by TR Cameron
It would take some getting used to, but the new system had impressive promise. She turned to her team who were all ready to go. They carried equal amounts of hollow-point and anti-magic ammunition for their pistols and carbines since they didn’t know what mix of enemies they’d have to face. She sat beside Rath as he strapped his vest on and secured the belt around his waist. “Are you up for this, champ?”
The troll grinned. “Never been on a train.”
“Well, this isn’t quite the way most people ride a train. They usually stay on the inside.”
“More fun like this.”
She laughed and drew him into a quick hug. “You keep being you, Rath, and there’s no way we can lose.”
He disengaged and did a backflip, landed in an exaggerated martial arts stance, and made a silly kung fu movie noise. Diana pointed at him as she stood. “You need to watch less television.”
“Never. Max likes it.”
“Uh-huh. Max. Sure.”
He grinned and shifted into a new pose and she chuckled as she turned away to address the rest of the team.
“I don’t have any fancy words for you. We have a job to do. Fortunately, it involves keeping scumbags from getting what they want, which has to be the best job ever. Grab your weapons and get to the roof. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
They nodded and departed, and she joined Kayleigh in the core. Three of the panels showed drone feeds, one of which flew above a locomotive. Diana gestured toward it. “Where’s our target now?”
The other woman looked at another monitor, waved her hands, and a map appeared to reveal the train on the eastern side of the city. “It’ll be in town in about ten minutes and out of town right on schedule. My best guess is that they’ll attack about fifteen minutes after that to give them the most time from when it leaves a crowded place to when it returns to one, near Youngstown. They could also strike after that, of course, which would be a real pain in the ass. I hope the chopper has extra fuel.”
Diana chuckled. “I’m sure they’ve handled those details. You don’t have to worry about everything yourself.”
The tech frowned at her. “Of course, I do. That’s my job.”
She touched her arm. “You’re one in a billion. Stay with us.”
“Ooh. Dirty play, boss. Going for the emotional hook. Not cool.” They both laughed. “Talk to me after, assuming you manage not to crash the helicopter and the train and wind up in the hospital.”
She smirked as she strode toward the elevator. “One of us, blondie.”
Kayleigh's voice was clear in her earpieces as the lift door closed. “Worst. Fate. Ever.”
Diana cracked her knuckles under her shock gloves.
Let’s teach some slimeballs about the dangers of causing trouble in our town.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The helicopter swooped in from the point where the rivers met and nosed up to hover above the rooftop. Two black ropes snaked out to puddle on the tarred surface and the team used the knots for a scrambled ascent into the aircraft. When they were aboard, Tony and Cara pressed the switches to retract the lines, and the chopper banked away. Scant moments later, they reached the tracks along the river and the aircraft aligned itself above the train’s route. The interior of the cabin was crowded, although the benches on the front and back walls proved sufficient to seat all of them. Anik chose to stand and gripped the roof handles to maintain his balance.
“Friday, connect to the helicopter comms.” After the soft bell, Diana said, “Status update?”
The pilot was a woman judging by the timbre of her voice. “Clean pickup. Good work. The target is ahead of us. We’ll keep our distance at a mile and a half to the rear, as instructed.”
“Excellent. Let me know if there’s any change.”
“Affirmative.”
Diana silenced her feed momentarily using the glove stud. “Friday, listen-only on the helicopter.” The soft bell chimed again, and she toggled her mic on. “Kayleigh, how are we doing?”
“There’s no noise about the chopper on the normal channels. A couple of conspiracy theorists we’re watching mentioned something on Twitter, but nothing big.”
Tony’s laugh intruded into the conversation. “Are you saying Twitter is inconsequential?”
Kayleigh’s scorn was obvious. “Let’s simply say that some of the people there don’t exactly wisely choose who to listen to and leave it at that.”
Cara added, “Instagram is where it’s at. Have you seen Jason Momoa’s feed?” She growled appreciatively.
Anik’s calm tones carried an undertone of humor. “So, is this how y’all prep for missions? Social media discussions to make everyone angry enough to shoot?”
The investigator laughed again. “No, Cara merely has a thing for muscles.”
Kayleigh purred. “Who doesn’t?”
“Okay, people.” Diana shook her head. “Time to put our game faces on.” The banter subsided. “How’s our timing?”
“On target, boss,” the tech responded crisply. “Thirty seconds either way is the predicted boundary right now.”
“Do you see any sign of them?”
Three windows opened in her visual field, each showing the feed from a drone. The other woman explained rapidly. “The left one is traveling about five minutes ahead of the engine. There’s no activity there. The second is over the midpoint of the train. That’s the highest, to avoid detection, and there’s nothing to see there, either. The third is trailing behind you by a minute, so we’ll have a warning if they come from that way. No action is evident so far.” Each view remained in constant motion as the drones’ cameras gimbaled three-sixty-degrees and tilted from horizontal to vertical and back. To look too long was nauseating, so Diana closed her eyes.
For now, we have nothing to do but wait.
After a couple of minutes, Cara broke the silence. “This is boring.”
The team laughed and even Diana couldn’t hold in a chuckle. “Right?”
Rath spoke unexpectedly. “Know anything about Silver Griffins?”
Before she could ask Friday to pull the information, Kayleigh responded. “I’m a huge fan of them, Rath. How did you hear of them?”
He sounded reluctant. “Someone mentioned them.”
The tech must have picked up on his tone because she didn’t pursue it. “Well, basically, before ARES, before the PDA, and before AET, they stood against bad magic on Earth. They ultimately disbanded and the members integrated into other government agencies.”
Rath nodded and his helmet bobbed. “Good guys. Like us.”
“You know it.”
“Is excellent.”
Diana wondered what had brought that on, but a set of three chimes from the AI distracted her. “Go, Friday.”
The computerized woman’s voice was soft but direct, much like the on-screen version. “Notable activity on drone two.”
“Show us.” The window that displayed surveillance of their target expanded to fill her vision and presumably did the same all the team’s displays. Several military-style trucks had pulled beside the train on a long empty stretch. The timing was squarely within what they’d anticipated. “Can you get closer?”
“Stand by,” Kayleigh said. The drone swooped lower, and the image came into better focus. Four canvas-topped vehicles bowled along the flat land on either side of the slight rise of the tracks. They loomed black against the darkness and traveled without headlights. According to the map the tech had added to Diana’s display, a crossing a couple of miles ahead would force them to break off and reposition or risk collision with stopped traffic.
She straightened. “Okay, people. Here we go. Friday, include helicopter comms.” She paused to allow the crew to join the feed, then continued. “They’re making their move. It’s time to make ours.”
“Affirmative.” The chopper’s nose dipped slightly as the pilot accelerated sharply to close the gap. The plan was for the chopper to match the train’s velocity and hold th
ere as the BAM Agents descended using the ropes. Only a few of them, not including Diana, could have accomplished the touch-and-go deployment that would have been optimal.
Well, it’s almost touch and go, anyway. Landing on a train wouldn’t be smart outside of an action film. I bet Rath would love it, though.
She pointed decisively. “Anik, Cara, get ready to toss the lines.” They unspooled the rope from its holder and looped it on the floor with one foot in the middle to keep it in place. That done, they attached heavy magnets to the bottom with a carabiner.
“Thirty seconds,” the pilot reported. “The wind is good so this shouldn’t be a problem.” In the display, the canvas covers peeled off the frames to reveal a sizable number of humanoids, some definitely large enough to be Kilomea. Several vaulted onto the train, seemingly assisted by magic-users in the vehicles. They threw lines to the wizards, witches, and others who remained in the trucks and hauled them aboard.
The secure cars were identical heavily armored, windowless boxes. These had a door at each end and broad ones on the sides that were currently closed. Flatbeds broke the symmetry at intervals, carrying securely lashed crates in most cases. Rath had declared during the planning session that he wanted there to be a tank, but the closest thing the train offered was a Humvee with a machine gun on top.
The raiders had boarded the third car from the back. Flatbeds alternated with full cars toward the engine, and those behind were the standard heavy-duty safes on wheels. A bright flash stabbed through the darkness as a magic user cast a spell and the invaders disappeared into the hole that had been created in the roof of the train car.
The pilot jerked Diana’s awareness back to the interior of the helicopter. “Stand by. Matching speed…now.”
She breathed deeply. “Careful, people. Go.” Cara and Anik flung the lines and shuttled down. When they reached the top of the train, they activated the magnets and the pilot spooled the lines back until they were mostly taut to provide stability for the others. Their descent went smoothly, and they took off their helmets and attached them to the lines, releasing the magnets so the chopper could retract the ropes and veer away. It would remain close, but the aviator couldn't do much for them at this point.
They’d landed on the tail car, as planned. “Kayleigh, do you have any insights for us?” Diana asked.
“None. There is thermal shielding on the cars and obviously no windows. I have nothing.”
Diana shrugged. “Fast and hard, then, people. Rath, you’re with me. We’ll head to the one they broke into. The rest of you start at the back exactly as we planned to.” They’d used an actual model train on the display table to determine the best tactics for the operation. The enemy’s choice of boarding location had invalidated some of these, and the lack of intel had eliminated others. Unfortunately, that left them with only the most basic strategy—eliminating the marauders as they found them. The original tactic to start from the rear and sweep forward still applied, with the exception of two team members who would move forward to the section already boarded.
She triggered a private comms channel to Kayleigh as she made a running leap toward the car ahead and cleared the gap easily. “Have you had any luck getting the army to weigh in now that they’ve started the attack?”
“They welcome our assistance but lack the authority to tell us where anything on the train is. They’ve kicked it up the ladder.”
“Once again, I am thankful we don’t have such stupid bureaucracies in place. Keep me informed about anything I need to know out here in the real world.” She launched onto the third car and stuck her head over the opening but yanked it back barely in time to avoid the gunfire from within.
Crouched low, she triggered the full communication channel again. “Rath, throw this in. Let’s show them we’re not playing around.” He lobbed the fragmentation grenade she handed him into the hole, and she conjured a force shield over the opening. Loud clangs echoed as the grenade struck the barrier in the invaders’ attempts to eject the explosive, rapidly followed by the inevitable conflagration and the shrapnel. She grinned as she lowered their defense and flipped inside, rolled as she hit, and raised her rifle.
Only a few enemies remained alive in the car. A wizard lay on the floor, his body shredded by shrapnel.
I assume you were the one who threw it back at us. Stupid.
A Kilomea lay crumpled in the corner, still alive but bleeding from a rash of wounds. Another wizard at the rear huddled behind a shield. Diana depressed the trigger on her weapon and delivered three anti-magic rounds into his chest. The man staggered against the wall of the car but didn’t fall.
Damn vests.
He raised his wand and she yanked it from his hand with a telekinetic pull. He barely had time to register shock before Rath bounded in and performed a more literal assault when he jabbed the man hard in the thighs with his batons. The mage fell, and the troll zip-tied him.
Diana announced “Car three, clear. No obvious treasures. Moving forward.”
Cara spoke softly into her mike from her place at the rear. “Ready to breach car one.” Anik stood from where he’d knelt to attach a set of explosives on the latch side of the door. The low platform at the back was only large enough for the demolitions expert, so the others clung to the ladders on both sides and waited for him to provide entry.
He climbed away and nodded
“Blow it,” Cara ordered,
The loud explosion as the charges detonated was muffled by their earpieces, and the door swung open. Cara was the first one in and sidestepped immediately to the left. Two stunned men in mismatched dark fatigues and body armor spun to face her and she studied them quickly. Their faces hosted sloppy beards and mustaches, their shirts were unbuttoned too low, and their boots were unaccountably dirty. Obviously, these were the targets. There was none of the efficient military look about them
There were too many innocents around and she went to standard protocol, firing a triple-tap of standard ammunition into each of their chests, knocking them back. She realized too late they were wearing vests.
Their rifles fired as they stumbled, and her vest caught a round as she lurched aside. Anik entered behind her and added more shots to each man in tightly grouped clusters that hurled them into the wall where they slumped awkwardly. Cara reached for the handle to open the exit, but her teammate put his hand on hers and shook his head.
He retrieved a device she hadn’t seen before from a pouch on his thigh. Her look must have betrayed her thoughts because he spoke quietly as he set it against the door. “It’s a sniffer. If there are explosives on the other side, it’ll warn us. It doesn’t work on grenades, unfortunately. If it were me, I’d have put traps down.”
She nodded. “That makes sense.”
Anik pulled it back and frowned. “There’s nothing obvious.”
Cara pointed at a stack of heavy crates. “Rig a line. We can pull the door open from behind these.”
He stuck an adhesive hook on the floor and threaded a thin metal cable through it, attached the line to the door, and joined the others behind the barrier before he yanked sharply. The door opened and a grenade clattered, then detonated to ignite several boxes and canvas covers. Tony snatched a wall-mounted extinguisher as the other man jumped the gap to the small platform on the rear of the next car and repeated the process of demolishing the lock.
This time, the detonation wasn’t as much of a shock to those inside, and a hail of bullets greeted them as soon as it swung open. Cara and Tony retreated behind the metal walls of car one, and Anik lobbed a grenade into the other with a quiet, “Flash out.” It exploded and released light, sound, and concussion through the metal box. The gunfire neither slowed nor stopped.
What the hell? Cara realized that the only explanation involved some kind of magical protection, which made entry a real risk. She frowned, considered their options, and grinned. “Ready to breach car two. Here’s what we’ll do.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She stared across the gap to the car on the other side. “It sure would be nice if we had an armed drone to demolish that door for me.”
Kayleigh groaned. “Stop. Cara, say nothing.” The ex-Marshall’s chuckle was tease enough. “You’re magical. Do magic.”
Diana shrugged. Good point. Her lessons with Nylotte hadn’t yet provided the key to drawing on her full power reserve, but she had learned to make the most of what she already had. She closed her eyes, focused, and willed all the force magic she had to coalesce in her right hand. Once she’d formed it into an orb the size of a softball, she gestured gently toward the car ahead. The ball hurtled forward with all the energy of her power and telekinesis behind it and punched through the handle, the lock above it, and part of the wall.
Rath clapped approvingly. “Nice shot.”
She looked at her palm, a little surprised. “It was more powerful than I expected, but I suppose that’s a good problem to have.” She brushed her hands against one another. “Ready?” The troll nodded. “Okay, I’ll yank it open and lead. Rifles first, magicals second, Kilomea third.” He confirmed with another brusque nod. Diana yanked the door wide magically and raced toward the opening.
Automatic weapons’ fire erupted through the entry. Her force shield protected her when it absorbed the impacts and bounced the bullets off to clatter on the metal floor. She hurdled the gap, slid into the fourth car, and thrust her magical barrier forward to batter the two gunmen who had opened fire. The energy wave propelled them into the unyielding wall at the far end, and bones crunched distinctively as they fell and their rifles clattered away.
