7712 was not a hero. He was a logistics unit—a supply hauler by design, retrofitted with a lightweight blaster and second-hand armor plates someone had stripped off a fallen soldier at the Battle of Delphi. His frame was boxy, his paint a non-reflective gray that had once been tactical but was now just chipped. His optics were a dull, weary blue.
And then the light went out.
She tried to laugh. It came out as a grind of gears. “Because I was tired. Not of fighting. Of… this. Of the dust. Of the waiting. Of being a number.” She looked at him. “You understand. You’re Zero.”
“Did you find her?” Javelin asked.
His squad was three other mechs: , a former medic who had stopped carrying medical supplies after the first month; Runnel , a scout with a cracked voice box who communicated in static clicks and gestures; and Javelin , their commander—a sleek, arrogant femme who still believed the war could be won with proper tactics and discipline.
“7712,” she said. Her voice was a whisper. “You found me.”
On the 42nd cycle of their deployment, Javelin called a briefing.
“You left,” he said, kneeling beside her. His medical training was nonexistent, but even he could see the damage. Her core energon lines were leaking—a slow, fatal drip. “Why did you leave?”
Petal was crouched inside the burned-out husk of a transport carrier, her yellow paint scoured down to raw metal in patches. One arm hung at an unnatural angle. Her optics were dim, flickering.
He thought about the cargo clamps. About her laugh. About the way she had recalibrated the pressure seals with such care, even though no one was watching.
The next cycle, he went back to the supply trench. He checked the pressure seals. He walked the perimeter. He did not laugh. He did not speak unless ordered.
