Ratbat did not return to the Senate chamber.
Starscream noticed before the session even began. The Kaonian platform stood active, its console lit and prepared, but the senator himself was absent. No formal announcement had been made. No excuse had been entered into the day’s agenda. The platform simply waited, empty in the middle of the chamber’s usual pre-session murmuring.
Starscream stood on the platform assigned to Vos and watched the empty seat across the amphitheater with narrowed optics. Above him, Thundercracker leaned over the gallery rail. “Anything interesting?”
Starscream scanned the agenda scrolling across his console without really needing to: trade disputes, transport regulations, industrial production quotas. Routine matters. Nothing about Vos, nothing about Kaon’s arenas, and nothing that explained Ratbat’s absence. “No.”
Thundercracker smirked. “That’s disappointing.”
“Not entirely,” Starscream said, his attention still fixed on Ratbat’s platform.
A moment later, a familiar blue figure stepped onto the Kaonian platform.
Soundwave.
Thundercracker’s expression shifted immediately. “Well.”
Starscream said nothing. Soundwave stood calmly at the platform console, red visor angled toward the session agenda as though the seat belonged to him. His posture was exact, his movements controlled and economical. He did not look like a senator’s aide fumbling through borrowed authority. He looked like a mech standing precisely where he intended to stand.
As far as the Senate appeared concerned, Ratbat had sent Soundwave to act in his stead.
Starscream was not so certain the truth was that simple.
Sentinel Prime entered the chamber shortly afterward and called the session to order. “The Senate of Cybertron is now in session.”
The chamber quieted, and the day’s work began. Starscream watched Ratbat’s platform carefully as Sentinel moved through the agenda. Trade matters. Mining allocations. Infrastructure approvals. A dispute over transport scheduling between two minor city-states that should have been settled in a side office rather than brought before the Senate floor.
Vos was not mentioned. Not once.
Thundercracker leaned closer over the railing. “That’s strange.”
“Yes,” Starscream said quietly.
After Ratbat’s insistence the previous cycle, the silence around Vos was notable. Ratbat had not merely lost a debate; he had stopped appearing in the room. His voice, once so smooth and persistent in shaping every conversation about energy, was gone.
Thundercracker frowned. “You think Ratbat gave up?”
“No,” Starscream said, optics remaining fixed on Soundwave.
Soundwave had not spoken once since the session began. He simply observed, reviewing data streams across the console while the Senate continued its business around him. Without Ratbat’s voice driving the conversation, the chamber moved with unusual efficiency. Debates were shorter. Objections were fewer. Several proposals passed with barely enough argument to justify calling them deliberations.
Thundercracker noticed it too. “He’s not even pretending to be Ratbat.”
“No.”
“So where is Ratbat?”
Starscream watched Soundwave adjust the console. For a fraction of a second, the blue mech’s chest compartment shifted slightly as an internal mechanism settled. No one in the chamber noticed.
Starscream did.
The motion was small, almost hidden beneath the angle of Soundwave’s arm and the shifting light from the platform. But Starscream had seen enough now to understand what he was looking at. The small red-and-black cassette-framed scout Skywarp had described. The one who knew where the arena would be. Skywarp had called him Frenzy, though Starscream had not yet met him directly.
Starscream did not know the scout himself, but he knew the shape of the system.
Soundwave was not merely present. Soundwave was operating.
Ratbat’s platform remained active. Ratbat’s vote remained registered. Ratbat himself remained absent.
Starscream folded his arms slowly. Something had changed. Ratbat had pushed relentlessly to ground Vos. Now his seat was quiet, his arguments gone, his presence reduced to a silent proxy who spoke nothing at all. And inside that silence, Soundwave’s network continued to move.
Thundercracker followed his gaze. “You’re doing that thinking thing.”
“Yes.”
“That usually means something bad.”
“Not bad.” Starscream continued watching Soundwave. “Different.”
Thundercracker tilted his head. “What does that mean?”
“It means the board just shifted.”
Starscream did not yet know how, but he knew one thing with certainty. Ratbat was no longer the one controlling events in Kaon.
Someone else was.
And at the moment, that someone was standing very quietly on Ratbat’s platform.
By the time the Senate adjourned, Starscream had heard enough. Ratbat had not returned. Soundwave had not explained his absence. Vos had not been raised again. The chamber had behaved as if nothing important had happened, which only convinced Starscream that something important had.
He left the Senate without waiting for the usual corridor conversations. Thundercracker fell into step beside him, while Skywarp appeared from nowhere near a side arch with the casual timing of someone who had either skipped the entire session or watched it from somewhere he was not supposed to be.
“Ratbat’s gone,” Skywarp said.
Thundercracker gave him a look. “We noticed.”
Skywarp grinned. “Just making sure.”
Starscream did not slow. “Vos first.”
Thundercracker’s expression sharpened. “Training?”
“Yes.”
Skywarp’s grin widened. “Finally.”
Starscream gave him a sidelong look. “Do not sound so pleased. You will be useful.”
“That’s why I’m pleased.”
Thundercracker muttered, “That’s why I’m worried.”
Vos was alive with movement when they returned. The city floated in the clean upper air, towers cutting sharp lines against the sky, stabilizer rings glowing beneath the torus structure as the upgraded routing systems continued to settle into full operation. But Starscream’s attention was not on the engineering crews today.
It was on the flyers.
Dozens of Seekers crossed the open air above the platform in loose, independent patterns. Some were former academy flyers who had not flown in disciplined formation since graduation. Some were civilian couriers and transport flyers with speed but little tactical training. Some were maintenance fliers who knew every exterior support route in Vos but had never been asked to think like defenders. A few had raw talent. More had confidence. Almost none had coordination.
Starscream stood on the command platform and watched them finish their test runs across the sky.
Thundercracker’s roster filled the tactical display beside him: names, flight experience, response times, known strengths, known deficiencies. Above the city, contrails crossed and tangled as Skywarp’s chaotic supervision pushed the recruits through sharp turns, sudden altitude changes, and reaction drills that looked improvised only because Skywarp enjoyed making everything look improvised.
A violet flash snapped beside the command tower, and Skywarp appeared on the platform with a theatrical sweep of one hand toward the sky. “Well. Some of them can fly.”
Thundercracker snorted quietly. “And some of them can barely stay in formation.”
“That is expected,” Starscream said, still studying the movement overhead.
Thundercracker leaned against the console. “So what’s the next step?”
Starscream did not answer immediately. Instead, he stepped forward to the edge of the platform and activated the flight control grid. A large projection of the airspace above Vos appeared, showing every Seeker currently flying. Dozens of triangular icons moved across the map.
Independent.
Uncoordinated.
Reactive.
Starscream spoke without turning. “That.”
Thundercracker looked at the display. “What about it?”
Starscream gestured toward the sky where the flyers moved freely through the open air. “They are all flying alone.”
Skywarp tilted his head. “Yeah. That’s kind of the point.”
“No,” Starscream said, shaking his head slightly. “That is the problem.”
Thundercracker followed his gaze back to the sky. “You want formations.”
“Yes.”
He had not accepted Megatron’s offer. Not formally. Not privately. Not even to himself in any way that mattered. But Megatron had been correct about one thing. When the conflict escalated, the skies would matter.
Vos had survived because it remained in the air. It would continue surviving only if it could defend that air. Altivus had cared for the appearance of representation, not preparation. The old Senate-loyal structure had let Vos depend on tradition, altitude, and arrogance. Starscream had no intention of trusting any of those against a war that was already taking shape beneath Cybertron’s surface.
He activated a second projection. Three icons moved into a triangular arrangement on the display.
“One leader,” Starscream said, adjusting the formation slightly. “Two wing positions.”
Skywarp leaned closer to the projection. “Trine formation.”
Starscream nodded. “Yes.”
Thundercracker folded his arms. “That’ll take practice.”
“That is why we train.”
The formation was new. Every Seeker knew what a trine was, whether by culture, academy discipline, combat doctrine, or instinctive social structure. Some formed naturally. Some were assigned in military service. Some never found the right balance and flew alone longer than they should. But a true trine could move through the air with a unity no individual flyer could match.
Starscream’s trine was already known.
Thundercracker on one side. Skywarp on the other. Strength, stability, and disruption built around Starscream’s speed and command. That was the shape the others needed to learn from.
Starscream switched his comm to the flight frequency. “All flyers. Return to the platform.”
The chatter in the channel immediately quieted. Jets began turning back toward the city. One by one, the Seekers landed across the wide deck, transforming into root mode as they gathered near the command tower. Some landed cleanly. Some came in too hot. One nearly clipped a lower rail before correcting at the last second.
Skywarp watched them arrive with obvious delight. “This is going to be fun.”
Thundercracker gave him a dry look. “For you.”
“For everyone if they survive.”
Starscream stepped forward as the last of the Seekers assembled. The wind shifted over the platform, catching against wings and armor as the gathered flyers turned their attention toward him.
“You all fly well individually,” he said.
That earned a few lifted chins, a few confident looks, and one smirk from a young flyer near the back.
Starscream paused slightly. “That will not save Vos.”
The smirk vanished.
Starscream gestured upward toward the open sky. “The air belongs to whoever controls it. Control requires coordination.”
Several wings shifted as the Seekers processed that.
Starscream activated the formation projection again. The triangular trine pattern appeared above the platform, rotating slowly so every flyer could see the spacing and angle.
“This is your new standard,” he said. “One lead. Two wings. Three flyers moving as one unit. No wandering. No drifting. No independent heroics unless ordered. You will learn to fly this pattern until you can hold it without thinking.”
Thundercracker glanced at the display and nodded slightly. “Strike formation.”
“Yes.”
Skywarp folded his arms from the side, grin sharp. “Some of them are going to hate this.”
“They may hate it from the ground if they cannot learn it.”
The message landed clearly.
Thundercracker pushed himself off the console and stepped forward beside him. “Let’s see who can keep up.”
Starscream studied the assembled Seekers for a moment longer. Most of them understood the concept already. That did not mean they understood what it would require. Knowing a formation existed was not the same thing as trusting two other flyers close enough to hold it under pressure.
Starscream turned toward Thundercracker and Skywarp. “You two.”
Skywarp grinned immediately. “Oh good.”
Thundercracker sighed. “I knew that was coming.”
“We will demonstrate,” Starscream said, stepping toward the open edge of the platform.
Thundercracker moved beside him, wings shifting slightly as he prepared to transform. Skywarp stretched his shoulders as if he had not been waiting for this the entire time.
Starscream addressed the gathered Seekers again. “Many of you have flown this formation before. The academy teaches it during advanced aerial coordination.”
Thundercracker nodded. “Third-year flight discipline.”
Skywarp chuckled. “Half the class couldn’t hold it.”
Starscream ignored the comment. “This is not a new concept. It is simply a skill you have not used recently.”
Thundercracker glanced at the assembled flyers. “He’s right. We all learned it.”
“It is only a matter of refreshing your training,” Starscream said.
Skywarp muttered, “And finding out who forgot everything.”
Starscream stepped to the edge of the platform. “Observe.”
In one smooth motion, he transformed. His tetrajet alt mode locked together with a sharp mechanical snap, engines igniting as he lifted cleanly into the open air above Vos.
Thundercracker followed a moment later, transforming and launching upward beside him. Skywarp was last, jumping from the platform and transforming midair before flashing briefly out of existence and reappearing above them.
Three jets circled above the city.
Starscream’s voice came across the flight channel. “Thundercracker. Right wing.”
“Moving.”
“Skywarp. Left.”
A violet flash answered before Skywarp’s voice did. “Already there.”
Thundercracker slid into position off Starscream’s right flank, steady and exact. Skywarp appeared beside the opposite side of the formation, a little closer than regulation required because he enjoyed being annoying even when he obeyed.
“Spacing,” Starscream said.
Skywarp shifted outward half a length. “Happy?”
“No.”
Thundercracker’s voice cut in. “Spacing corrected.”
The three jets leveled out, holding a tight triangular pattern as they accelerated across the sky. Below them, the assembled Seekers watched.
“Formation stable,” Thundercracker reported over the comm.
Skywarp laughed. “I’m barely trying.”
“Maintain distance,” Starscream ordered.
He increased their speed.
The formation tightened as they climbed higher above the city, three contrails cutting a clean path through Vos’s upper air. Starscream angled into a coordinated turn, and Thundercracker matched instantly. Skywarp flashed out for a fraction of a second, reappeared precisely where the left wing position needed to be, and let the turn carry him through the arc as if teleportation were simply another control surface.
Below, the recruits could see exactly how the pattern worked.
Three jets moving as one.
Starscream’s voice returned to the open flight channel. “You have all done this before. Now you will do it again.”
Thundercracker added calmly, “Until you stop thinking about it.”
Skywarp grinned over the comm. “And start enjoying it.”
Starscream turned the formation back toward the platform. Beneath him, Vos spread open in steel, light, and altitude—the city the Senate had tried to bring down, the city he had sworn would remain where it belonged.
The old senator had let Vos drift toward weakness under the assumption that tradition would protect it.
Starscream would not.
He looked down at the waiting Seekers, then lifted the trine into another sharp pass over the command platform.
“Flyers,” he said, voice sharpening across the channel. “Prepare to launch.”
Training was about to begin.