Starscream: Rise of the Air Commander
Chapter 2: Grounding Vos
Thundercracker did not argue.
He simply turned and started toward the interior corridors of Vos, clearly expecting Starscream to follow.
Starscream did, though the first few steps reminded him exactly how low his energon reserves had fallen. The stabilizer beneath his right wing shifted again, forcing his internal gyros to compensate. A small warning flickered across his systems before fading back into the cluster of alerts he had already chosen to ignore.
Thundercracker glanced sideways.
“You look worse when you move.”
“I noticed.”
Thundercracker gave a quiet snort and slowed his pace slightly.
They moved through the wide corridor leading deeper into the city, the open platform behind them giving way to the enclosed structures of Vos. Transparent panels along the outer wall revealed the open sky beyond, layers of aerial traffic sliding between the towers in disciplined patterns.
Starscream watched it for a moment.
Everything was still functioning.
Everything was still orderly.
As if the city had not changed in his absence.
As if returning alone from the edge of mapped space meant less than the timing of the next traffic lane.
Thundercracker spoke again.
“You picked an interesting time to come home.”
Starscream looked over at him.
“What does that mean?”
Thundercracker gestured upward toward the towering structures surrounding them.
“The Senate wants to land Vos.”
Starscream stopped walking.
For a moment, he thought he had misheard.
“Land it.”
Thundercracker nodded once.
“Apparently keeping an entire city in the air takes more power than the Senate likes spending these days.”
Starscream’s optics narrowed slightly.
“And the aerial caste is expected to simply accept that.”
Thundercracker’s expression shifted into something between irritation and disbelief.
“Sentinel Prime seems to think we should.”
Starscream resumed walking.
Slowly.
“What does the Vosian senator say?”
Thundercracker gave a small, humorless sound.
“Better question.”
He reached to a small data port along the corridor wall and tapped it with two fingers. A faint projection field flickered to life in front of them, the image stabilizing into the circular chamber of the Cybertronian Senate.
“This was three days ago.”
The recording sharpened.
At the center of the chamber stood the Vosian senator, tall and narrow-framed like most of the aerial caste. His wings were folded tightly against his back, posture rigid as he addressed the assembly.
“You propose landing an aerial torus city,” the senator said, his voice carrying clearly through the chamber. “Very well. I will ask the obvious question.”
He paused, letting his optics move across the chamber.
“Where.”
A ripple of quiet conversation moved through the Senate.
The senator continued.
“Vos is not a transport platform. It is not a temporary structure. It is a fully integrated torus state containing hundreds of thousands of citizens, flight corridors, stabilizers, energy reactors, and atmospheric control systems.”
He gestured outward sharply.
“You cannot simply place such a structure on the ground like a cargo container.”
Starscream watched the projection silently.
The senator’s voice sharpened.
“If the Senate insists this is necessary, then answer the question plainly.”
He spread one hand toward the chamber.
“Where do you intend to put an entire city?”
The recording ended.
The projection faded.
Thundercracker looked over at Starscream.
“The chamber did not have an answer.”
Starscream considered that.
Then he asked the question a scientist would ask first.
“What was Sentinel’s response?”
Thundercracker answered with a scoff.
He crossed his arms and shook his head as they continued down the corridor.
“The senator argues,” he said. “Loudly.”
Starscream said nothing, waiting.
Thundercracker glanced sideways.
“But he doesn’t actually care.”
Starscream’s optics narrowed slightly.
“That seems unlikely.”
“It shouldn’t,” Thundercracker replied. “You’ve been gone a long time.”
They reached the medical facility at the base of one of Vos’s internal towers. Unlike most Cybertronian cities where medical bays served every caste, Vos maintained its own infrastructure. The facility doors parted and revealed a clean, narrow chamber filled with equipment designed specifically for Seeker frames.
Every technician inside was a Seeker.
A white and gold armored figure turned from a diagnostic console as they entered.
Corona.
Her wings shifted slightly as her optics moved over Starscream, quickly cataloging the damage across his frame.
“You look terrible,” she said flatly.
Thundercracker gestured toward him.
“He flew through an alien atmosphere.”
Corona stepped closer, already activating a scanning array.
“That explains the burns.”
The scanner passed slowly across Starscream’s wings, pausing briefly at the cracked seam along his shoulder where energon continued to leak in slow drops.
“Stand still.”
Starscream did.
Thundercracker leaned against the wall nearby, arms still crossed.
“The senator argues,” he continued, picking up the earlier conversation as Corona worked. “But he’s careful how he argues.”
Starscream glanced toward him.
“What does that mean?”
Thundercracker shrugged slightly.
“He keeps asking the same question.”
Corona sealed the fracture along Starscream’s shoulder with a quick burst from a repair emitter.
“Where would the Senate put Vos,” she said.
Starscream said nothing.
Thundercracker continued.
“But he never argues that Vos shouldn’t land.”
Corona made a small, disgusted sound.
Both mechs looked toward her.
She hesitated slightly under their attention, adjusting a calibration on the medical console.
Starscream spoke calmly.
“You have an opinion.”
Corona’s wings shifted uneasily.
“It is not my place to comment on Senate politics.”
Starscream held her gaze.
The medic’s Seeker frame was the same angular design as his own, but her colors set her apart immediately—bright yellow armor marked with deep navy panels along the wings and torso.
“That was not what I asked.”
Corona hesitated.
Then she sighed quietly.
“The senator doesn’t care.”
Thundercracker snorted softly.
Corona continued working as she spoke.
“My bondmate has been looking at positions in Kaon.”
Starscream’s optics shifted slightly.
“Kaon.”
Corona nodded.
“Better pay.”
She gestured lightly at the surrounding medical equipment.
“Even for Seekers.”
Starscream looked toward Thundercracker.
Thundercracker met the glance and nodded once.
Corona finished sealing the fracture in Starscream’s armor and stepped back slightly.
Thundercracker pushed away from the wall.
“Our senator argues in the chamber,” he said.
Then he shrugged dismissively.
“But if the Senate finds a place to land Vos…”
He gave a short, contemptuous sound.
“He’ll let it happen.”
Corona scoffed openly this time.
Starscream noticed.
Thundercracker noticed too.
Thundercracker folded his arms again and shook his head.
“He isn’t worth scrap.”
Corona finished the last of the repairs and stepped back from the console.
“The fracture is sealed,” she said. “Your reserves are still dangerously low. I recommend a full recharge cycle.”
Starscream rotated his shoulder slightly. The joint moved more smoothly now, though the warning indicators inside his systems had not disappeared.
“I’ll manage.”
Thundercracker folded his arms.
“You said that before flying through an alien atmosphere.”
Corona glanced between them.
“And look how well that worked.”
Thundercracker pushed away from the wall.
“You should actually listen to the medic this time.”
Starscream ignored him.
Instead, he looked between the two of them.
He was quiet for a moment.
Kaon.
That name had not carried much weight in Vos before his expedition. The industrial cities had always paid well for labor, but the aerial caste had never needed to compete with them.
Now medics were considering leaving.
If Kaon was drawing skilled Seekers away from Vos, then someone in the Senate was shifting the balance of Cybertron’s economy. Energon pressure was not only a number in a chamber report. It was already inside Vos. Inside its medical bays. Inside its households. Inside the quiet decisions of citizens beginning to ask whether the city would remain worth staying in.
Starscream’s gaze moved briefly toward Thundercracker.
“Our senator argues,” he said slowly.
Thundercracker nodded.
“Loudly.”
Starscream considered that.
Arguing was not the same thing as winning.
And there were ways to argue that preserved appearances while conceding the actual battle.
The recording returned to him with uncomfortable precision. The senator had asked a useful question. A good question. A question that exposed the Senate’s ignorance and forced them to confront the impossible scale of what they proposed.
Where.
It was effective.
It was also safe.
It challenged the logistics of grounding Vos, not the premise. It cornered the Senate on implementation, not authority. It allowed the senator to sound outraged while leaving the central insult untouched.
Starscream’s optics narrowed.
No self-respecting Seeker would allow Vos to be spoken of like cargo waiting for placement.
No loyal representative of the aerial caste would defend the city by asking only where the cage should be set.
If the Vosian senator could not defend his own city in the Senate chamber…
Perhaps someone should.
Starscream’s wings shifted slightly behind him.
“This debate in the Senate.”
Thundercracker tilted his head slightly.
“What about it?”
“I would like to hear it myself.”
Thundercracker stared at him for a moment.
Then he gave a short laugh.
“You’ve been gone for cycles, nearly burned through your own frame getting back, and the first thing you want to do is sit through Senate arguments?”
Starscream’s voice remained calm.
“I would like to understand why the Senate believes grounding an aerial city is acceptable.”
Thundercracker considered that.
Then he nodded once.
“There is another session tomorrow.”
Starscream looked at him.
Thundercracker shrugged.
“Visitors’ gallery is open.”
A faint smirk crossed his face.
“And you still have enough scientific reputation and caste standing to be let in without anyone asking why you are there.”
Starscream’s expression did not change, but his optics sharpened.
He was upper-caste Vosian, yes. A noted scientist. An explorer with records in the central archives. Not the highest rank in Vos—not even close—but high enough that certain doors opened when he approached them, and educated enough that Senate observers could pretend his presence was ordinary.
Useful.
Corona glanced between them.
“Try not to start a political incident while you’re there.”
Thundercracker grinned.
“No promises.”
Starscream said nothing.
But for the first time since returning to Vos, something like focus settled into his expression.
If the Senate was planning to ground his city, he intended to hear the reasoning for himself.
Thundercracker kept pace with Starscream as he left the medical bay.
“I’ll meet you at the Senate entrance tomorrow,” he said. “If you’re actually serious about sitting through that debate.”
Starscream gave a small nod.
“I am.”
Thundercracker studied him for a moment, then shook his head slightly.
“Get some recharge first.”
He turned and left the medical facility.
Starscream remained still for a moment longer before turning toward the transport corridors leading deeper into Vos.
His quarters were not far.
Like most aerial caste residences, the space was built vertically rather than horizontally. Narrow platforms connected different levels of the chamber, with open air access points allowing direct flight departure when needed.
Starscream entered and sealed the door behind him.
The quiet inside the room was immediate.
He stepped toward the cleansing unit and activated it. Jets of heated solvent washed across his armor, stripping away the grime and scorched residue from the journey. Dark streaks of burned atmospheric particles slid away from the white plating, revealing the sharp red markings beneath.
The damage remained, but at least the surface no longer looked like the aftermath of a failed return.
Starscream studied his reflection in the polished panel beside the cleansing unit.
One wing stabilizer still sat slightly out of alignment.
That would have to be corrected.
He adjusted it carefully until the angles matched again.
Better.
He shut down the cleansing system and moved toward the recharge berth.
Starscream paused there for a moment, looking out through the transparent wall of the chamber.
Vos floated in the sky beyond, towers lit by the steady movement of aerial traffic.
Tomorrow the Senate would argue about bringing his city down.
Starscream lowered himself into the recharge berth.
Whatever the Senate believed it was doing—
He intended to hear it himself.