Chapter 6 - Blood on the Marble
The ventilation corridors of Ironclad were narrow, damp, and echoes with the metallic footsteps of Marcus’s assault team.
Ren moved behind Orion like a ghost. Her years in field hospitals had taught her how to move without making a sound, her light footsteps vanishing into the hum of the facility’s air filtration systems.
"Three men entering the generator room," Orion whispered, looking through a thermal scope mounted on his rifle. "They’re trying to cut the power to the internal security blast doors."
"Let me take the generator controls," Ren suggested softly, pulling a small remote detonator from her pouch—a shock-charge she had rigged using her medical defibrillator batteries and copper wiring from the workshop. "If I overload the capacitor bank, it will release a high-voltage pulse through the metal floor grating."
Orion looked at her with growing admiration. "You're terrifyingly resourceful."
"I had a good teacher," she replied with a sharp, faint smile.
They split up. Orion took the high gantry overlooking the generator room, while Ren slid silently down a maintenance ladder, positioning herself behind the main power distribution board.
Through the shadows, she saw Marcus’s mercenaries—three men clad in heavy body armor, spraying light onto the electrical panels. Standing slightly behind them, holding a handkerchief to his nose, was Judge Vance. His face was pale, arrogant, and entirely devoid of remorse.
"Hurry up!" Vance barked at the mercenaries. "I want Orion’s head on a platter before the sun comes up! Once the Steel family is dead, Marcus takes the empire, and I get the city council clearance!"
Ren felt a surge of rage so intense it threatened to blind her. She forced it down, converting her emotion into cold, calculating focus. She slipped the shock-charge onto the main junction box, flipped the arming switch, and ducked behind a thick steel pillar.
She raised her carbine, lined up the sights on the overhead steam valve right above the mercenaries, and pulled the trigger.
BANG!
High-pressure, boiling steam erupted from the pipe with a deafening roar. The mercenaries screamed as the scalding vapor blinded them. At the exact same second, Ren slammed the remote detonator button.
A blinding blue arc of electricity exploded across the metal floor. The shock wave slammed into the three mercenaries, sending them into violent convulsions before they collapsed onto the floor, unconscious and disarmed.
Judge Vance shrieked like a coward, stumbling backward and falling flat on his back into a pool of dirty water. He scrambled away, looking up in absolute terror as a shadow stepped out from behind the steam.
Ren Callaway stepped forward, her carbine pointed directly at Vance’s forehead.
"Hello, Judge," Ren said, her voice dropping into an icy whisper. "Do you remember me?"
Vance stared at her, his eyes wide with recognition, his jaw trembling. "You... the nurse... Nurse Callaway? You're dead! You were supposed to be hiding in the woods!"
"I was," Ren said, stepping closer, the muzzle of her rifle resting an inch from his nose. "Until you brought your filthy war to my home."
"Wait! Please!" Vance stammered, raising his hands in desperation. "I can give you money! Millions! I can clear your name! I can tell the media the board lied! I can give you your medical license back!"
"You didn't just ruin my license, Vance," Ren spat, her eyes burning with righteous anger. "You let your own daughter die to save your dirty political career, and then you blamed the woman who fought for three hours to save her life!"
"She was an accident!" Vance sobbed. "I didn't mean for her to drink it!"
Before Ren could pull the trigger, a dark figure dropped from the ceiling overhead.
Marcus—Orion’s traitorous second-in-command—landed on the gantry above, kicking Ren’s carbine out of her hands with a swift, brutal strike. The gun clattered across the floor. Marcus grabbed Ren by her hair, pulling her up and pressing a sharp combat knife against her throat.
"Drop your weapons, Orion!" Marcus yelled into the darkness of the room. "Or I cut her throat right here!"
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Orion stepped out of the shadows onto the upper catwalk, his rifle aimed directly at Marcus's head. His eyes were wild, dark, and filled with a terrifying, apocalyptic rage.
"Touch her," Orion said, his voice quiet, terrifying, and shaking with absolute murder, "and I will skin you alive before you bleed to death."
