I would not want to dissuade you from asking for a waiver of penalty for the underpayment of estimated tax - it is your right to do so.
Did you make any additional estimated tax payments for the 3rd or 4th quarters? I don't know if you knew what was happening to your job by the due date of the third quarter (9/15/2025), so maybe an additional estimated tax payment would not have been possible. However, it sounds like you should have known by the due date of the 4th quarter (1/15/2026) that you would have this extra income, so you could have made an additional estimated tax payment before then.
Sorry, I am just anticipating what the IRS might say.
However, federal employees had a totally unpredictable year in 2025 in terms of job security, so I would say go for it. Perhaps your ex-fellow government employee at the IRS might cut you some slack.
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