by Tom Jones
“Approaching the tracks. I can see them from here,” the pilot of the HH-60 announced as he began descending on the tracks. The fox stood up, and he opened the door of the helicopter by sliding it. He took a look outside, and he could see a train in the distance that had not reached them yet. Arcades wondered if the train he was looking at was the right one. He did not have a means to directly track the cargo, but Bocchino was keeping track of time. The fox spoke, “I see a train that’s coming. Does it sound like the right one for the time, Bobby?” Bocchino pulled his sleeve back to look at his watch. After looking at the time, he replied, “Yep. Right on schedule. I’m sure that’s the right one.”
“Hold on, Kurt. We’re about to start a deep descent,” the human pilot gave a heads-up to the fox. Arcades held onto a bar on the roof of the helicopter’s cabin, and the pilot began descending on the train tracks. The fox was able to keep himself balanced and standing as the helicopter descended. He looked back at his men, and he realized that he was the only one standing. He decided that he should just stand until it was time to jump on the train. After the helicopter leveled itself out when it got close enough to the ground, Arcades was contemplating whether to chamber a round or not. He noticed that Bocchino was the first to chamber a round into his weapon. Jason followed second, and then the other two humans chambered rounds into their weapons as well. Arcades decided he would not chamber a round into his weapon. He was still planning on not shooting anybody.
The pilot slowed down the helicopter, and the train soon was able to catch up. Once the train had almost traveled ahead of the helicopter, the pilot sped the helicopter up in order to keep up with the train, and this would be how the squad would jump on the roof of the train cars. However, they did not know which car the cargo was being held in. The train had fifteen cars, so Arcades was not sure which car to start with. He decided he would start with the car that they would land on once the pilot gave them the go-ahead. The rest of the men in the cabin stood up, and they moved up to join Arcades by the door. The fox was looking down at the car, and he was impressed with how well the pilot was able to match the speed of the moving train.
Arcades knew that he would have to jump out relatively quickly once the pilot was ready to deploy the squad. The fox did not know if the upcoming track had any bends to it, and he also was not sure if there were any large trees nearby that could pose a threat to the aircraft. He did not want to make the pilot’s job harder than it already was. After a few seconds, the pilot announced, “Alright. You guys are cleared to jump out.” Arcades leaped out of the helicopter and onto the train he landed. He only leapt around four feet onto the roof of the train. After he landed on the train, he looked up at the rest of his men in the helicopter. Bocchino was the second to jump off, and the cat immediately looked down the sights of his rifle once he landed on the train. Jason was the third to jump off, but he did not land on the train balanced. The wolf stumbled, and he came close to falling off the edge of the train car. Arcades had grabbed the wolf’s left arm to prevent him from falling off.
“Shit… Thanks, mate,” Jason thanked the fox. Once Jason was able to stand balanced, Jacob and Noah finally joined the three anthros on the train. Arcades did a mental headcount before holding the button on his PTT to inform the pilot of the successful deployment, “We are all on the train. Keep your distance from the train and remain on standby until we are ready for extraction. Over.” The pilot promptly responded before proceeding, “Solid copy, Arcades.” The fox watched as the helicopter began moving away from him. Once the helicopter had gained a considerable distance away from the squad, they decided that it was now time to actually start the mission. Jason asked a question Arcades did not know, “So, which car is it?” Arcades looked back and forth at the cars on both sides, “I’m not sure. I know what the cargo looks like, though. It’s a large silver and black box. It is completely unmarked.” Bocchino turned around to face the fox that was not looking at him, “You didn’t bring the tracker?”
Arcades shook his head, “No, I forgot to grab it before we left base. We’re going to have to search all of these cars until we find it. Bocchino was already impatient and he voiced his impatience, “Dammit, fuck…” Arcades once again ignored the cat’s word choice, “We’ll see what else we can find along the way. I’m not sure if this entire train is owned by Omega, though.” Jacob moved closer to the hatch that was on top of the car that the squad was currently standing on, “How about we start here first? It looks like they forgot to lock the top hatch here.” Arcades walked up to the hatch, and he noticed that it was indeed unlocked. The fox cleared the men to commence with the entry, “Sure. Let’s start here.” Jacob began to twist the wheel on the hatch until it opened. The human lifted up the hatch, and he peeked inside. The car was completely unoccupied. Jacob looked up at Arcades and said, “This one’s clear of hostiles. Let’s get in.”
The fox was the first to climb inside the hatch, but he noticed that there was not a ladder that he would be able to use to get himself up or down. Luckily, the car was not too tall, so he would not break his legs from the fall. Arcades lowered himself down the best he could before dropping himself in the train. The fox landed on his bare feet, and he did not sustain any injuries even with the ceramic plates that were considerably weighing him down. His thin legs were able to bear the weight of the plates even after the short fall. The fox looked up at the four men that were looking down at him from the roof. He called out to them, “This one doesn’t have a ladder! You’ll have to jump down yourselves. We won’t be able to get back up from here.” Bocchino was the next one to jump down the hatch. He landed without grunting, and he quickly examined his surroundings before moving aside to let the next person jump in.
Noah spun his ACR around to his back by using his two point rifle sling. He then hopped down the hatch as well. He slightly grunted when he hit the ground, but he was not injured by the fall. He retrieved his ACR which he stowed away, and he waited for the next man to jump. Jason soon followed by hopping down the hatch. When the wolf landed on the train car’s floor, he accidentally dropped the mag out of his HK433. Arcades bent down, grabbed the magazine for the wolf, and he handed Jason the magazine. The wolf seated it into his rifle again after thanking the fox for grabbing the magazine for him. Jacob finally joined the squad in the train. Arcades noticed that the human had closed the hatch on his way inside. The train car was now very dark since there was no active lighting inside of the train cars.
Arcades held up his rifle, flipped on the flashlight that was part of his PEQ-15, and he shined it around the train car. His polarized sunglasses were not helping him see in the dark, so the fox let go of the rifle’s pistol grip in order to remove the sunglasses from his face. Once he was able to see better, the fox looked for a place where he could leave his sunglasses. He decided that his dump pouch would make for the best place to leave the glasses; he just had to make sure that he did not sit on them. The fox heard a click followed by the internal lights in the car begin to shine. Arcades closed his eyes momentarily as his eyes were adjusting for the dark, and the sudden change of light made his eyes sting slightly. Once he opened his eyes again, he looked to see if anybody had turned on the lights, and Arcades saw Noah standing next to what looked to be a lightswitch. The fox disabled his PEQ-15, but he still decided to keep his glasses off. He did not know if the next car would be lit.
The fox looked around the train car, and he could see several crates; However, the crates did not look like the crate that he was searching for. Arcades decided that he would try and open a few of them just to see if they were owned by Omega. Arcades walked up to one of the crates, and he was looking for a way to open it. Arcades then heard Bocchino’s voice, “Kurt, is that the crate you need?” Arcades shook his head while he continued to search for a way to open the crate in front of him, “No, this isn’t. I want to know if these crates belong to Omega or not.” Bocchino moved closer to the fox to inspect the crate that he was looking at. The cat fli
pped a latch on the crate and pulled the top off.
“Oh shoot, that’s new,” Arcades commented as he viewed the crate’s contents. The fox was looking at what appeared to be an assault rifle with a launcher integrated with it. Though many rifles with launchers existed, the launchers were almost always underneath the barrel. This weapon had a launcher that was located on top of the main rifle. Arcades thought the rifle looked familiar to a 90s prototype. The fox picked the rifle up, and he held it. He saw that a PMAG was already seated in the rifle. Arcades located the weapon’s magazine release, and he dropped the magazine to check if the rifle was loaded. The magazine was empty. Next, Arcades looked for a charging handle, and he found one that was on the left side of the rifle. He pulled the charging handle backwards, and he held it once it reached its backwards position. Arcades flipped the rifle around to its other side, and he looked inside of the breech. The rifle was clear.
“What is that supposed to be?” Jason asked the fox. Arcades continued looking at the rifle as he spoke, “I’m not entirely sure. It reminds me of the Heckler and Koch XM29 OICW, but that project was cancelled decades ago. This looks like a new version of it, but I dunno who manufactured it.” The wolf nodded, “Interesting. We’re going to split up and go look around the other cars.” Arcades ejected the magazine from the launcher portion of the rifle. The launcher was fed through a magazine that was in the stock. This made the weapon a hybrid of a bullpup and a conventional rifle. Arcades acknowledged the wolf, “Alright. You’re with me. Tell Bocchino that he should go with Noah and Jacob to go and see what they can find in the other cars.” Jason began to walk back from where the other three operators were standing, “Got it, Kurt.”
Arcades looked at the magazine from the launcher that he removed. The weapon’s launcher component seemed to take 20 mm munitions due to the fact that it looked too small to accommodate for 40mm munitions. He pulled back the second charging handle that dealt with the launcher portion. The launcher’s charging handle was on top of the charging handle that Arcades pulled earlier. He noted that the charging handle behaved similarly to the Heckler & Koch G3 and its derivatives. The front of the charging handle had to be pulled upwards to provide more torque to pull the handle back. However, Arcades could not find a way to lock the bolt back for either of the actions that the weapon had, yet Arcades figured there had to have been a way to lock the bolt back. He knew that the feature was not present on all rifles, but it was becoming ever so popular.
The fox looked for anything that could be a bolt catch. He took a brief look at the fire selector switch that was near the rifle’s grip. The rifle had several modes of fire. Currently, the rifle was on safe, but the other modes were ‘SEMI’, ‘BURST’, and ‘AUTO’. Since the fire modes were spelled out, it made Arcades think that the rifle had not been produced for nations that were outside of the English-speaking countries. However, he did take into account that English was becoming one of the most popular languages in the world. Arcades flipped the rifle over to its other side, and he noticed that there was another selector switch. This switch only had two options, ‘KE’ and ‘HE’. Arcades recognized the acronyms from the XM29 OICW. The fox came to the conclusion that the launcher was part of the rifle itself, and was not just a feature that was added to an already existing rifle.
When Arcades looked at the receiver group of the rifle, he noticed an omega symbol on it. The symbol looked much like the patch that he brought out of the Stealth Hawk, but it lacked color. He looked at the inscription that was underneath the logo, “OMEGA FOUNDATION XMP-1” The fox’s eyes lit up once he read the inscription. The rifle was made by the Omega Foundation, but Arcades did not know what XMP-1 stood for. He assumed that it was the model number, but Arcades was surprised that he had never seen the rifle before. The fox was wondering how long the Foundation had been manufacturing the weapon for. Arcades decided to voice his findings to Jason, “Hey, Jason.”
The wolf turned around while he was looking through the other cargo in the car, “This weapon was made by Omega. It has their logo and everything.” Jason then said, “Damn. They’re making their own weapons?” The fox nodded, “Yeah. What did you find over there?” Jason said, “Plenty of ammo. All of the boxes either say 5.56x45mm or 20x40mm airburst.” Arcades looked up at the stacked boxes, “Oh shoot, that’s what this gun uses.” Jason questioned Arcades, “What? You mean the 5.56?” Arcades replied, “That, and the 20 mm airburst. It’s part of the rifle. One half of it fires out conventional intermediate rounds, but the other part fires out 20 mm grenades that detonate in midair. They were originally made to disable small unarmored vehicles, and to kill people from behind corners by sending shrapnel their way.”
Arcades turned back around, and he looked up at all of the other crates in the car that looked to be about the same size that he retrieved the XMP-1 from. Some of the crates even stacked up to the roof of the train car. Arcades shook his head, “Oh man. Omega has been mass producing these. This isn’t just one prototype. They have all of that ammo for all of these guns.” Jason looked up at the stack of crates that Arcades was mentioning. The wolf asked, “So, are you going to take one of those?” The fox looked back down at the rifle. He looked at the scope that seemed to include an integrated rangefinder. The fox shook his head, “I don’t think so. We don’t manufacture stuff. Also, I don’t buy any grenades or grenade launchers. I don’t see them as being humane. I’m really not too fond of the idea of using explosives against living beings. Especially ones that send shrapnel everywhere. That’s why I don’t buy frag grenades.” Jason never knew the reason why Fox Security did not have any grenades, but he knew now.
“Are you just going to leave that here?” Jason asked the fox. Arcades placed the rifle on the ground before replying, “Yes, but I’m going to photograph it first for evidence. We need to gather proof that the Omega Foundation is doing this kind of stuff. Since it has their logo on it, we have better odds at proving that this thing was produced by them.” The fox removed his phone from his pocket, and he opened his camera application. He zoomed in on the weapon while moving his bare fox feet out of the shot. After unsuccessfully trying to get a good angle while keeping his feet out of the shot, he got on his knees to take the shot. The fox started taking pictures of the rifle. He photographed the rifle from both sides, the chambers, the selector switches, and the Omega Foundation logo on the rifle. Once Arcades finished, he stood back up.
“Wait, mate. Can’t you use that to find out which car the GPS signal is pinging from?” Arcades raised an eyebrow as he looked at his phone. He thought about it for a few moments, “You know. Maybe I can; if I have the software installed.” Arcades could not remember if he had the software on the phone that he needed in order to view his tracked GPS devices, but he looked around on his list of installed applications. Though he preferred to use the more accurate dedicated device that could locate his GPS trackers, he could vaguely remember having a backup program on his phone. Arcades found the program that he was looking for, “Oh, I think I found it.” Jason smiled, “That’s good mate. Now we don’t have to run around the whole bloody train to find it.” The fox nodded in response, “Yeah. Lemme see if this shows where the tracker is pinging from.” Arcades opened the tracker using the program, and he waited for it to detect a signal. Within a few short moments, the signal was located, and it placed the signal several meters away.
“I think it’s in the next car over, actually.” Jason moved closer to look at Arcades’ phone, “Really? The others went that away.” Arcades looked up to see that Jason was pointing in the opposite direction of the signal. The fox shook his head, “That’s the wrong way then. The car that’s the other way is the one we’re looking for.” The wolf looked in the direction Arcades was mentioning. Jason said, “Hmm.. We’d better go and check it out.” Arcades nodded, “Yeah. We probably should see what their cargo is. We’ll call up the others if we need to. They could be finding something else that’s equally as interesting. Just like how we fou
nd the weapons in here.”
“Oh Kurt. Are we planning on taking the cargo that we find in the next car?” Jason asked Arcades. Arcades answered the question, “I don’t think so. Omega will find out that their stuff is missing, and they’ll be looking for it. I also bet that their equipment has tracking devices implanted in half of it. I really doubt they’d like to come in to see that their stuff is missing. Also, we need to gather as much evidence as we can while they’re unaware. We won’t be able to have a good enough case against them if they either destroy the evidence or kill us first.” Jason thought it over before speaking, “I guess that makes sense. You’re going to put that gun back in the box where you found it?” The fox turned back around to see the weapon that was still lying on the floor. He then looked up at the box that was sitting where he found it to begin with.
“Yeah. I’ll go and put it back. You didn’t move any of that ammo, did you?” Arcades spoke. The wolf shook his head, “Nuh-uh. I didn’t touch any of that, mate.” The fox picked up the weapon again, and he made sure that the two magazines were seated in the weapon. As he was bringing it back over to the original box, he noticed three buttons that were surrounding the trigger guard. The first button had a plus sign on it. The next one had zero on it. The final button had a minus sign on it. The fox thought that the buttons functioned similarly to the XM29. They would be able to control the distance that the 20 mm round flies before it detonates.
Before Arcades put the rifle back in the box, he briefly looked down the scope that was powered off. Arcades spoke aloud, “This thing is very impressive though. It’s like the XM29 if it was actually completed and put into production.” The wolf did not have anything else to say about the weapon since he was not familiar with the XM29 OICW. Arcades lowered the weapon into the box which it came in, and he closed it. He then reattached the latches on the box, and he sat the box back on the stack that he found it on. Arcades took a step back when he finished, and he looked around at all of the other boxes and crates to make sure that everything looked to be in place.
