Sean-Michael Argo - Ghost Faction

“Ranec, pull back! This is as far as we go!” shouted Berg suddenly, breaking the radio silence that had given way to the hurricane of gunfire what seemed like eons ago.

“Get that auto-cannon online!” barked Womack, and within seconds, the deep bark of the mounted weapon added its voice to the choir of violence above.

Jada and Mors kept moving, as fast as they dared without alerting the Helion troopers to their presence. The mercs above were pressing hard, though they’d only been able to seize about two-thirds of the train. The defenders were bringing up reinforced barriers, likely attached to the front of the train, as if they’d expected a more direct attack on the main engine as opposed to a drop assault from the rear.

An explosion rocked the train, and Jada saw the body of a Dire Sword being flung away from the speeding vehicle. There wasn’t any blood spraying, so perhaps the merc would survive the concussive explosion and resulting collision with the hard shale ground. For now, she couldn’t think about that and Jada returned her attention to reaching the front of the train.

Mors tapped her thigh from his position below her and pointed once she was following his eye line. Jada saw that the next two cars of the train were manufactured with a different shape than the rest of the cars. They were covered with interlocking plates of multi-sectional machine gun emplacements.

To Jada’s eyes, it looked as if the builders of the train had wanted the front of it to look and function more like the body of a crustacean, where a tough exoskeleton protected the body beneath. She realized that once she and Mors reached the next car, they would not be able to use stealth, as they would be forced to scamper across the ever-shifting plates while the gunners attempted to track them.

“We’ll have to blast our way in,” observed Mors. At a nod from Jada, the man produced several det charges from his utility belt and affixed them by their release clips to his mag-armored forearm. “Maybe this car so that we can seize the bridge without losing the train.”

“I’ll get their attention, you plant the charges,” said Jada as she turned and began to climb up to the top of the train car, where several troopers still held their positions, most of their comrades having gone back down the line to hold the train against the merc assault.

Jada gathered her strength and launched herself up and over the side of the car, using her momentum to roll onto her back and then rise into a crouching position. In a blur of motion, she pulled the Gedra rifle from its mooring peg and sent a trooper sailing off of the train with a quick burst of fire. With cold precision the merc dropped the other two troopers who were defending the car, one of them collapsing in a heap with bullet holes in her chest and the other taking one knee as his other was blown out by a hollow point round. The merc slung her rifle and launched herself at the wounded trooper, grasping him by his shoulder armor.

With a grunt of effort, the mercenary planted her feet and heaved the trooper up and over her body, twisting her torso, ignoring the pain of her own wounds as she did so. Jada let go of the trooper and he hurled through the air over the gap between the cars and towards the gun emplacements.

The gunners inside the multi-sectional emplacement opened fire, unsure of whether the armored figure sailing towards them was their own or one of the fearsome mercenaries. In that split second of time, Mors appeared in the gap between the cars and waited for his moment, which came swiftly.

As the gun emplacements all followed the trajectory of the doomed trooper, the gaps in the layered plating revealed themselves. They were only a few inches wide, but just enough for Mors to stuff two of his charges through the gaps and then dive back down for cover.

Jada hit the deck of the train car, both to shield herself from the pending blast, but also to avoid the hot rounds being fired at her from a trooper on the car behind her who had noticed the sudden attack.

Seconds later, the double crump of both charges detonating were more felt than they were heard. The armor plates of the gun emplacement shrieked as they were torn apart from the inside by the contained explosion.

Without waiting to assess the damage, Jada leapt off towards the chaos of the exploded car. She landed heavily, shaking the battered car, her booted feet sending splashes of flaming gore in every direction.

As Mors had intended, the force of the explosion had been momentarily contained by the plates themselves before a secondary explosion of the ammunition magazines had ripped the car apart, jagged sides blown outward like some huge metal flower. However, many gunners there had been inside the car were now all part of a virtual soup of blood and pulped body parts.

Mors heaved himself over the plates to join her in the ravaged compartment, and together they advanced towards the engine car with their rifles raised.

She could see the face of a Helion staffer, probably an engineer or co-pilot, staring out at her through the fire-streaked plexiglass viewport in the car ahead and the man was visibly weeping with fear.

At this stage of her life, Jada was numb to such tactical horrors. She had to acknowledge that the sight of two armored warriors with skulls for faces wading through a lake of burning blood would sorely test the resolve of any sane human being.

As one, she and Mors fired their rifles and the strange Gedra tech anticipated their need for armor-piercing rounds. The hard rounds shattered the viewport and drove into the face of the weeping man, sending him sprawling out of sight behind the door. More concentrated fire from the mercs tore apart the locking mechanism. While Jada covered him, Mors yanked the hatch open.

“Merchants Militant! Stand down!” bellowed Jada through her loudspeaker as she entered the engine car. As her HUD swiftly adjusted to the gloom of the compartment, she saw that there were four train staffers in engineer jumpsuits who had their backs against the wall and one cor-sec officer still cradling his weapon awkwardly in his hands, as if he was in shock and could not get his body to let go of it as commanded.

“Comply!” added Mors as he moved in behind Jada and put a round through the throat of the cor-sec officer, who finally dropped his weapon and fell to the deck clutching his fatal wound.

The others threw themselves to the ground as Jada and Mors secured the engine chamber.

“Pilot, halt this train!” ordered Mors as he pressed the still-smoking muzzle of his rifle against the head of a woman with pilot’s bars on her shoulder. After the cold execution of her comrade, there was little for the woman to do but comply. “Jada, cover the rear.”

The merc might have been a veteran killer, but Jada was still getting used to the brutal efficiency of the Dire Swords when it came to the capture and motivation of prisoners. To a degree, she understood the pragmatism of asserting dominance, and that even if he was in shock, the cor-sec officer didn’t drop his weapon when ordered. That was a risk that the mercs simply couldn’t take, even if such executions challenged what was left of Jada’s salvage-based foundation with regards to the conduct of war for profit.

As high-speed warriors for whom there was only the objective, the Merchants Militant had neither the inclination, nor the time, to concern themselves with the paradoxical notion of waging ‘humane war.’ For them, the only rule of engagement was victory; there was no space in the mind of the mercenary for hypocrisy.

Perhaps there was a bleak sort of purity in that, thought Jada as she took up a firing position in the ruined gun emplacement. The stench of the burned bodies was filtered out by her helmet’s on-board systems, though her memories and imagination filled her nostrils just the same.