The hum of the Division's central archive chamber was softer this hour.
It pulsed like a slow heartbeat behind the glass walls, rhythmic and constant, the sound of stored data breathing inbetween the cycles of light.
Samir stood alone at the upper dais, coat folded neatly over the rail. The holographic interface projected above the console sent faint reflections across his face; muted blues, thin as the veins under his skin.
"Administrator," he said, voice steady. "You said you found something unusual within the deeper archives."
The reply came almost at once, soft as static through the overhead speakers.
"I did," Seraphine answered. "Partition sector B-Nine-L." One of the sealed subdirectories restored earlier contained a dormant data-construct. Datum suggest it identifies itself as Legion Node 'L-7X–Δ13'."
The words lingered like a forgein smell in the air. Samir's eyes flicked to the model-display forming above the console, a rotating sigil of sharp intersecting lines, faintly burning white. The identification tag was projected below it, the model pulsed once, then dimmed, like a neuron firing in sleep.
"I thought the purge prioritised every Legion dataset during the war." His voice thinned. "You're certain this isn't a fake that someone tried to replicate?"
"I verified it against the Babelian registry codes prior to the war." The light converged to form her projection besides him, her face, though shifting as always, was clearer than the other projections. "It matches the checksum exactly. This is L-7X–Δ13, Director, authentic and dormant."
"Dormant," Samir repeated. "So not dead."
"Dormancy implies the potential for activity," Seraphine admitted. "But there are no processes running. No external calls, handshakes, telemetry. It simply.. exists in storage. Dormant."
She hesitated, a rare modulation in her tone, contemplating. "When the purge reached this section of the archive, the logs show the erasure commands were manually interrupted. The timestamp corresponds to the final hour before Ganzir's collapse."
Samir rested his palms on the edge of the console. "Meaning, someone in Babel had saved it."
"It appears so. Someone knew the Division would be retired once Ganzir fell, and had acted to preserve the bits of data I couldn't save... including parts of me."
Silence settled between them, heavy but not awkward. The chamber lights seemed to dim imperceptibly, as if listening.
After a time, Samir said quietly, "Can it be moved?"
"I advise against it," Seraphine replied. Its container file is fused with the archives' structural index. Removal would destabilise the index tree and risk data being scattered everywhere, causing an 83% decrease in processing efficiency as I'd have to reorganise the data to a more readable format.
He exhaled through his nose, a slow, controlled breath. "So they also made sure we wouldn't be quick to dispose of it. They want it to stay here."
"Yes. It's isolated. I've sealed it within a double-partition. It can neither send nor receive without my express approval; if it reactivates."
"Good," Samir murmured, though his eyes remained on the rotating sigil. "We won't inform the Councillor, at least not yet. If the Iron Accord or the Dominion learn of the Legion's fragments being used by the Varkos, they'll weaponise that information before the week's end.
"I understand." Her tone then softened, "Director... you don't seem surprised."
"Truth be told..." Samir presses a button on the central console, the speakers begin projecting a barrier of unheard sound, creating an unseen wall that sound can't vibrate through; isolating them from the others.
"I expected something like this," he said, straightening. "Babel never made things to be destroyed. Babel never made things to destroy either, they were always research focused. They made technology that helped us, helped Varkos. We, as a nation were fortunate to be the closest to them by location, even more fortunate to be the closest in terms of diplomacy. Yet, their past, their origin, technology... their secrecy. All of that was enough to warrant us to side with the other two nations to lay siege to them." He pauses to take a deep breath.
Seraphine's projection faltered as she picks up on the emotional whelm the Director is currently feeling.
"I know talking about this to you is strange since you're Babelian in design, you already know what happened, what we did to your makers. But I can't help but pick up on the fact that Ganzir wasn't made to protect Babel, it was designed to isolate it. Yet you already knew that, don't you, Watcher." He looks up at Seraphine's shifting face, his eyes reminiscent of the old Director, the Samir who took no liberty in regrets. But like the the fleeting shells fired against Ganzir's walls, the old Samir faded passed once more.
"Sorry.." He sighs, heavy with remorse. "Keep observing it, that's what we're made to do."
He reaches for the datapad at this side, saving her report into an encrypted slot. "Keep it isolated as it is now, we'll wake it soon; see what it has to say."
"...Understood."
Her voice quietened further, almost fading into the low murmur of the power grid. "For what it's worth, Director, I don't blame you. I'm sure they wouldn't too."
Samir's eyes widen, breath hitching. "Change.. of discussion." He disables the sonic barrier. "How goes the field-team?"
Her projection brightened slightly. "Lieutenant Elias and the others have reached Sublevel Four two hours ago. They've begun local calibration of the Ophanim's containment array. Power is stable, within the predicted thresholds. However, the passing Wanderfield storm is causing slight distortions even deep underground at their level. I'm maintaining direct oversight over the grid there to ensure nothing will activate by itself."
"Indirect only," Samir cautioned. "No active connection, no neural links."
"I am aware of your restrictions."
"Good," he muttered. "I've seen what happens when you try to control something through Wanderfield static."
A pause, then broken by Seraphine's faint laugh, artificial yet wonderfully human. "I am not as fragile as they are."
"Still," Samir said, picking up his coat, "I'd rather not test the difference."
He moved towards the exit archway. The holographic lights followed him for a moment before dimming behind his retreating form.
"Director," Seraphine called, her voice echoing faintly through the steel corridor.
He stopped.
"Be cautious," she said. "Whatever sleeps in that archive, was designed to wake when it sense the world changing. That was the Legion."
Samir gave a slight nod, "Then let's hope the world keeps itself hidden from it."
The doors sealed shut behind him.
For a moment, the archive chamber remained still, except for him.
Then, in a place he can't visually see, buried deep beneath a thousand layers of firewalled code, a pulse of light blinked once within the sealed partition of L-7X–Δ13. No command, nor motion. Just a single flicker, as though acknowledging it had been spoken of.
——————————
'Down Under'
The southern port's sub-terrain smelled of rust and fishy wiring. Every corridor hummed faintly with current that hadn't been routed elsewhere in years; the kind of power that existed only because someone forgot to pull the breaker.
Elias led the way, his visor display washing pale blue across the walls.
The old Varkos construction stretched outward in rigid geometry, square tunnels, riveted joints and conduits snaking along the ceilings like hardened veins. Each turn looked the same as the other, a repetition of concrete, alloy and copper.
"Technicians," he said over the local channel, "status on junction power?"
A chorus of static answered first over the comms, the act of three people hot-micing their radio, then a breathless voice from one of the rookies.
"Primary lines are responsive, sir. Secondary lines have flickering current flow, possible due to the Wanderfield above. There are also many interferences going on above us."
Elias glanced up. Dust drifted from the ceiling with every tremor. The wanderfield storm above was sliding closer along the coast, its electromagnetic waves cutting through the ground like invisible tidal waves.
Even this deep below, the Division's equipment whined beneath the distortion. His own comm-feed crackled once before realigning.
"Keep your seals tight," he reminded them. You'll feel the air vibrate when the field drifts directly over us. Don't panic, it'll pass."
Haru's voice joined in from the rear column, her comms failing to transmit input due to the mentioned wanderfield. "Sensors are already down to half resolution. The storm's messing with our proximity feeds."
"Stick with visuals then," Elias said. "Gotta let Seraphine see what we can someway."
The team advanced through another stretch of corridor until it opened into a wide pressure lock, a massive gate of layered metal alloys that still bore the antiquated version of the Coalition Sigil, now scoured dull by lack of maintenance and corrosion. Behind it, laid Chamber S-04, South bay number four; Ophanim's resting vault.
Technicians hurried and approach the door's console, attempting to open it with the old access codes Seraphine dug up. They mutter amongst each other, deciding which code to try next.
"Oh look, a manual release lever." Haru said, walking over to the wall opposite the console.
"No, let the Technicians open it, they need more experie-"
The gate opens with a hiss, followed by mechanical groans as the teeth dig into each other, pulling away locks. Elias turns to the technicians, already beaming with pride at the completion of their simple task. "...Good job."
They high-five each other.
As the gate further opens, rupturing the rest of the seals with dry hissing, light begins to bleed through the gap; thin and pale like diluted sunlight.
Elias lifted his hand to shield his visor against the sudden glare. The others behind him slowed in motion. The rookies closest to the front lowered their rifles, forgetting to breathe out. The sound that met them wasn't anything, no machinery, footsteps of possible scavengers, nothing but the absence of it. It was a silence with weight, made heavier by the fact that this chamber hadn't heard human breath in almost two years.
When the mist cleared, the shape waiting within took up the entire vault.
Ophanim.
Even dormant, she was impossible to ignore.
Her body occupied the majority width of the chamber, she was a long mechanical spine of interlinked carriages, still shimmering beneath layers of dust and pale oxidation. Panels of pale blue Econium armour curved over reinforced ribs, each surface patterend with latticework that caught what little light existed, diffusing it into soft rings of halos. The front carriage stood apart the most, its prow angular, almost regal, with a glass canopy buried beneath plating that resembled eyelids half-closed. Beneath that canopy, a faint, dead glow hinted at where her headlights possibly burned brightly before.
The chamber itself had not been built for her, but it might as well have been. Scaffolds, cable gantries, maintenance bridges, all wrapped like ribs enclosing a lung; her. But the scaffolds were corroded now, and many cables hung loose, coiled on the floor like the shedding of skins.
A low exhalation escaped one of the rookies, "Goodness..." his voice barely carried through the helmet filter, yet everyone heard it.
Another, younger than the rest, took a step forward. "It's... beautiful." His tone was somewhere between the spectrum of worship and disbelief." Another rookie immediately grabbed his sleeve. "Don't touch anything."
Haru didn't speak. She, along with Elias, had seen the Ophanim once before, years ago when Babel still casted shadows long enough to frighten the other nations. Even then, her memory hadn't prepared her for this. The locomotive's silhouette was a monument to contradiction: elegant and cruel, purposeful yet mournful, as if she remembered the last orders she ever received. The faint inscriptions across her hill still bore Babelian glyphs, almost erase by the Varkos welding patches applied after her capture.
She was Babel's precision and Varkos' pragmatism fused into a single machine that now belonged to neither.
"She looks like she's been sleeping for a while," a technician murmured, noting how some of the lights are still shimmering underneath the build-up of dust. He crouches to trace a crack along the nearest track plate.
Elias shot him a look that halted the motion.
"Keep your hands to yourself, her integrity field may still be active."
He stepped closer to the edge of the platform, boots echoing faintly across the floor. The cold air smelled of ozone and old metal. From this distance, the details of her construction were clearer: Magnetic rail connectors beneath the carriages; reactor exhaust vents, faint scarring along her dorsal plating where scavengers had tried to cut through and failed.
"Two years sealed and she's still intact," Haru whispered, half to herself. "That shielding... I doubt even a nearby bomb would scratch her."
"Don't tempt it," Voss muttered, running a hand through his hair before tugging his helmet back into place. "You ever get that feeling that something's looking back? Even when it shouldn't?"
Elias didn't answer right away. He was staring at the forward carriage. The canopy's inner surface was lined with something faintly iridescent, a faint layer of reactive crystal circuits that shimmer just below the glass.
He thought he saw movement within it, but when he blinked, it was gone.
He exhaled, the visor glass fogging slightly. "Technicians, he said at last, his voice breaking the quiet reverence. "Hook the core feed. I want a live circuit through her primary conductor before the hours over. She better be off those standing wheels and back on that magnetic cushion."
The three moved immediately, hauling thick insulted lines from the walls towards the locomotive's undercarriage where the connection ports sat, buried by the dust that accumulated there over time. The other operatives began following along, aiding the technicians by deploying standing lights and exterior pylons to scan her hull.
Gradually, the vault filled with the sound of motion and humming current. Tools clattered as they were dropped and replaced with another, footsteps echoed off the walls and Ophanim.
The Ophanim whined, her turbines slowly spooling as external current begins powering her reactor once more. Haru knelt besides a terminal mounted to the wall, wiping its cracked screen with a gloved hand. "Interface is heavily outdated, why'd we stop using this area?"
Voss shrugs, too focused on controlling the supply of power travelling into the Ophanim.
"Seraphine," Elias began to report, "We're charging up the Ophanim, please confirm the route we're taking."
Static, the overhead Wanderfield denies the answer to his question.
"Hey.. Elias, look." Haru called over. The terminal she was inspecting earlier began showing a rail-route, one that takes back where they came from, then detours to a surface route.
Elias walks over, inspecting it, wiping off another grouping of dust that Haru missed. "I guess that's her answer. Smart."
He turns back to the technicians, watching them delink some of the cables. Each one careful as to not drop the heavy cable head.
The deck beneath their feet began to vibrate, faintly at first then steadier as stored energy rippled through Ophanim's circuits.
Inside the engine, lights blinked on one by one, radiating them from the canopy windows.
"Core capacitor at twenty percent," a technician reported." Field coils are now self-spooling-"
A tremor ran through the floor; raising dust like flying snow. Overhead lights flickered.
Elias turned towards the ceiling as an unseen wave passed through the structure, rattling his earpiece.
"Wanderfield's now close overhead." Haru said, checking her tablet. "Reading's off the scale, it's definitely a storm."
The static roar grew louder in his comms, drowning her voice for a second. Then, abruptly, it cleared.
"Should we abort the start-up? The wanderfield may mess with the Ignition Processes." One of the rookies asked, making Elias' respect in him grow.
"Too late to abort," Elias answered. "Light the core and open the Engine's door."
At his signal, the lead technician slammed the manual override. Energy surged through the lines, bright enough to turn the vault's mist to steam. Ophanim's dorsal vents exhaled a plume of heated air. The hum deepend, then stabilised into a steady vibration that shook dust off the rafters.
For a moment, the world held still. Then Ophanim's fog lights ignited, twin bands of white-gold light cutting through the air.
"Core's online, I guess." Haru breathed.
"Stabilising, she's awake." The same technician reported.
Elias's visor flickered with the new data feed streaming from the locomotive's systems: Division Access Key accepted, life-support functional, internal temperature climbing, field generator dormant but responsive.
"Good," he said, relief hiding behind clipped tones. "She's ours once again, seal the lines and start diagnostics. Let's keep her calm until-"
Static began ringing through their ears, causing some of them to cover their heads with their hands. Voss notices the wall terminal flashing, Seraphine wanted, or rather, needed their attention.
Elias rushes over, Seraphine wouldn't do something like this unless it's urgent. And unfortunately, he was right. Displayed over the original interface of the terminal, was her words.
'SOMETHING IS APPROACHING. GET OUT OF THERE.'
"What? Everyone get in-" But before Elias could question or order everyone inside, a dreadful sound came from above. Faint at first, it was the sound of something accelerating, building up momentum, like an bunker buster streaking downwards faster and faster to breach through concrete, and it was getting louder.
"Get in the train!" Elias shouted, but half the team was frozen, glancing upwards to the ceiling.
Haru was frowning, her visor still readout flickering under the storm. "Nothing makes this much noise unless it's metal soaring through a wanderfi-"
The ceiling split, collapsing under the force of impact.
A white shockwave rolled through the vault as a section of reinforced concrete collapsed inwards. Dust and debris rained down, drowning shouts and screams, muffling the sharp clicking of rifles being raised. A figured plunged, leading the breach and striking the floor with a mechanical thunderclap. The impact threw several of the nearby rookies off their feet, their visors distorting from the kinetic shock.
Elias blinked through static interference from the storm brewing in. When his visor stabilised enough, his breath caught under something only a soldier could forget, fear.
The thin crouched within the crater was humanoid, but only in outline. Its skin was an uneven composite of metal and carbo ceramic, wires cling like sinew beneath plate plating scrawled with burnt Babelian glyphs. Two spines jutted from its back, folded rotor assemblies drippings with condensation and oil.
As it rose, those spines unfolded into wings, six rotor blades that extended with surgical precision, each one humming faintly with energy as they locked into place.
For a heartbeat, the vault lights flickered, then all at once, the storm outside distorted and the lights died. In the half-dark chamber, the Adnachiel's optics ignited, a cluster of red-white lenses that shone like searchlights through fog.
No one moved, but many screamed.
One of the younger technicians made a sound, a single, involuntary shout of lingering fear that broke the stillness.
"Positions!" Elias barked, voice cutting through the static in every earpiece. "Weapons free! Defensive formations!"
The order jolted them into life, Voss hauled the nearest recruit behind a support pillar, Haru dove for cover behind a supply cart and the rest of the team scattered to the vault's flanks. Varkos rifles clattered against metal as safeties snapped off.
The Adnachiel watched them. It tilted its head, slow and deliberate, ignorant of the gunfire as if memorising every face behind the visors. The rotor-wings flexed, shedding a veil of dust and debris before folding partially behind its shoulders like a shroud. A faint shriek of servos echoed through the vault as its chest plates shifted, exposing an inner glow that pulsed in time with the Ophanim's hum; mimicking it.
"By the Council.." one of the rookies shouted, "It's-"
"Not human!" Voss cut in, voice low. "Nothing human ever moves or looks like that!"
The Adnachiel stepped forward. Its talons cracked against the metal floor, leaving deep dents where it walked. The sound came not as individual steps, but a single rhythmic pulse, click-thud, click-thud, in perfect tempo, like the clicking of pneumatic servos reaching for something it's programmed to take.
"Administrator, we have contact!" Elias shouted.
"Unidentified-" Static swallowed his voice. Seraphine was unreachable, the storm's interference severed the link.
"Of course," Haru hissed. "We're on our own."
The machine lifted its head. For a moment, its fractured lenses seemed to search the vault's upper reaches, scanning something invisible. Then it focused back on them, and its voice, if it could be called that, crawled out from a throat lined with metal ribs.
"Observation... Division."
The words were distorted, each syllable split across several frequencies, overlapping like multiple voices trying to speak through one mouth.
The Adnachiel leaned forward, wings twitching. Then it moved.
The first leap covered thirty metres in less than a second. It struck the deck where two rookies had been standing, only the sudden movement of their exo-suits had saved them from being bisected. The impact shook the vault; shards of plating and floor grating erupted outwards like shrapnel.
"Fall back!" Elias commanded, firing as he moved. His rounds sparked across its shoulders, ricocheting uselessly against the dense alloy beneath.
The machine turned its gaze on him. Through the haze, Elias could see his own reflection in its central lens, warped and tiny; a man standing where he shouldn't.
The next instant, the Adnachiel was on him.
It slashed with its right arm; talons hissed through the air, tearing a line of sparks across the floor where he'd only stood an instant before.
Elias rolled aside, the shockwave rattling his armour. He quickly recovered on one knee and fired again, this time at the exposed rotor hubs. The bullets pinged off harmlessly, but the distraction gave Voss the moment he needed.
"Over here bastard!" Voss yelled, firing a pulse grenade from the underbarrel launcher of his rifle, exploding against the Adnachiel's flank. The concussive force staggered it, only barely. The machine turned, its entire torso rotating further than a human spine could bend, like its joint s had no concept of limitation.
The rookies were screaming now, some firing blindly, others dragging the wounded behind the Ophanim's open doors. Haru sprinted across the floor to the control console, flipping emergency breakers. The chamber lights flared once before dying again under the storm's interference.
In the flash of illumination, they all saw it clearly.
The Adnachiel's face was not a helmet, it was a mask.
Beneath the shattered carbon shell, human features still existed, fused into the metal. A cheekbone. A part of the mouth. Skin darkened and brittle as if burnt long ago. The human eye on one side rolled listlessly, its iris clouded white, the other replaced by a rotating lens that shrieked as it focused.
The entire team froze. It wasn't just a humanoid machine, it was a human.
The Adnachiel moved again before thought returned.
It lunged towards the Ophanim, claws extended, dragging a metallic scream down the side of the forward carriage, Sparks flew like molten rain, painting its mask in strobing gold. The Ophanim's hull didn't give way, but the impact left a deep gouge, a scar of contact between two remnants of Babel.
"Keep it away from the train!" Elias shouted, voice sharp. "If it breaches the core, this whole port goes up!"
Voss limped towards him, blood streaking from a torn pauldron. "We're not killing that thing, not with small arms!"
"Then we run," Elias snapped. "Everyone, get in the train! Haru, take control, get the Ophanim moving!"
She didn't argue. Already halfway up the platform, she slammed her palm onto the wall terminal. "Rail clamps disengaging! Hop in!" The Ophanim fell a dozen centimetres, resting on the invisible cushion that her magnets generated.
The floor vibrated violently as Ophanim's inner capacitors finished preheating. Its dormant lights flared, crawling along the length of its hull in waves. The chamber filled with a low, building resonance, an energy that seemed to anger the Adnachiel, making it turn away from Elias and scream.
The sound wasn't mechanical. It was organic, a painful shriek wrapped around the wail of a human throat, layered in a way that all identity is lost. It was loud enough to shake the dust off the side support beams.
The veterans didn't hesitate now. They fired as they retreated inside the Ophanim, cover-firing the rookies as they scrambled up the ramp towards the open carriage doors. Two rookies hauled a wounded technician, the man's arm hanging limp, another staggered under a backpack of instruments.
The Adnachiel advanced again, wings snapping open, rotor-blades catching the artificial light as they spun for lift. Debris spiralled outward in their wake. For an instant, it hovered above the floor, the downwash shredding loose cables into confetti. Its eyes burned brighter.
"Let's get going now Haru!" Elias shouted.
The rest of the operators dove into the Ophanim's fifth carriage, a hollow cart, stripped of everything prior to her storage. Elias was the last to enter via the frontmost carriage, turning only once to look back.
The Adnachiel was still hovering in the air, head tilted slightly, as if listening to something beyond them. Then, almost gently, it lowered itself back onto the ground. Its wings folded behind it like an angel's shadow.
The moment of stillness was worse than the noise. It just stood there, simply stood there, staring at the departing team; silent, observant, patient.
Elias slammed the door control. The hatch sealing with a thud.
The moment the ramp sealed, Ophanim lurched forwards with a deafening shudder, her drives roaring awake for the first time in years. Sparks flared along the track seams as ancient magnets found power again. The entire vault seemed to tremble beneath the strain, dust pouring from the rafters like sand through sieve, landing on the watching Adnachiel.
"We've got good acceleration," Haru called from the train-bridge. "Magnet coils are stable but burning slightly. She's running too hot too soon."
"Let her," Elias replied, bracing himself against the carriage wall. "We need distance from that thing."
Through the forward view-slit, the vault's concrete mouth widened ahead. The tunnel beyond stretched into darkness, lined with dormant light-strips and maintenance rails that vanished into infinity. The Ophanim's engine scream had built into a thunderous crescendo as it surged into the throat of the abandoned port.
Then came the sound, a shriek of metal behind them, high and predator.
"Rear sensors!" Elias barked.
Haru didn't have to answer, the moment she switched the aft cameras online, the image told them enough. Through clouds of pulverised dust, a shape rose into voice, wings spinning, arms unfolding, eyes flaring. The Adnachiel had leapt into the air after them.
Its descent shook the floorplates; its rotors carved vortices of dust as it accelerated, following them into the tunnel. The rookies in the rearmost carriage saw it first: a red glare cutting through the darkness like a falling star.
"Contact rear!" Someone shouted over the comms, voice cracking. "It's- it's flying af-"
"Move to the next carriage!" Voss ordered. "Seal every door behind you!"
The Adnachiel dropped into the tunnel's mouth with a roar that drowned the vrumming coils for a heartbeat. Sparks cascaded as its wings clipped the tunnel's edges, scraping against concrete, sending shards of rebar flying. The collision didn't slow it; it simply corrected, claws scraping the wall as it rebalanced in mid-flight. One of the rookies screamed as fragments shattered against the hollow cabin's window, spider-webbing the reinforced glass.
"Impossible," Haru whispered, eyes darting over the flickering monitor feed. "The space is too narrow for controlled flight. It shouldn't be able to just-"
"Whatever it is doesn't seem to need control," Elias said grimly.
The machine gave chase.
Its rotors shrieked against the tunnel walls, carving gouges with every turn, Each impact echoing like an artillery strike in the confined space. When it banked to adjust, sparks spiralled off its wings in glowing orange arcs, briefly illuminating its silhouette; human enough to mock them, inhumane enough to terrify them.
"It's wrecking up the rear-most carriage!" a technician yelled from the garage car. "Guys come on, jump!" The exterior cameras to the fourth car displayed the technician leaning out from a partially opened ramp, his arms stretched out towards the fifth, hollow, car. The operators who had jumped inside it were standing on the edges of the car, balancing carefully to not fall inbetween the gaps of the magnetic coupling.
A sudden clang split the air. The Ophanim's hollow car's rearmost wall had buckled inwards under an immense blow. Talons tore through the outer plating, curling inwards like hooks searching for purchase. Metal screamed as rivets burst from the walls.
The Adnachiel was trying to hold on.
"Cut connection to the last coupling!" Elias ordered.
"But-" Haru hestitated, looking at the surveillance of the operators between the fifth and fourth carriages. The operators desperately trying to balance from the earlier impact against their carriage.
"Do it!" Voss barked, already running down-length of the Ophanim.
Haru said another Aquilian Curse. Explosive bolts detonated between the garage and the empty hollow carriage, severing the magnetic couplers. The operators jumped out of panic, one hand reaching the technician's another grabbing a wall handle, the last missing.
The detached rear car lurched, sparks flying as it grounded against the rails. It flipped sideways, tumbling uncontrollably in front of the Adnachiel, slowing it.
The falling operator didn't get a chance to witness this as he closed his eyes in fear. The lack of purchase made him shut his senses. He didn't want to die. But he wasn't going to. Voss grabbed his wrist, slipping slightly under the build-up of sweat. Opening his eyes, the operator desperately grabs on with his other hand for relief, letting Voss with the help of the other operator on the railing.
Ensuring he had a good grip on the edge of the train carriage, Voss leaned back in from the window and opened the garage door, letting it ramp out so they could get in safely.
Voss watched the hollow car collapse into the tunnel wall in a burst of concrete dust, creating a sudden barrier between the Adnachiel and fleeing Ophanim. For a breath, he thought it had worked; they all did.
Then the machine tore through it.
A shower of debris filled the tunnel, chunks of concrete and debris filled the tunnel, chunks of concrete and shattered steel slamming against Ophanim's flanks, the force of which rattling every carriage. Voss slammed the console, demanding the ramp to close. The Adnachiel emerged through the haze, slower now, one rotor cracked and sparking, yet still airborne; dragged forward by its own impossible design.
"Damage report!" Elias shouted in the bridge.
"Light impacts against the fourth carriage, accelerator coils are overheating slightly. No hull breach in the other cars yet."
The radio burst into static. A sudden gust of hot air blew through the ventilation ducts and the lights flickered again, dimming slightly. For a moment, Elias saw the Adnachiel's form in the cameras, gaining distance like a nightmare chasing its dreamer.
"Can you redirect excess power to the accelerator coils?" Elias asked.
"Maybe but these tracks weren't built for magnetic uses, especially not at these speeds." Haru said, the screen before her reading '189mph'
"Then we pray the Varkos Engineers got paid extra that day."
The next strike cut her off. The Adnachiel had thrown a long rebar pole at the garage's ramp, penetrating and getting half stuck in it, causing one of the operators to squeal in fear as it misses him by a few-dozen centimetres.
Voss grabbed the horrified operator and threw them away from the wall. Equipping his rifle and propping it against the window which the technician had somehow effortlessly removed earlier, he opens fire at the Adnachiel's not so distant form.
"Eat lead you 'Luthaneine insult'." He opens fire, letting a torrential beam of bullets trail towards the machine that is man, causing it to shriek in anger and attempt to accelerate even more.
"Oh."
Inside the bridge, Ophanim's systems began to stabilise, her heatsinks and radiators now fully functioning, deepning her engine's hum as it operates more efficiently. Haru's hands moved quickly over the controls, rerouting what power she could to the forward shields built into Ophanim's front. "I can give us fifteen seconds of push before the overclocking overheats the coils."
"Do it!" Elias ordered, taking the opportunity to check on everyone spread between the carriages and engine, prioritising the injured.
The train roared forward, the acceleration slamming everyone against their harnesses. The scenery outside blurred into streaks of shadows and faint orange from maintenance lights. The four remaining carriages rattled violently, flexing with every shift of inertia far passed what these carriages were designed for.
Behind them, the Adnachiel struggled to accelerate further, its cracked rotor clipped the tunnel wall again, sending sparks arcing down its side and causing an entire wing section to shear off, tumbling down the track before being abandoned an increasing distance away. The machine screamed, an electric, fragmented cry that tries desperately hard to be human once again.
"That's it", Voss said between clenched teeth. "Let the tunnel eat the damned thing."
The scream stopped.
Silence rushes in to everyone's ears, filling the tunnel like pressure returning after a blast. The only thing that can be heard was the whipping of air pressure inside the tunnel as the Ophanim races past the tracks.
The Adnachiel was gone from sight, or at least seemed to be.
Then the sensors flared red again.
"It's still coming!" Haru shouted. "Tracking on seismic activity, it's running now!"
On the monitors, the machine was visible again, sprinting along the tunnel floor, claws digging into the rails, every stride accompanied by the whip of broken rotos scraping the tunnel walls and ceiling. Sparks lit its path like fireflies. Each step was unnatural, faster than its earlier uncontrolled flight, faster than machined anatomy
"Get ready!" Haru called through the comms. "We're nearing the final junction!"
Ahead, the tunnel widened, its exit barred by a derelict gate; half buried in debris, half opened.
"Can Ophanim breach it?" Elias asked, already knowing the answer.
"I've rerouted energy to the Engine shielding earlier to deal with debris." Haru gave her own answer. "We'll find out."
He keyed the comms. "Everyone hold tight!"
The engine's pitch climbed into a wailing crescendo. Ophanim surged forward like a rocket. The accelerator coils roar in anger as they're pushed beyond acceptable parameters, the magnets hum louder as the speed creates static of electricity along the tracks below. Ophanim's frontal shield array glowed, brightening the pathway where the beams couldn't.
Everyone held their breath.
The impact against the gate shook the earth.
Steel warped, bolts snapped and the entire gate exploded outward, torn apart in a blinding flash of heat and energy; fragments flying across the fields as the Ophanim emerged into open air. The sudden transition from subterranean confinement to daylight felt like surfacing from a nightmare.
Wind howled across the carriages. The sky above was torn between a distant storm and an even more distant sun. The dying edge of the Wanderfield drags its fading skirts over the horizon.
Behind them, the Adnachiel shot out of the tunnel like an arrow fired from hell.
Its broken rotor blade clipped the exit's frame, throwing it into a spiralling roll. For an instant, the sunlight caught it, glinting across the carbon blades and the fragments of its now spiderwebbed mask. The human face beneath it was clearer now, ruined yet still expressive, its remaining eye staring with something that might have been recognition.
"Samir, if you can hear this-" Elias started, but the comms drowned in static as the machine stabilised mid-air, its wings snapping back into a new alignment as it ripped the broken blade off.
The chase continued across the open track. Ophanim thundered across the plains, dust kicking up in her wake. The Adnachiel followed above, circling like a vulture. It dove low, rotor wash hammering the roof of the hollow carriage, claws scraping lines across the plating.
"Hold on!" Elias yelled. The machine banked for another pass, only to suddenly veer upward, sensors flaring. High above, contrails began to bloom in the sky.
The first SAM missile tore through the sky, leaving a white wound across the blue.
For a heartbeat, the world was only wind and the shatter of sound. The blast tore across the air, boiling vapour into spiral columns that greyed with detonation smoke. Fragments of the detonation rained as glowing sparks, hissing against Ophanim's hull before vanishing into white smoke.
The missile was only so effective, the Adnachiel rolled through the fragmentation, its body littered with metal that's not of its own. Its rotors bled sparks, once again uneven; five spin true, six spin uneven. Now, the Adnachiel's skyborne dance looked less of a flight, and more of a refusal to fall.
The second missile came low.
Adnachiel twisted, shedding height as its rotors reflected light under the sun, diving over the missile as it struggles to pull up in time, instead missing its proximity fuse and flying aimlessly towards the clouds like a dumb-fired rocket.
The Adnachiel skimmed the track, barely 12 metres off the rails, close enough for the downwash to affect its flight.
"They're trying to box it," Voss said, back at the Engine, eyes fixed on the cameras. "It's learning."
"Then let's hope the missiles learn faster." Elias replied.
A flash. The third warhead passed close enough that the entire frame of the Adnachiel seemed to buckle. Banking, one wing clipped the turbulence. A rotor blade struck one of the flying fragments from the missile, shearing away another blade.
For the first time since its arrival, the thing faltered.
It attempted to rise, sharply climbing before another hit will send it crashing down., only to fly straight into the path of another missile.
A direct hit. Forget about proximity, this detonation might as well have been internal.
The Adnachiel's body cracked open. Fire rolled backward through the smoke, followed by the descent of the Adnachiel, its form barely held together by machinery alone, whatever human form it had left, was purely gone.
A cheer broken out from some of the rookies resting inside the bridge. Elias let it slide.
"Visual confirmation?" he demanded.
Haru leaned forward, adjusting camera feeds and aiming their direction with a controller.
"It's.. It's standing-" She said, horrified.
Elias rushes over to the screen she's looking at. "It's not chasing.." he said in relief.
The Adnachiel was barely standing on the tracks, its right arm gone, several rotor blades that formed its wings were shattered. Whatever it was that was powering it, could only be indominable machine will.
The Ophanim kept speeding away, leaving the Adnachiel behind.
Inside the carriages, the aftermath began. Med-packs were zipped open and close, the smell of antiseptic spray and antibacterial wipes cut through the metallic smell. The injured were brought to the Quarters carriage and laid on benches, faces pale in the flickering of shadows across the windows. One rookie kept staring a the claw marks where the Adnachiel's claws had cut through sinew; hoping he wouldn't need to get it cut off.
Haru exhale, long and shaking, then said what everyone felt. "If those batteries hadn't fired when they did..."
"They did," Elias said. "That's what matters."
He keyed the internal comms. "All Sections, report."
Carriage Four, the Armoury and Garage: static, then a voice. "Minor damage to the garage door, but nothing major."
Carriage Three, Generic Quarters: "No interior damage. Four injured, one of which may need an amputation. All stable."
Carriage Two, Command: "All good here, sir."
Carriage One, Observation and Archive: "Systems online. We've got half a dozen files corrupted, but the main network core is untouched."
Elias sighed in relief once more. "Alright, good. We'll be at Varkos' region soon."
He turned to Haru. "Get me a line to Csilla."
The comms crackled, hissing as the connection was intercepted, then resolved into Seraphine's voice. "Lieutenant, the Director reports all SAM sites nearby are focusing on your proximity. Your skies are currently clear."
Elias leaned closer to the mic. "Whatever that was, has disengaged. We've taken moderate moderate damage focused to the rear. Unsure how the Engine's front is holding up. We have a few injured, zero casualties."
"Acknowledged. I am relaying to the Director now. Continue east along Track 'AB37' then switch to the Redline track at the split. Evac medical is already inbound to the militarised junction. The Councillor authorised stopping there personally."
"The Councillor?" Haru asked.
"Correct," Seraphine said. "She seems... attentive."
The channel clicked silent again. Elias met Haru's gaze. Neither spoke. Both knew what attentive meant.
The travel kept on in silence.