Part 11: Ambush!

As Taz continued she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach that this wasn't going to end well. Hurriedly she caught up with Up

"Up I don't have a good feeling about this, something seems off" Up looked down at her grimly

"I have the same feeling but we need to check this out, if it's robots we can attack, or warn the other Rangers in space." Taz nodded and pulled out her knife. Up took one look and shook his head, then he pulled out a zapper and handed it to Taz, "It'll get the job done better"

After about five minutes of hiking and following the trail of blue Up stopped and looked around.

"It's gone" everyone stopped confused, and looked around.

"What they hell, where'd it go?" suddenly there was the sound of fire and they were surrounded by robots.

"AMBUSH!" Up yelled and started shooting, taking out thousands of robots within seconds. Taz crouched down and figured out how to use her zapper. She checked the setting and made sure it was 'pew' the other settings were 'explosive' and 'impact'. Taz stood and started firing at the robots. She didn't know where their weak spot was but targeted for human weak spots, head, groin, and chest.

"Hit their knee, that's their weakest spot!" Up roared over the fire. Taz targeted at their knees and brought down more and more robots. All of a sudden there was an explosion and bits of metallic robot bits went everywhere. Taz ducked but a searing pain entered her left knee. Taz fell and nearly blacked out from the pain. Taz looked down and saw a blade in her knee, gushing blood everywhere. She closed her eyes and couldn't make herself open them again. The firing ceased everyone fell silent.

"What the hell happened?" Taz heard Up roar

"He… he… he put his zapper on explosion" Plow Farm stuttered.

"You little son-of-a-bitch! Was I not clear enough when I said set your zappers to 'pew'? Or do you need me to actually DO IT FOR YOU!" Up was yelling and Taz couldn't help but feel vaguely sorry for the man.

"S-s-sorry s-sir… I-I did-didn't know the f-f-force b-b-behind the b-blow" The man was clearly scared for his life, and Taz could tell just by the sound of his voice that he was cowering in fear.

"He killed the robots!" Someone spoke up.

"But we were almost there without his help! And he's hurt countless soldiers! Including Taz! Who we were supposed to be taking care of!" Taz felt someone pick her up gently, but the pain from her knee still caused her to black out.

Up didn't know why he felt so protective of the girl, but he knew if she died he would hold it against himself forever. Once they got back to the right path Up set Taz down and looked at her injury. It was bad, from the look of it a blade from a robot hand had been blasted off and embedded itself in her knee. Up grumbled and took out his first-aid kit.

"Sir shouldn't you be using that on the Rangers that are hurt?" Someone asked. Up looked around and made a quick check that no one's injury was life-threatening

"Hers seems to be the worst, besides, you were all prepared to die, she wasn't" with that Up went back to helping Taz. He got out a pair of large heavy-duty tweezer-like things for getting objects out of people. He tried to get it out but Taz flinched and he messed up.

"Someone come hold her down!" and three Rangers came over to help. When he tried again he managed to get it mostly out but there was so much blood he couldn't really tell. He quickly got some gauze and wiped most of the blood away and tried again. This time he got it out, along with a huge rush of blood. "Shit" Up muttered and tried to stop it. One of the Rangers holding her let go and ran into the woods to puke. Up wiped the blood away and poured water over it. Then he tied his red bandanna around the gash, and to make sure he tied an extra one around it. The white in the design was already starting to turn red. Up picked her up and kept going. After another half an hour they had a break and Up tried to signal the drop-pod.
"Lieutenant Up reporting"

"What is it Up?"James was on the other line.

"We need a medical drop-pod now"

"Where are you?"

"Mountains"

"Can't help you. You need to get to a designated area and be on the wait list, the list for medical is quite a bit longer and-"

"THIS GIRL IS DYING JAMES!" Silence…

"Then hurry Up! I can't help you if you're in the mountains! Besides, Rangers know they might get killed in battle, simple as-"

"This isn't a ranger. This is a girl that we rescued from her quinceañera when robots attacked! She never asked to be with us and we need to help her!" Up was getting annoyed with James now

"Well bring her to the top of the mountain, I'll see what I can do" And James cut the line. Up sighed and looked down at Taz. He untied the bandannas and cleaned her cut again. He looked at her lifeless figure one more time then retied new red bandannas and picked her up to keep going. Not one Ranger said a word.

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