Chapter 10

“... I’m… still alive?”

Laurel could hear only the hum of the engine. She didn’t hear any explosions, crashes, derailing, or any negative things like that. She stood up and looked around. The train traveled through a war zone. She could see bullets flying around her, but there was an eerie sense of calmness. As if none of it matters.

“...!”

She snapped back, blood drained from her face. Ann was slumped on the controls, unconscious. They were still speeding, going well over a hundred fifty. She quickly reached out for the controls, then thought twice. They were still within the battle zone. Stopping would mean a perfect target for enemy units.

What should I do?

From the front window, she could see nothing blocking their path, but that didn't mean everything was safe. Some of the tracks might have been damaged. She noticed the speed indicator. They couldn’t stop, but they couldn’t travel at these speeds for much longer. Laurel pulled the brakes. The train slowed down to ninety kilometers an hour. She heard helicopter blades, and her first thought was MARA units coming for her.

Laurel looked toward the right. An attack helicopter flew close. The pilot in the rear seat flashed a flashlight.

She gasped and pulled the brakes, just in time. The train pushed through some wreckage, pulling to a stop right before a construction area. This must be one of the sections being maintained, as some of the tracks were outright missing.

Heavy breathing escaped her lips. She touched her chest, feeling her fast-beating heart.

“... I’m somehow still alive.”

She picked up her laptop, which had turned off. Turning it on, she saw some cracks on the screen, but nothing too bad. Mia could probably fix it for her.

After securing it to the train, she picked Ann up and set her down in a passenger chair. As she thought about what to do, she noticed her phone vibrating. A call from Hakade.

“Laurel! Laurel, are you alright?”

“I’m… alive… somehow.”

The previous event might have cut a few years from her lifetime. Looking at Ann, she didn’t understand the feeling she had. It was an unexplainable kind of fear. Something she had never experienced before. Something new to her. Ann didn’t do anything to her directly. She might have spooked her with the ramming, but she didn’t even touch Ann. Where did that fear come from?

“Hold on, I’m heading there!”

The helicopter hovered above her, firing its guns at the incoming enemies.

“Train, get back!”

Only now she noticed the incoming transmission. The voice was hoarse. They must have been shouting for a while now, trying to get her attention. She couldn’t tell who said those things, but she knew they had a point. They didn’t have any way to defend themselves out here. Laurel changed the direction of travel, and the train began moving backward. Since the locomotive was at the front, she couldn’t see what lay behind her.

The helicopter tried its best to defend her. Bullets and shots struck it from all directions. Without its shield, it would be gone by now.

“Golf-Nine to Starstruck, we can’t stay here for long.”

“Can you signal the train to go faster?”

“We’re going!”

Laurel pushed the lever, increasing the speed. She could only pray that nothing blocked her path. The train rolled down the tracks, the helicopter flying backward above it. A tank shell flew right past the locomotive, slamming into a building right next to it, sending debris into the sky.

The sudden attack obscured Laurel’s vision, not that it mattered when she went backward.

“We can’t handle it anymore! Golf-Nine pulling back!”

The helicopter flew away, firing as it went. Now that the helicopter retreated, enemy units appeared from their hiding, all targeting Laurel. Laurel looked around the controls, looking for something that could help her, but she found nothing. In theory, she could use the boosters to move even faster, but she didn’t want the train to derail. Definitely not now.

One tank had its sight squarely on the locomotive. Laurel stared down its barrel, loaded and ready to fire.

But it never got its chance.

A shell smashed into its top, causing an explosion that threw its turret high into the sky.

“Hakade!”

Scorpion had arrived.

•••

Hakade felt a huge sense of relief once he saw the train was just fine. He put Scorpion in front, ready to take any hits.

“We’ll be alone for now. Let’s do our best!” He shouted.

“Roger!”

“I’ll keep reapplying the shield!”

The east side of the city hadn’t been cleared, meaning they had a lot of enemies around them, scattered throughout the region. Hakade gritted his teeth. After one attack struck, another would follow. Ana needed time to reapply her magic, and she couldn’t keep up.

“Laurel!” he shouted at the phone, which was still connected. “Go as fast as you can!”

“A- Alright!”

Hakade kept his eyes on the space in front of him. His reappearance forced the enemies to go back to hiding, but they still outnumbered him. They could still shoot, and spotting them was even more difficult compared to when they sat in the open.

“On our left! On our left!” Mia shouted.

A shell smashed into Scorpion’s flank, destroying the shield.

“Shield is gone!”

“Damn it!” Hakade gritted his teeth.

“In front of us!”

A shell slammed into Scorpion’s front. The attack took out one of its cameras. The onboard computer tried creating an alternative image, based on the data from the other cameras, but the image wasn’t as clear. He tried searching for the enemy when another shell slammed into his flank. He could feel Scorpion limping.

“Damn it! Laurel, go!”

“How about you!?”

“Ana, Mia, I can handle-”

“Like hell we’ll let you do that!” Mia gripped the controls, firing her machine guns.

Then it stopped. They ran out of ammo. Hakade checked the main gun. Three shells left.

“We might need to abandon Scorpion!”

“Not on my watch.”

It was a radio transmission. He had been so focused that he didn’t hear anything said before that. Right after that, the roar of jet engines appeared overhead, and bombs smashed the area ahead of them on both sides of the track. Hakade could feel a yank coming from behind.

“Leave them to us! We’ll bring them to safety!”

“Don’t let the kids get all the glory! Everyone, charge!”

“Sunstruck to Echo Eight-Seven-”

“We’re fine! We can go with them!”

“Copy!”

Troops poured from behind them. Tanks, soldiers, helicopters, anything the humans could throw at them. All attacked at once, pushing MARA further and further back. The action snowballed from there, and after a while, they wiped all opposing units off the map.