Starscream: Rise of the Air Commander
Chapter 15: The War Room
The sky above Vos moved with precision.
Starscream stood on the upper observation platform, watching the drills unfold across the open air around the floating city. Three wings of Seekers cut across the horizon in tight triangular formations, engines flaring as they climbed together, held spacing with clean discipline, then rolled into a coordinated dive across the outer ring of the city.
They looked good.
Not perfect, but good.
Thundercracker stood beside the tactical console, monitoring the formation telemetry as the trines crossed through the projected grid. “Spacing is improving.”
Starscream nodded slightly. “Yes.”
Above them, another group of jets crossed the skyline in formation before separating into paired intercept paths. Skywarp’s voice crackled across the comm channel, sharp with amusement and command. “Wing Two, you’re drifting.”
The formation corrected instantly.
Thundercracker smirked faintly. “They’re starting to think like a unit.”
“They are learning,” Starscream said.
The statement was simple, but the result mattered. Only a short time ago, the flyers above Vos had been moving like individuals with shared airspace rather than soldiers with a shared purpose. Now they were beginning to anticipate one another. Their spacing was tightening. Their turns were sharper. Their mistakes still showed, but they were becoming correctable mistakes instead of chaotic ones.
A sharp vibration rolled through the platform floor.
Thundercracker looked down. “What was—”
The metal surface shuddered again.
Starscream did not turn. He already knew the arrival was intentional, and the fact that the platform systems had not registered it meant the visitor had not arrived by any normal route.
A blue-and-gray figure with purple highlights rose up from the platform floor as if emerging through liquid metal. Rumble dusted off his shoulders, then looked around the platform with casual interest as though appearing through solid metal were a perfectly reasonable way to enter a restricted military observation deck.
Thundercracker blinked. “I hate when he does that.”
Rumble looked up at the sky where the Seekers were drilling. “Nice air show.”
Starscream turned toward him. “You are not here to watch.”
“Nah.” Rumble tapped the side of his head. “Got a message.”
Starscream folded his arms. “From Soundwave.”
Rumble shrugged. “Close enough.” He looked directly at Starscream, grin sharpening. “Megatron wants an answer.”
Thundercracker glanced sideways. “That didn’t take long.”
Starscream’s optics shifted briefly back toward the sky where the Seekers continued their drills. Triangular formations cut cleanly through the air above Vos, their discipline stronger than it had been when training began. Thundercracker noticed the glance.
“You’re thinking about it.”
Starscream did not deny it.
Rumble leaned against the railing, entirely too comfortable with the height, the company, and the implication of the message he had delivered. “So.” He tilted his head slightly. “What’s it gonna be, Air Commander?”
Starscream did not answer immediately. Instead, he looked back toward the sky. Thundercracker called adjustments across the flight channel while Skywarp flashed in and out of formation positions, keeping the flyers sharp. The recruits were improving, and that improvement made Megatron’s offer more tangible. Air Commander had been a title spoken before the position existed. Now, above Vos, Starscream could see the shape of it forming.
He looked back at Rumble.
The small mech’s frame was compact, unmistakably cassette-built. Blue and gray armor, purple highlights, far smaller than any Seeker, and completely unconcerned by the fact that he had appeared on a secured Vos platform without triggering a single alarm.
Starscream had already noticed something else. The platform had not reported an arrival. No landing. No transport. No unauthorized entry alert. Which meant Rumble had either been there before Starscream noticed him or had entered through a method Vos’s systems had not been designed to detect.
“You are not the only one here,” Starscream said calmly.
Thundercracker glanced sideways. “What?”
Starscream’s optics moved briefly across the surrounding towers of Vos: observation points, maintenance gantries, traffic lanes, and too many places for watchers. “We are being observed.”
Rumble grinned. “Smart.”
Thundercracker frowned. “You think the Senate is watching Vos?”
“Yes.” Starscream looked back down at Rumble. “And possibly others.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
Starscream was quiet for another moment. The Seekers above Vos completed another pass, their trines holding formation through the turn. His city was beginning to become what it should have been long before Altivus nearly let the Senate put it on the ground.
“Tell Megatron I will speak with him,” Starscream said.
Thundercracker glanced at him. “That was quick.”
Starscream did not look away from Rumble.
Rumble nodded once. “Soundwave knew you’d say that.”
Thundercracker blinked. “Of course he did.”
Starscream studied the cassette-framed mech again. Rumble was not merely carrying Soundwave’s message. He was the connection. Soundwave had been listening through him from the beginning, every response received as soon as it was spoken, every hesitation measured before Starscream chose his words.
Rumble stepped back slightly, stretching his arms. “Well. Message delivered.”
Thundercracker tilted his head. “So how exactly are you planning to report back?”
Rumble smirked. “Oh.” He tapped his chest lightly. “I’m already there.”
Thundercracker blinked.
Starscream’s optics narrowed slightly.
Of course.
Somewhere nearby, or perhaps nowhere near in any physical sense that mattered, Soundwave was listening.
Rumble gave a small shrug as if the entire exchange had been routine. “Nice flying,” he said, glancing once more toward the sky where the Seekers continued their drills.
Thundercracker folded his arms. “Try not to appear out of the floor next time.”
Rumble grinned. “No promises.”
Starscream watched carefully as the small mech turned and walked toward the edge of the observation platform as though nothing about the visit had been unusual. Then, without ceremony, his frame folded inward. Panels shifted, limbs compressed, and in a moment the blue-and-gray mech was gone, replaced by the compact rectangular form of a cassette.
Thundercracker stared. “Still weird.”
Starscream said nothing.
A sharp mechanical cry cut through the air above them. Thundercracker looked up just as a black-and-red shape streaked down from the sky in a steep dive.
Laserbeak.
The small avian cassette transformed smoothly mid-flight, wings locking into their angular form as he swooped over the platform. His mechanical feet snapped down at the last second, catching the cassette from the metal surface with practiced precision. The bird never slowed. Laserbeak climbed sharply, wings beating once before his engines carried him upward into the open sky of Vos.
Within seconds, he was gone.
Thundercracker watched the empty air for a moment. “Well.” He looked over at Starscream. “That was subtle.”
Starscream turned his attention back toward the drills overhead. Three Seeker formations crossed the skyline in tight triangular patterns before rolling into a coordinated descent across the outer ring of the city. Their spacing was tighter now. Their turns were sharper.
They were learning.
Thundercracker leaned against the console again. “So. You’re going.”
“Yes.”
Thundercracker looked toward the horizon where Laserbeak had vanished. “Megatron doesn’t waste time.”
“No,” Starscream said.
Thundercracker studied him for a moment. “And neither do you.”
Starscream’s optics followed the formation leaders guiding their wings across the open air. Megatron wanted the skies. Starscream looked at the growing discipline of the Seekers flying above Vos.
He might soon have them.
A violet flash appeared beside them, and Skywarp stepped out of it with his usual grin. “Did I miss something?”
Thundercracker jerked a thumb toward the sky. “Messenger came and went.”
Skywarp’s grin widened. “Oh. Rumble?”
Starscream glanced at him.
Skywarp shrugged. “Blue, gray, purple, annoying. Hard to miss.”
Starscream filed the name away without comment. Another piece of Soundwave’s network named. Another line of communication made visible for just long enough to prove how much of it remained unseen.
“You two are coming with me,” Starscream said.
Thundercracker raised an optic. “To Kaon.”
“Yes.”
Skywarp’s grin widened. “Good.”
Thundercracker looked between them. “And the drills?”
Starscream’s gaze shifted toward the flyers above Vos. “We leave them running.”
“Under who?”
Starscream scanned the sky for a moment. One formation held steady while the others drifted slightly under pressure. The lead jet corrected immediately, guiding his trine back into position before the spacing broke completely. Starscream recognized the color pattern even at altitude: dark gray armor, deep blue highlights, and the sharp conehead silhouette.
“That one,” Starscream said.
Thundercracker followed his gaze. “Dirge.”
Skywarp chuckled. “Didn’t expect that.”
“Best climber we've seen today,” Thundercracker said.
Starscream opened the flight channel. “Pilot Dirge.”
The formation shifted slightly as the jet acknowledged. “Yes, sir.”
“You will maintain observation of the other wings.”
A brief pause followed. “Understood.”
Thundercracker smirked slightly. “That’ll keep him busy.”
“If any formation begins to lose cohesion,” Starscream continued, “you correct it.”
Dirge answered immediately. “Yes, sir.”
Starscream closed the channel.
Skywarp leaned against the railing and looked between them. “So. Trine meeting with Megatron.”
Thundercracker sighed quietly. “That sounds like trouble.”
“Possibly,” Starscream said.
He stepped toward the launch edge of the platform and looked back toward the sky one more time. The Seekers continued their drills above Vos. For the first time in a long time, the aerial city was beginning to look like what it had always been meant to be.
An air power.
Starscream’s wings shifted slightly behind him. “Prepare for launch.”
Thundercracker transformed first, engines igniting as his jet form lifted cleanly into the air. Starscream followed, then Skywarp, and the trine rose from Vos into the open sky.
The flight from Vos to Kaon was fast and quiet. Three tetra-jets cut through the darkening sky in tight formation before breaking apart as they descended into the industrial haze surrounding the city. Smoke from the factories drifted upward in slow clouds, lit from below by the orange glow of smelters and energy furnaces.
Starscream leveled out first and guided them toward a narrow landing platform built into the side of an abandoned industrial tower. Thundercracker touched down beside him. Skywarp landed last, transforming as his thrusters cooled.
“Well,” Skywarp said, glancing around the dim structure, “this place looks inviting.”
Starscream ignored the comment. The platform was empty, but he knew they were expected.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor leading inside the tower. Shockwave emerged from the shadows, his tall frame unmistakable—deep purple armor edged with silver highlights that caught the dim industrial lighting as he stepped forward. The single yellow optic glowed steadily from the center of his faceplate, fixed and unblinking as it studied the three Seekers.
Thundercracker folded his arms. “Well. That answers one question.”
Skywarp tilted his head slightly. “You work fast.”
Shockwave stopped a few steps from them. “Efficiency is preferable.”
Starscream studied him carefully. He had seen Shockwave before the Senate mutilated him. The change was still unsettling, not because Shockwave appeared weakened, but because he did not. He stood there altered, contained, and impossible to read, as if the Senate’s punishment had merely refined his ability to calculate around damage.
“You recovered quickly,” Starscream said.
“Recovery was… logical.”
Starscream gestured toward the interior corridor. “And this?”
Shockwave’s optic flickered faintly.
Starscream asked the obvious question. “How did you become involved in this?”
Shockwave turned and began walking toward the interior of the structure. “Follow.”
They moved down the corridor after him. The interior of the tower had been stripped of most of its original machinery. Power cables ran along the walls, feeding energy into deeper systems. Fresh conduit gleamed against old metal, and the air smelled of dust, overheated circuits, and something recently made functional after a long time abandoned.
“The Senate demonstrated an inability to process logical outcomes,” Shockwave said as they walked.
Thundercracker glanced at Starscream.
Skywarp muttered quietly, “That sounds like them.”
“Cybertron is experiencing systemic collapse,” Shockwave continued.
They reached a large reinforced door. Shockwave opened it and stepped inside.
The chamber beyond was larger than the entrance above suggested. Massive tactical displays lined the walls, projecting maps of Cybertron’s major cities, industrial zones, and transport routes. At the center of the room stood a large strategic table already filled with shifting data projections.
Starscream recognized it immediately.
A command center.
Shockwave moved toward one of the displays while Starscream looked around the room. “This will be Megatron’s war room.”
Shockwave nodded once. “Correct.”
Starscream folded his arms and looked directly at him. “So. How did you end up here?”
Shockwave’s optic remained fixed on the data projections. “It was logical.”
Starscream waited.
“To support the side that listens to logic,” Shockwave finished. He turned slightly toward them. “The Senate does not.”
Skywarp leaned against one of the consoles. “That’s an understatement.”
“Cybertron will not survive if logic is ignored,” Shockwave said calmly.
The statement hung in the room.
Starscream studied the tactical displays again. Factory networks. City-state locations. Energy distribution routes. Communications paths. Movement corridors. This was not a hidden arena bunker. It was not simply a meeting room beneath Kaon.
This was preparation for war.
Starscream nodded slightly. “That conclusion seems increasingly difficult to argue with.”
Shockwave stepped away from the entrance and moved toward the central console as Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp took in the room more carefully. The chamber beneath the tower had clearly been expanded from its original structure. Reinforced walls surrounded a central command table where projections of Cybertron rotated slowly—cities, industrial zones, energon routes, and areas of unrest all mapped in careful detail.
Starscream’s optics moved across the displays first.
War planning.
Real planning.
Not Senate debate. Not symbolic protest. Not the heated rhetoric of a gladiatorial arena.
Planning.
Then his attention shifted.
Small movements across the room caught his eye.
Soundwave’s cassette units were everywhere. One moved along a console panel adjusting signal relays. Another carried a data wafer from one station to another. A third worked beneath the command table, connecting a cable into the floor grid. Their activity was quiet but constant, each task precise, each movement part of a larger system.
Thundercracker leaned slightly toward Starscream. “Busy little operation.”
“Efficient,” Starscream said.
He counted them.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Each cassette performed a small, exact function: monitoring sensors, routing communications, handling data transfers, adjusting signal strength, carrying physical storage where direct connection would be slower or less secure. None wasted motion. None seemed uncertain. The room functioned through them as much as through the consoles.
Soundwave’s network was not an idea.
It was standing all around him.
At the far end of the room, Soundwave stood before a communications console. Blue armor. Silver faceplate. Red visor glowing steadily as he monitored streams of incoming signals across multiple channels.
He said nothing.
He rarely did.
Starscream’s gaze continued moving across the chamber.
Then it stopped.
Above one of the structural support beams sat another shape.
A mechanical bat.
Black and purple wings folded neatly as it hung from a metal perch overlooking the room.
Starscream narrowed his optics slightly.
He recognized the shape.
Ratbat.
But not as he remembered him.
The senator of Kaon had once stood nearly as tall as any other Cybertronian in the Senate chamber, thin and polished and draped in the authority of wealth. Now he was smaller. Compact. Reduced into a cassette-compatible form perched above Soundwave’s command space.
The bat form shifted slightly, adjusting its grip on the beam. Its wings twitched, and the cassette housing beneath its body caught the light from the command table.
Thundercracker noticed where Starscream was looking. “…Is that—”
Skywarp followed their gaze upward. “Oh.”
The bat rotated his head slowly, red optics reflecting the dim command lights as he looked down at them.
Starscream spoke quietly. “Ratbat.”
Ratbat said nothing.
He simply watched.
Starscream folded his arms slowly.
The message was clear enough.
Ratbat had not simply disappeared from the Senate. He had been removed.
Converted.
Taken out of power and placed under the command of the very mech who now stood where Ratbat’s influence had once seemed untouchable. Soundwave had not merely replaced him on the Senate platform. Soundwave had taken his network, his position, and his authority, then left Ratbat perched above the war room as proof that power could change hands without the Senate ever understanding what had happened.
Starscream glanced toward Soundwave across the room.
Soundwave remained at the communications console, red visor fixed on the signal traffic moving across Kaon as if nothing unusual had occurred.
Starscream allowed the faintest hint of a smile.
Yes.
Things were shifting across Cybertron.
And the Senate had absolutely no idea how far.