, bringing himself above the storm’s leading edge. Clouds below twisted into layered bands, bright white at the top and darkening toward the center. Lightning flickered within the mass, not the clean plasma behavior of Cybertronian weather systems but jagged atmospheric discharge, chaotic and irregular.
“Magnetic interference increasing,” Skyfire reported. “I am losing resolution on lower-altitude scans.”
“Then climb.”
“I am still within tolerance.”
Starscream glanced at the data stream showing Skyfire’s position. “Your tolerance or the equipment’s?”
A pause.
“Both.”
“Unconvincing.”
“Accurate.”
Starscream swept his scanners across the storm again. The system was widening as it moved, and the upper winds had begun curling back over themselves. Rotational force was building along the polar axis, fed by temperature differences between the ice cap and the warmer oceanic currents farther south.
It was impressive.
Starscream disliked impressive weather. Weather was only impressive when it was about to become a problem.
“We should finish the polar pass and withdraw to higher orbit,” Skyfire said.
Starscream’s response came instantly. “No.”
“Starscream.”
“We are not finished.”
“The storm is expanding.”
“And we are faster than the storm.”
“For now.”
Starscream angled down along the storm’s edge, collecting pressure and electromagnetic readings while the air thickened around him. “This is the first complex polar system this planet has produced during our survey window. Leaving now would be scientifically negligent.”
Skyfire’s silence was longer this time.
Starscream knew what it meant without needing to see his expression.
“You are considering calling me reckless,” Starscream said.
“I was considering saying ambitious.”
“Less honest.”
“More polite.”
“I do not require polite.”
“No,” Skyfire replied. “You rarely do.”
Starscream smirked and pushed lower.
The wind caught him almost immediately.
It struck from beneath his left wing in a sudden violent burst, forcing him to correct harder than expected. His frame shuddered once as the gust rolled over his plating, cold and dense with particulate ice. He compensated, engines flaring, and climbed back into a steadier current.
Skyfire’s voice sharpened. “You felt that.”
“I corrected it.”
“That is not the same as dismissing it.”
“I am not dismissing it. I am measuring it.”
“Starscream.”
The warning tone was stronger now.
Starscream looked toward the storm center again.
The cloud mass had darkened.
That was new.
The upper layer collapsed inward as another pressure stream struck from the west, dragging colder air into the central rotation. The storm expanded in a sudden bloom across the polar field, faster than his models had predicted. Wind velocity readings jumped. Magnetic disruption spiked.
Starscream’s scanner feed fractured into static for half a second before stabilizing.
He frowned.
“Skyfire, climb now.”
No argument came.
“I’m climbing.”
Starscream turned sharply, engines burning hotter as he angled away from the storm’s leading wall. The upper atmosphere should have offered a clean exit route. Instead, the storm’s vertical development accelerated. Clouds surged upward in towers that swallowed the horizon ahead, and the wind changed direction so violently that Starscream had to roll sideways through it to keep control.
“Starscream, my instruments are degrading,” Skyfire said.
“Switch to short-range navigation and inertial tracking.”
“Already done.”
“Maintain heading forty-two by six.”
“Trying.”
The word hit wrong.
Starscream looked at Skyfire’s position marker.
It flickered.
Then jumped.
Then vanished for a fraction of a second.
“Skyfire.”
“I’m here.”
The answer came through heavy static.
Starscream banked toward the last stable signal. “Your transponder is failing.”
“Magnetic interference is disrupting the return. I still have partial guidance.”
“Climb above the cloud wall.”
“I can’t find the edge.”
For the first time, Starscream did not answer immediately.
The storm rose between them now, a massive polar wall of cloud and ice, twisting faster with every second. Lightning illuminated the interior in broken flashes. Sensor data turned unreliable across half his display. His own altitude readings remained stable, but external position tracking was degrading rapidly.
“Skyfire, transmit full position burst.”
“Sending.”
A data packet struck Starscream’s systems through the storm noise. He caught it, locked it, and overlaid it against his own trajectory.
Too far.
Skyfire had been pushed deeper into the storm’s rotational band.
Starscream’s engines flared.
He dove.
“Starscream, do not enter the storm.”
“I am already entering it.”
“That is not a plan.”
“It is a correction.”
The cloud swallowed him.
Visibility disappeared. White and gray filled every optical channel, dense enough that even enhanced filters could barely cut through the churn. Ice struck his plating in a steady hammering barrage. Wind slammed into him from three directions in rapid succession, forcing him to twist, roll, and burn thrust to keep from being thrown sideways.
His scanners degraded instantly.
Starscream switched to inertial guidance, then to short-range radar, then layered both against the last coordinates Skyfire had transmitted. The storm screamed over his wings. Lightning flashed close enough to scatter static across his internal systems.
“Skyfire, respond.”
Static.
Starscream pushed harder.
“Skyfire.”
A broken signal came back. “—here—”
“Transmit again.”
“Trying—systems—”
The channel tore into interference.
Starscream snarled and forced himself lower through the storm wall. The air density increased, dragging against him. His right wing clipped a brutal crosscurrent, and for one sickening moment the storm rolled him nearly vertical. He corrected with raw engine power, frame straining as the wind tried to tear him off course.
He was not afraid.
Fear was useless.
He was angry.
The storm had changed too quickly. Their models had been insufficient. The planet’s polar weather behaved with violent instability, and Skyfire was somewhere inside that instability with failing navigation and signal loss.
Starscream would correct the error.
He would find him.
Another burst of signal snapped across his comm.
“Starscream—”
“Skyfire!”
“Can’t—maintain altitude—wind shear—”
“Turn to heading one-eight-seven and climb. I am approaching from your northeast.”
“I don’t know where northeast is.”
Starscream’s jaw tightened. “Then follow my signal.”
“Your signal is breaking.”
“Then follow it anyway.”
He increased transmission strength, burning more energy than he should have, forcing his beacon through the interference. His fuel reserve warning flashed amber. He ignored it.
Skyfire’s transponder flickered back onto his display.
For two seconds.
Then the storm shifted again.
A violent polar gust tore across Starscream’s path and threw him downward. The pressure change hit like a physical blow. Alarms flared. He lost altitude too fast, ice and static filling his optics as the storm dragged him into a spiral. He fired his engines hard enough to strain the output regulators and clawed his way back into controlled flight.
When his display stabilized, Skyfire’s marker was gone.
“Skyfire!”
Only static answered.
Starscream climbed, then banked, sweeping the last known area with every scanner he had left. The storm returned fragments: ice, pressure distortion, electrical noise, his own signal bouncing back in fractured echoes. No stable contact. No transponder lock. No visual.
He opened the channel again. “Skyfire, respond.”
Nothing.
He widened the search pattern.
“Skyfire, respond.”
Static.
Starscream turned into another pass, cutting across the storm’s rotation. His fuel warning shifted from amber to red.
He ignored that too.
The storm struck him again. This time it carried heavier ice, fragments large enough to dent plating and score his wings. One impact hit his left stabilizer hard enough to send damage warnings across his display. His flight path wavered. He corrected.
“Skyfire.”
Still nothing.
He descended lower, toward the ice fields.
His radar caught the surface through brief gaps in interference: jagged ridges, frozen plains, pressure cracks large enough to swallow a Cybertronian whole. Skyfire could have gone down anywhere. He could have been buried in ice. He could have been forced beneath the cloud layer. He could have—
Starscream cut the thought off.
Speculation without data was useless.
He searched.
Again.
And again.
He flew widening spirals through the polar storm until his systems began protesting in earnest. Fuel reserves critical. Stabilizer damage increasing. Right intake partially obstructed by ice particulate. Navigation unreliable. Signal degradation severe. Recommended action: withdraw.
Starscream shut off the warning.
The silence lasted less than a klik before another one replaced it.
FUEL RESERVE CRITICAL.
He shut that off too.
“Skyfire,” he transmitted again, voice sharper now. “Answer.”
The storm answered with static.
Starscream climbed above the lower cloud layer and angled back toward the last coordinate point. He had already searched it twice. He searched it again. There was no logic in repeating the same pass with the same instruments in the same conditions.
He did it anyway.
Nothing.
He expanded the radius until the fuel warning began pulsing across every display.
He could remain another few breems.
No.
Less than that.
If he stayed too long, he would not have enough energy to break orbit. If he failed to break orbit, he would go down in the same storm, and then there would be no report, no coordinates, no record, no one on Cybertron who knew where Skyfire had been lost.
The thought hit with unbearable clarity.
If Starscream stayed, Skyfire still might not be found.
If Starscream left, Skyfire might still be alive somewhere below.
There was no winning calculation.
Only loss arranged in different patterns.
Starscream hovered just above the cloud wall, engines straining, storm lightning flickering beneath him. His systems screamed at him to withdraw. His processors offered the same conclusion again and again, each time colder than the last.
Fuel insufficient for continued search and safe return.
Search conditions below viable threshold.
Signal contact lost.
Survival probability declining for both units.
Withdraw.
Starscream stared down into the storm.
“No,” he said.
No one heard it.
He opened the channel one last time, pushing his transmitter to maximum strength. The signal tore outward across the polar region, distorted by the storm but carrying as far as he could force it.
“Skyfire, this is Starscream. Respond.”
Static.
He waited.
The storm churned below him.
“Skyfire. Respond.”
Nothing.
His fuel warning became a continuous tone.
Starscream recorded the last stable position. He locked the coordinates into protected storage, then copied them twice, then embedded them into the expedition report under priority marking. The numbers burned across his display.
Last confirmed Skyfire signal.
Planetary survey designation pending.
Northern polar region.
Storm interference extreme.
Search incomplete.
Search incomplete.
The words were unacceptable.
They were true.
Starscream’s hands tightened around nothing as his systems dragged another warning across his vision. If he delayed any longer, he would lose the return window.
He turned away from the storm.
The motion felt wrong in every joint of his frame.
He climbed hard, engines burning dangerously low, forcing himself through the upper atmosphere while the polar storm raged below him. The planet fell away by degrees, white clouds curling around the pole where Skyfire’s signal had vanished. Starscream did not look away until atmospheric drag released him and the black of space opened ahead.
Only then did the storm become small.
Only then did the planet become just another sphere below him.
Starscream hated it for that.
A world that could swallow a Cybertronian and then look peaceful from orbit was not beautiful. It was insulting.
He reached the survey vessel with fuel reserves so low the docking system issued an emergency capture before he could complete a standard approach. The clamps took hold of him and pulled him into the bay. He transformed the moment gravity stabilized beneath him, landing harder than intended as his systems protested the transition.
The docking bay was empty.
It should not have been.
Skyfire should have been there ahead of him, already questioning why Starscream had cut the return so close, already preparing to point out the obvious damage to his stabilizer, already calm in that infuriating way he had when he was right.
But the bay was empty.
Starscream stood there in the silence, scorched, iced, half-frozen along one wing, fuel-depleted and shaking with restrained system strain.
He opened the expedition log.
For several seconds, he did not enter anything.
Then he began.
Survey Team: Starscream, Skyfire.
Mission: Planetary charting.
Status: incomplete.
Incident: severe polar storm.
Unit Skyfire: missing.
Last known coordinates attached.
Starscream stared at the word missing.
Not dead.
Missing.
There was a difference.
There had to be.
He saved the file, locked the coordinates, and sent the vessel into departure sequence before his fuel systems had fully stabilized. The ship protested, running automated warnings about pilot condition, incomplete survey data, and recommended recovery time.
Starscream overrode all of them.
Cybertron waited far beyond the dark.
He would return.
He would report the data.
He would state the facts.
He would say that the storm separated them. That he searched until fuel loss and damage forced withdrawal. That Skyfire’s last coordinates were preserved. That the planet remained unnamed pending survey completion.
He would not say the rest.
He would not say that leaving felt like failure.
He would not say that the last thing he heard was Skyfire’s voice breaking apart in static.
He would not say that some part of him still expected the comm to open and Skyfire to correct his flight angle, or his tone, or his conclusion.
Starscream stood alone in the dim command bay as the survey vessel turned away from the unnamed planet.
Below, the polar storm continued to churn over the ice.
Above, the stars opened toward Cybertron.
Starscream locked Skyfire’s last coordinates into his systems and did not look away from them until the planet disappeared behind him.
For the first time in his life, calculation felt like defeat.