Zelda Verada's Arc

Chapter 7 of 13

The food court sat cleared now, the rats burned out by Conner's engineers. Only three rooms remained on level three before the push to level four. The last one was the security area. Zelda knew it mattered most. The security station held the access point to level four, and beside it sat the robot control room. Sinclair had warned her: breaching the robot bay door would wake the dormant units. She packed extra stimpaks and followed the assault team in. They reached a junction and went left. The door gave way under Sinclair's tool. Inside, three powered robots turned on their joints and raised weapons. "Down!" Sinclair shouted. Hills team opened fire. Captain Hills, an orange and white tabby in a green beret, led his four soldiers hard against the machines. One soldier lobbed an EMP grenade. Its blue burst froze two robots mid-stride. Rifles tore them apart. But the third robot lunged, and a round hit Sinclair in the leg. Bone cracked. He went down with a curse. The last robot staggered, then blew apart. The blast threw Hills team back like dolls. Zelda hit the floor, ears ringing. When the smoke thinned, she counted bodies. Two of Hills's soldiers lay still, dead. Three more bled from blast wounds, groaning. Sinclair clutched his leg, teeth bared. Zelda moved before fear could. "Everyone holds position," she called. "Nobody walks on a hurt leg. I come to you." She knelt by Sinclair first. His fatigues were dark with blood. She cut the cloth, saw the broken bone, and pressed a stimpak into his thigh. "Just a scratch, gal," Sinclair said through his teeth. "It's a break." She splinted it tight. "Six weeks of light duty. No arguing." Kira Dallas arrived at the door, the Rangers logistics officer who'd traded Zelda her supplies. She took in the dead, the wounded, the scorched walls. Her jaw set. "Casualty count," she said, voice clipped. She didn't flinch, but her glasses caught the dim light as she looked away a moment too long. "I need numbers for the report." "Two dead. Three blast wounds, hospital stays. Sinclair's leg, six weeks. The rest, minor." Zelda worked as she spoke, dosing one soldier, binding another. She held each man in place with a flat hand and a steady order. No one bled out. No one moved wrong. Kira wrote it all down. "That's a hard trade for one room," she said quietly. "The room's ours," Zelda said. She nodded at the security station behind the smoke. "Level four access sits right there." Kira closed her notebook. "Then it cost what it cost." The fight was won. The security area belonged to the team, and the door to level four stood open at last. But two Rangers were dead, Sinclair was off his leg for weeks, and Zelda had three more wounded men to keep alive. The path forward was clear now, and shorter-handed than ever.