Broken Allegiance | Transformers Prime [2] (On Hiatus)

𝟎𝟎𝟐

I am going to die.

I had begun repeating this to myself like a mantra, hoping it would make it easier to digest. Yet I seemed no closer to accepting it. Even under different spies, the edict pronounced in my operation still stood. I would be punished if my mission failed, whether if it was by death or any other way. It was too juicy a bit of drama for Vassily to cancel just because he wasn't here. Whether he was here or not, I'd be hunted down and taken back to him, and I knew that I couldn't bring myself to face that reality. The only way to avoid the possibility would be to flee, escape Jasper, and never come back. That way, even when my superiors sent for me, they wouldn't think to look for me anywhere else but in the place where I first discovered the Autobots. The trick would be not to make my failure obvious. I had to appear to be doing my best. No one had to know my true plan. I was up to the task.

I am going to die.

Before that fateful day I had been assigned my mission and moved to the United States, I hadn't even known anyone—any spy—who had been put to death because of an operation that had failed. That sort of thing had always been three degrees removed. The friend of someone who knew someone I knew. I didn't think there was ever a time when a spy got called out for a failed operation and tried for it unless it happened behind closed doors.

I am still going to die.

Even though it would be by my choice, the thought of making a hasty retreat to the safest place—away from Vassily—infuriated me. 

My life had been a whole lot of nothing. Sleeper agent. I had thought the label to be important—a badge of honor—but now it was an indictment. Mine was a life without substance, just violence, and now it would end.

I should never have accepted this mission in the first place.

I should have stayed in Russia, away from the sleeper world, away from all of the missions, away from all of the bloodshed—because then, maybe, just maybe, I might have had the chance to turn this all around—or to have avoided this all in the first place.

"Doc, what's happening out there?" I could barely make out Wheeljack's voice through the chaos. The base trembled violently, the ground beneath us shaking as if it were about to split open.

"Incoming missiles are being intercepted in the air," Ratchet gave a slapdash reply, his optics glued to the flickering screens of the base's monitor. "We're under a heavy barrage." 

The only thing I could focus on was the sickening certainty that I was going to die. Everything felt distant, like I was watching it all through a fog. My thoughts were a jumbled mess, overshadowed by that single, paralyzing fear.

More Autobots stormed into the base. I barely registered Smokescreen being dragged in, his frame limp and battered. Ratchet, who was glued to the screen then, turned away, to the pained groans of Smokescreen and cursed under his breath, "By the Allspark, what happened to him?"

"He got caught in the blast," Bulkhead frowned, his voice strained with worry.

"Get him to the medbay, now!" Ratchet barked orders to Bumblebee and Bulkhead, who hurriedly carried Smokescreen away.

That sick feeling in my stomach only intensified. "Wheeljack, put me down," I managed to whisper.

My guardian hesitated, his optics scanning my face before gently lowering me to the nearest table. My legs were shaky, but I forced myself to stand, to face the reality I couldn't escape. I turned to look at Smokescreen, sprawled on the gurney, with injuries half less severe than the ruptured hole of rent circuitry posing on his side. This is all my fault.