"Yes, Commander."
Dirge didn't ask for explanations, locking Skygnaw's directives firmly into his processing core before taking his leave.
He would immediately lead the other four members of the Inquisition to establish a permanent vanguard at the Central Spaceport.
Their mission was to keep a ruthless grip on the Aerospace Force, ensuring the fleet would respond the exact millisecond Skygnaw issued a command.
---
With the flight wings fully secured, Skygnaw departed the Central Spaceport.
He mapped a course toward another sector located far from the political core of the capital: the Iacon Research Center, which was also designated as the Iacon Manufacturing Hub.
Alongside the Archives, the research center had historically served as the primary sanctuary for Cybertron's elite scientists.
The facility wasn't just responsible for forging legendary weapons; it had also birthed masterworks on the level of the sacred Relics of Iacon.
Today, outside of serving as Shockwave's personal laboratory, the complex held only a single functional assignment.
It was tasked with maintaining the absolute flagship of the Decepticon fleet, the Nemesis.
The Nemesis was designated as the faction's primary dreadnought, though it practically served as Megatron's private vessel since the warlord held absolute, unchecked authority over its deployment.
But under the current shift of power, that absolute ownership was no longer a certainty.
---
Skygnaw strode into the research center, noting with satisfaction that Shockwave wasn't on the deck, saving him the effort of fabricating pleasantries.
His sudden tour across the various sectors of Iacon wasn't driven by pure boredom, though that factor certainly played a minor role in his calculations.
Every warrior must stick to his specialization, and since the data networks hadn't flagged the coordinates of the remaining Autobot sanctuaries yet, the high command was trapped in a waiting game.
Shockwave, Blackarachnia, and Skygnaw were entirely dependent on the Cassette Division to extract the resistance's hidden locations.
The gathering of intelligence could require a single stellar cycle or a full orbital period, but the logician's math suggested the window would be brief.
Truthfully, when Skygnaw first discovered that the bulk of the Cassette Division had remained stationed on Cybertron instead of deploying to Earth, he had felt a brief flicker of surprise.
But after Shockwave explained that Soundwave had personally requested the arrangement to anchor the planet's surveillance grid, the calculation became perfectly transparent.
The historical files from his past life held zero active records detailing the exact relationship between Soundwave and Shockwave, but their professional alignment was clearly flawless.
---
The Iacon Research Center was a colossal, vaulted structure built in a sweeping arch, its interior crowded with advanced machinery and heavy engineering rigs.
As he moved deeper into the facility, Skygnaw spotted dozens of Decepticon engineers swarming around a truly gargantuan starship.
"Commander Skygnaw," the engineers murmured, pausing their work to offer respectful salutes.
Word had already rippled through the lower ranks that the new Leader-class titan possessed a remarkably stable temperament, appearing detached but perfectly reasonable to approach.
Still, none of the grunts dared to test those rumors by showing a sloppy posture.
The technicians didn't realize that Skygnaw's cold demeanor had nothing to do with professional discipline; he simply found talking to the common infantry to be a total waste of processing power.
What common ground could he possibly share with a bunch of grunts whose thoughts were entirely occupied by basic combat cycles and mindless slaughter?
"This must be the Nemesis," he mused silently.
Ignoring the technicians, Skygnaw closed the distance to study the massive vessel anchored in the center of the bay.
As a true super-dreadnought, the flagship's dimensions could no longer be measured in simple meters.
The Nemesis stretched nearly four kilometers in length, towered over two kilometers in height, and boasted a wingspan of three kilometers at its widest point.
It stood as the most colossal warship ever forged in the entire history of the Decepticon empire.
The hull featured a sharp, predatory wedge design, its prow cutting through the air like a massive alloy blade, while the rear expanded into a dense cluster of heavy ion thrusters arranged like mechanical petals.
The lower ventral plating bristled with rows of automated turrets, each housing dual-linked pulse cannons engineered for orbital bombardment and global surface sweeps.
The entire frame was rendered in stark shades of dark grey and deep violet, its armored plates heavily scarred by eons of atmospheric friction and historic battle damage.
Beyond its terrifying, predatory silhouette, the ship carried a profound aura of ancient warfare, looking like a monster that had survived a thousand meatgrinders.
---
Skygnaw completed a full orbital loop around the vessel, comparing its sleek, predatory design to the rounded transport shuttles he had briefly commanded during his early campaigns.
The Nemesis was significantly narrower and far more aggressive, its lines shouting a design philosophy that was purely engineered for absolute interstellar warfare.
In the ancient records, the only vessel capable of matching its destructive output was the Autobot flagship, the Ark.
Although both dreadnoughts represented the absolute zenith of Cybertronian engineering, packing countless state-of-the-art technologies into their frames, the Nemesis held a specific tactical purpose.
Throughout the civil war, the weapon-heavy dreadnought was deployed primarily to smash the Autobots' heavily fortified planetary citadels.
The standard operational script was devastating: the Nemesis would drop out of orbit directly over a target city, unleashing a localized saturation bombing to vaporize the defensive shields and static garrisons.
Once the perimeter was broken, the ship would deploy massive waves of elite Decepticon shock troops directly into the core coordinates to initiate a surprise slaughter, cooperating with the ground armies to crush the defenders from within.
This strategic play had never failed, systematically shattering the Autobot lines and driving them into a permanent retreat, especially after the Nemesis successfully crippled the Ark during an orbital engagement.
It was factually accurate to state that the Decepticons held an absolute monopoly over the planet's surface solely because the Nemesis denied the Autobots the ability to build visible fortresses.
Yet even the most flawless weapon isn't immune to failure, a reality proven by the fact that this giant had been sitting dead in this hangar for centuries.
Fortunately, under the relentless maintenance of the engineering teams, the flagship had recovered its baseline functions.
Although the exterior plating still looked worn and scarred, the damage no longer restricted its flight capabilities.
The primary systems were completely operational, and the technicians had even managed to integrate several newly developed weapon modules into the grid.
---
Just as Skygnaw stepped toward the primary boarding ramp to inspect the interior, one of the two Decepticon sentries stationed at the hatch extended his arm to block the vector.
"Commander Skygnaw, without an explicit operational clearance from Lord Shockwave, you are not permitted to..."
"Oh?" Skygnaw murmured, his optics narrowing slightly.
Was this engineering bay completely isolated from the global data network, or did this grunt simply lack the processing power to realize who currently held the highest combat classification on the planet?
Although his administrative rank sat on an equal tier with Shockwave's position, the Decepticon faction had always operated under a single fundamental law: the strongest voice rules.
Before his confusion could even register a response, the secondary sentry violently shoved his brain-dead partner out of the way, bowing until his chest plates nearly touched his knees.
"Commander Skygnaw! Do you require immediate access to the main decks of the Nemesis?"
"Why? Is there an issue?" Skygnaw asked, his tone flat, though a flicker of amusement crossed his thoughts.
These grunts had clearly spent too many centuries executing Shockwave's logical directives, leaving them entirely uncalibrated to handle the sudden arrival of a new authority.
After all, he had only entered the capital's grid a few solar cycles ago.
"Absolutely not, Commander!" The secondary guard was significantly sharper than his partner, keeping his optics locked onto the floor. "The flagship is entirely at your disposal; you may board the decks whenever it pleases your calculations."
The guard snuck a cautious glance at Skygnaw's massive frame before dropping his gaze again. "Commander, if your processors require a guide, I would be honored to detail the technical specifications of the Nemesis for you."
He deduced that since the Air Commander was viewing the flagship for the very first time, his databases would naturally lack the ship's layout logs.
"Very well. Lead the way," Skygnaw nodded smoothly, choosing not to reject the grunt's blatant attempt to secure his favor.
He never discouraged ambition within his ranks; every soldier deserved an opportunity to climb the ladder, after all.
---
*Thud. Thud.*
"Commander, right this way."
Staring up at the hull from the hangar floor had given him a decent sense of the ship's scale, but stepping onto the actual decks forced him to recalculate his metrics; the interior was colossal.
Moving through the primary corridors, the walls were lined with massive rows of honeycomb-shaped deployment bays that connected straight to the lower ventral hull.
"Commander, these are our primary drop-pods; the system can purge up to two hundred combat units into the atmosphere simultaneously."
Two hundred troops?
Skygnaw paused his stride, a genuine wave of surprise crossing his processors.
Deploying two hundred heavy Decepticons simultaneously was a staggering tactical variable, especially given that individual Cybertronian soldiers packed an absurd amount of independent destructive power.
It was no wonder the faction had managed to perfect the art of orbital drop ambushes.
---
Moving methodically through the decks, Skygnaw meticulously analyzed every functional compartment until he finally reached the supreme bridge tower.
The command deck was designed as a massive, pyramidal glass dome perched at the absolute apex of the dreadnought's superstructure.
The interior layout was remarkably minimalist, featuring nothing but a massive central throne forged from cold iron and a grand holographic star-mapping terminal.
Looking through the viewport—which appeared to be transparent glass but was actually a highly advanced energy shielding matrix—he could see the massive rings of the localized sensor arrays encircling the tower.
The structural design granted the bridge an unobstructed, one-hundred-and-thirty-degree view of the surrounding airspace.
After completing a brief visual diagnostic of the consoles, Skygnaw walked over and seated himself directly onto the central throne.
The sentry guiding him felt his internal circuits give a violent shudder, quickly turning his head away to pretend his optical sensors had experienced a total blackout.
He was starting to heavily regret volunteering to guide the High Commander up here.
That throne was the exclusive, sacred seat of Lord Megatron himself; not a single Decepticon had dared to rest his weight on those plates throughout the entire history of the faction!
---
Skygnaw narrowed his optics, sitting perfectly upright as he rested his servos along the primary control consoles.
His calculations were already finalized; when the time came to chart a course back to Earth, he would be making the trip inside the bridge of the Nemesis.
He had zero intention of abandoning the Decepticon Aerospace Force on this dead world.
He needed to forge a true fleet, an armada capable of executing prolonged interstellar campaigns across the galaxy.
If his historical logs served him correctly, Sentinel Prime's desperate attempts to save Cybertron in the near future would backfire catastrophically, nearly shattering the planet within a rogue space bridge storm.
The home world would be brought to the literal brink of absolute structural collapse.
The Decepticons left behind on the surface would be completely wiped out by the spatial anomalies.
That reality was the hidden reason why the later stages of the war featured almost zero active Decepticon divisions.
Now that he held a seat on the board, he would never allow that variable to ruin his assets.
Massive numbers eventually trigger a qualitative shift in power; thousands of loyal fliers, even if they were low-tier grunts, represented an incredible military hammer he could swing across the stars.
---
Ignoring the absolute terror vibrating through the guard standing behind him, Skygnaw began linking his internal systems to the primary databases of the Nemesis.
After running a series of deeper queries through the terminal, his processors mapped out a comprehensive understanding of the flagship's core parameters.
Beyond the various functional crew quarters, the dreadnought's architecture was anchored by three primary networks: the Propulsion Array, the Defensive Shielding, and the Weapons Grid.
The Propulsion Array was anchored by a cluster of four giant ion thrusters forming the main engine block, but the prow also housed a specialized wormhole generator ring.
When activated, the ring would unleash a localized spiral vortex of cosmic energy, allowing the massive ship to execute faster-than-light jumps through space.
By now, Skygnaw had witnessed multiple variations of interstellar transit technologies.
While reaching a Tier Three civilization classification required the ability to navigate between star systems, it didn't mean a species was restricted to a single method of travel.
This was especially true for Cybertronian civilization, which had occupied the absolute peak of Tier Three during its golden era.
Although the underlying scientific principles behind these various space-folding drives differed wildly, their tactical objective remained identical, separated only by their transit range, velocity metrics, and structural risk factors.
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