Disclaimer and Such:
The Thunderbolt Squadron and all respective characters involved are the creation of RustyD, who's been really cool with letting me use his guys for a guest spot in this fic. If you want to see more, you should check out "The Fighters II" or "Storming Skies" by RustyD. Or any of his stuff is really worth looking at.
-Advance Wars 2
--Death Array
---Chapter 11: Black Line
Groling, or whoever the hell he was, stood at the top of the stairs with this smug look. I'd say he was real proud of his little deception through the course of my mission. Course he wasn't wearing his Green Earth uniform anymore, oh no. Now he wore some black overcoat, and a military cap worn in such a way that it cast a shadow over his eyes. Another quality you couldn't miss was a shiny revolver in a holster at his side.
"Groling." I said again. "Or if that's even your real name..."
"No, I'm afraid Groling is just some Green Earth solider we waxed on the heliport. I had to take his name in my little disguise so Sonja wouldn't throw down a red flag. She's awful nosy you know?"
He sauntered over to a table on the opposite wall from us and sat down on it, crossing his arms.
"So... If it's not Groling... Then what is it? One of those lovable Black Hole codenames?"
"I'm known as Glock, hi-tech special forces CO. I got men with armor second to none. The Neosuit troops are just the tip of the iceberg with me."
"So you're some kind of inventor?" Andy asked.
"No. You could say... I use the toys, but I don't make em'. I leave that to Lash and Cyanide."
"Humph, figures." I looked to his sidearm. "So what's with that gun? Does it shoot shells that are loaded with poison or something? Bounce off the walls crazily?"
He pulled it out and ran the barrel of the gun through his other palm in a smooth and rhythmic motion. There wasn't any sort of twirling or western stuff you'd see with Grit. It just looked like some plain revolver to me.
"Nope, nothing new with this puppy here. Just your typical .44 Special. Six rounds, nice weight and I've gotten use to fanning the hammer too."
I don't know if you're associated with that lingo. But what he's talking about is in those westerns where the shooter uses his hand other hand to set the hammer back real quick and lets them empty the chamber in seconds. Rapid fire the manual way. I don't know a whole lot of people who are good at it. Grit is one, everyone knows that. But I guess Glock is either a copy cat, or he just really loves his gun.
"So why am I still around? Aren't you done with me?" I asked. "You got your Death Ray all fixed up, what's with brining me and Andy along for the ride?"
Glock narrowed his eyes and put his gun away. I made a glance at Andy, like to keep your mouth shut in case he was sent to do me in right there.
"Hawke thinks you'd be a great addition to Black Hole. I don't know what he thinks he's going to accomplish by showing you the destruction of a major city. Maybe... impress you into the forces or something. I tried to convince him, you're way too dangerous to keep around."
"I guess that's your personal experience after working with me huh?"
He nodded and leaned forward while some more visitors soon came up the stairs. I could see Cyanide, Hawke, and two alien grunts in spacesuits. The aliens were both armed with shotguns, so I figured Hawke wasn't picky about what his forces used as long as it did damage.
"Heckler, so glad you could join us." Cyanide smiled.
"Where's Adder and Lash? Oh yeah, not to mention your human brick Flak."
Glock and Cyanide enjoyed my lively attitude, but Hawke remained his usual stoic self.
"Lash is preparing our laser light show." Glock answered.
"And those other two are in the diesel engine, so don't worry your pretty little head about them." She assured me. "Just sit back and enjoy the catastrophe."
Hawke moved past me and the two alien grunts spun my chair around. They just about sliced my arm on the corner of that damn table. It was really sharp... Hey.. wait a second... While I was thinking about a plan, Hawke had moved over to a large flat monitor and pressed a button so that some external camera was looking at the roof of a large car.
I remember seeing that car, it was two or three down from the one we were in. Anyway, it seemed like we had come out of the tunnel, and was now rolling around someone's country. It was nighttime so I couldn't really tell. There wasn't a whole lot of snow around, so I could only assume it wasn't Blue Moon. Maybe we were in Orange Star, I had no way of knowing.
"Watch carefully Heckler." He instructed me, and radioed Lash to start something.
The top of the train car on the monitor began to open up, and a large arm popped out. It kinda looked like some funky "u" on a stick really. Until the second arm of the "u" began to unfold the dish section of their Death Ray. In a matter of minutes, it was ready to blast a city to pieces. Hawke turned back to me and looked me in the eyes.
"The only thing I'll ever enjoy inheriting from Sturm. His Death Ray was more of a scare tactic than a practical weapon. It was stationary, control room poorly guarded from bombs, and the charge time was a horrendous seven days. But now... it's truly a useful weapon. All it needs now is to be taken to our HQ to be watched over."
"Mistress Lash and I have made a great deal of improvement." Cyanide winked at me. "Now, it takes mere hours. Sturm had pulled out all the stops for the development of this one. If it weren't for Andy's quick fixit skills... We would have never gotten it ready on time."
"So... I'll leave you here while I go check one last time with your country. If they refuse, I'll have no choice but to destroy a major population area." He paused to adjust his hat and waved toward Glock and Cyanide to come over to him. "I always get what I want Heckler."
The three Black Hole COs began to huddle up and talk about something. During the big speech on Death Rays and such, I was using the sharp corner of the table to wear away the toughness of my rope. It was almost undone, and one of the alien grunt was standing a bit in front of me. With a final snap, I broke the bonds and jumped up to grab his gun and turn it on his buddy.
There was a thundering bang as I blew out the window and the glass faceplate of the other soldier with the spread fire, and then kicked the soldier I was stealing from to the floor of the car. Hawke, Cyanide and Glock all spun around as I freed Andy and pushed him down the stairs. When we got to the door leading out of this car and to the back of the train, I could already hear Hawke yelling to get guys after us.
"You can't escape Heckler!" Glock yelled.
"That was some quick thinking!" Andy told me as we ran into another car.
"Shut up and run!" I yelled back.
I was really too panicked to think positive right now. I was on a train full of enemies with a death weapon aimed at Orange Star... A regular worst-case scenario. Anyway, the car we entered was some kind of maintenance car... there was tools and broken down guns lying all over the place. And some radios... Hey... Radios! We could use those! While I was getting that, Andy moved to pick up some pipe on the floor and rammed it through the door handle and effectively locking the door for now.
"Sami!" I yelled out after tuning it to my frequency I had with her. "Ma'am? Are you there? Is anyone there?"
I heard a surprised voice answer, and I quickly explained what the hell was going on. It was easy to hear how shocked she was, even though I figured there wasn't a whole lot of surprises left with Black Hole. It was almost expected from them now. Come to think about it, what is it with me and trains anyway? What is that supposed to mean? That I should become a conductor someday? Jeez...
"Look, you need to get the coordinates of that train so we can send a squadron to destroy the Death Ray!"
"I'm working on it! One miracle at a time!"
There was already soldiers kicking at the door Andy had jammed with the pipe. If they were alien soldiers, or Flak, we had no time at all to clear the car before they broke in and started spraying the place with lead. We quickly moved on to the next car, which to my surprise was a missile battery... Oh hell... a missile battery? Andy picked up on my fears quickly.
"Oh man! If they send a squadron... they're gonna get cut up!"
"Think I don't know that?" I snapped back. "It's even worse this whole train is black! They won't see what's coming until it's too late! We gotta sabotage it somehow!"
"How? We don't have any explosives..."
A metallic ping interrupted our conversation as we saw Glock enter the car with his .44 blazing. When I think about it... he had grazed the bridge of my nose with that shot. My adrenaline was way too high to feel any pain though.
"Come on! Let's move!"
"Heckler!" Glock yelled. "You can't win! Not now! Not after we worked together! I know how you operate!"
Almost as if to confirm his words, I turned around to fire on him, which he promptly took cover behind the door to the car. It was a straight shot through the missile car. The rest of it was occupied with generators and reserve missiles. Hell, I was lucky I didn't blow us all up. I felt a whole hell of a lot better when we got out of that place...
Of course, the next car we entered was the Death Ray car. Man, it was really close. Maybe I could smash the controls or something... I don't know what I was thinking, because the controls were on an upper level behind a locked door in a room with Lash and ten other soldiers. Andy let me in on the enemy count, and I knew any sort of attempt to break into the room was suicide. We had to keep moving, and find some other way.
There was another missile battery car after we got out of the Death Ray car, and Glock caught up with us again, except this time he had friends. A couple soldiers from Lash's room broke off to pursue us, and they were packing their lovable gun arms too.
I shot back, but I was careful not to empty the clip on automatic mode. I didn't have any extra 12 gauge shells... Once I ran out... I ran out. Onto the next car, it was some kind of fancy meeting room with all sorts of monitors and laptops. Andy pushed one of the big cushy chairs up against the door and took a breather. It was then I realized how tired I was.
"Oh man... we're never gonna disable that thing. We need the air strike now!"
"Don't be so negative." I began, out of breath. "We don't even know if they're ready to fire yet."
Course, I had to open my big mouth and I looked over to one of the laptops to see a countdown and the trajectory of the Death Ray shot. I had roughly an hour to think of something good... but at least that little map of where the Death Ray was shooting had coordinates and I quickly called Sami to relay our location. We were in Northern Orange Star, around where Flak has his factory in the second Black Hole Invasion.
"Copy that, Good work! We just scrambled the Thunderbolt Squadron from Dawn Airbase. ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) is half an hour! Your objectives now are to get Andy and yourself off of that train!"
"No good ma'am. I meant to tell you. They got missiles, lots of missiles. They won't stand a chance when they get here!"
"Don't worry, they're the best we have! Now get out of there!"
Sami didn't understand. This whole train was painted jet black. From the sky at night, you wouldn't even be able to see the Death Ray. Not to mention this train was moving at a good click. How fast am I talking? Like jumping from it would be the equivalent of jumping out of a car going 80 on the highway. And let's not forget all the trees on the side of the track. Hell... we had to slow this thing down, or stop it altogether.
But those missiles... the Thunderbolts were going to get cut down before they knew what hit them. Hawke just about thought of everything for this. Still, I was on that train... I was going to do something... Even if it wasn't very smart.
The chair didn't hold the door for long, and it was only the table and the monitors that kept us from getting blasted by Glock and the soldiers after us. The next area of the train was different... it was that big flatbed car with the T Copter and Flak's Big Bertha on it. Andy was making a break for the other end as I came to a dead stop in front of Big Bertha and looked it over.
"Heckler! What are you doing? Glock's gonna be here any second! You're gonna get shot!"
Without so much as giving him a heads up on what I was doing, I scrambled up the side of the tank and opened up the main hatch to get in. I think when I disappeared into it, Andy got the hint and followed after me. Now we were both inside Big Bertha, as I was fooling around with the controls to get it started.
"Whatcha thinking?" Andy asked me frantically. "We need to keep moving."
"No, we need to stay right here."
I pressed the switch to throw the tank on and soon looked toward the camera positioned directly over the main cannon. It was aimed directly at the meeting room car we had just exited. When Andy saw that, I think he got the picture and began to work the straps to the seat he was in around his body. Me? I was too eager looking for the cannon switch to think about all the recoil I was about to get.
A red button flashed as the onboard computer detected armed individuals, and I could see Glock on the turret camera kick open the door with his .44 ready to go. There was a split second, when he was confused why he couldn't see us. Then he looked toward the tank, and made an silent "no" with his mouth. I couldn't say I felt very sorry for him as I finally located the switch and pressed it.
"Goodbye Groling." I said, and the tank roared off a Neotank round straight ahead.
The whole tank shook with the chains holding it down and I nearly bashed my head into the control console in front of me. Andy let out a scream of surprise as the round I fired went forward, blew up the meeting room car and kept going to level the missile car. The small bits of audio we picked up was a chorus of whizzing sounds as the missiles were set off and launched in any and all directions.
Some hit the Death Ray, some hit our car, some snaked around the Death Ray and hit the other missile car. Hell, I bet the whole train was lit on fire with that explosion. Man, what was I thinking? It sounded like someone was going crazy with fireworks. I finally had the sense to put on the seatbelt and simply tried to watch the monitor the best I could.
Then a stray missile hit the tank and killed the video feed before rattling us good again. It was at least five minutes before Andy popped the hatch and let us get out to survey all the damage I had just done. Yeah, like I said before, what the hell was I thinking?
"Whoa!" Andy muttered in amazement.
"Well uh yeah..." I said acting as if I knew what I was doing. "I bet the Thunderbolts can see the train now."
It seemed to me, that the whole train was lit up from caboose to diesel engine. But to my dismay, it was still moving and a quick look let me know that the other missile car had made it out just fine. Jumping was still out. For some reason, I looked down, and saw Glock clutching a couple of chains holding the tank down. I suppose he did it to keep himself from being thrown off the car. I wasn't really surprised. Even with his funny new armor, he was really rattled though, and his face was black from the smoke residue after the blast.
"Guess you're still... full of surprises..." Glock coughed at me. "Death Ray's still gonna fire though... So I'm not mad... Hawke was right though... you'd make one hell of a soldier."
His head soon fell forward as he dropped his gun. I jumped down as fast as I could to grab his weapon and put it a pocket of mine. Andy soon popped his head out over the side of the tank to see what had happened to Glock.
"Is he dead?"
"Oh." I responded in an annoyed tone as I check his pulse. "We could only hope to be so lucky. But no, he's still kicking. Let's get out of here before he pulls a blasted magic trick or something."
"What are we going to do now? There's no way we can reach the diesel train after that stunt! The two cars we used to get back here are totaled!"
I stood up to see his point. The meeting room car and the missile car I had leveled were smoldering pieces of scrap. I had effectively cut us off from the rest of the train... unless we wanted to traverse melted metal and broken glass to get back to the front. And that wasn't gonna happen. I punched the tank in anger. That was a big lack of foresight on my part. I just saw Big Bertha and thought "shoot".
"Wolf! Do you read? Where are you?" Sami asked.
"Still on the train. What's going on with the Thunderbolts?"
"They'll be there in five minutes! Their flight leader reported some sort of explosion, the train is completely visible now."
Hell... I didn't expect to kill that much time... But we were as good as dead if we tried to jump. The forest line was that close. We'd wrap ourselves around a tree for sure. Jumping off the back was just as bad, it'd only be with the uncomfortable metal tracks instead of the wooden trees. Man, our guys were en-route to blow this whole piece of scrap apart. Except we were still on the train with no way out...
-To be Continued...
--Next Chapter: Last Stop
The Thunderbolt Squadron and all respective characters involved are the creation of RustyD, who's been really cool with letting me use his guys for a guest spot in this fic. If you want to see more, you should check out "The Fighters II" or "Storming Skies" by RustyD. Or any of his stuff is really worth looking at.
-Advance Wars 2
--Death Array
---Chapter 11: Black Line
Groling, or whoever the hell he was, stood at the top of the stairs with this smug look. I'd say he was real proud of his little deception through the course of my mission. Course he wasn't wearing his Green Earth uniform anymore, oh no. Now he wore some black overcoat, and a military cap worn in such a way that it cast a shadow over his eyes. Another quality you couldn't miss was a shiny revolver in a holster at his side.
"Groling." I said again. "Or if that's even your real name..."
"No, I'm afraid Groling is just some Green Earth solider we waxed on the heliport. I had to take his name in my little disguise so Sonja wouldn't throw down a red flag. She's awful nosy you know?"
He sauntered over to a table on the opposite wall from us and sat down on it, crossing his arms.
"So... If it's not Groling... Then what is it? One of those lovable Black Hole codenames?"
"I'm known as Glock, hi-tech special forces CO. I got men with armor second to none. The Neosuit troops are just the tip of the iceberg with me."
"So you're some kind of inventor?" Andy asked.
"No. You could say... I use the toys, but I don't make em'. I leave that to Lash and Cyanide."
"Humph, figures." I looked to his sidearm. "So what's with that gun? Does it shoot shells that are loaded with poison or something? Bounce off the walls crazily?"
He pulled it out and ran the barrel of the gun through his other palm in a smooth and rhythmic motion. There wasn't any sort of twirling or western stuff you'd see with Grit. It just looked like some plain revolver to me.
"Nope, nothing new with this puppy here. Just your typical .44 Special. Six rounds, nice weight and I've gotten use to fanning the hammer too."
I don't know if you're associated with that lingo. But what he's talking about is in those westerns where the shooter uses his hand other hand to set the hammer back real quick and lets them empty the chamber in seconds. Rapid fire the manual way. I don't know a whole lot of people who are good at it. Grit is one, everyone knows that. But I guess Glock is either a copy cat, or he just really loves his gun.
"So why am I still around? Aren't you done with me?" I asked. "You got your Death Ray all fixed up, what's with brining me and Andy along for the ride?"
Glock narrowed his eyes and put his gun away. I made a glance at Andy, like to keep your mouth shut in case he was sent to do me in right there.
"Hawke thinks you'd be a great addition to Black Hole. I don't know what he thinks he's going to accomplish by showing you the destruction of a major city. Maybe... impress you into the forces or something. I tried to convince him, you're way too dangerous to keep around."
"I guess that's your personal experience after working with me huh?"
He nodded and leaned forward while some more visitors soon came up the stairs. I could see Cyanide, Hawke, and two alien grunts in spacesuits. The aliens were both armed with shotguns, so I figured Hawke wasn't picky about what his forces used as long as it did damage.
"Heckler, so glad you could join us." Cyanide smiled.
"Where's Adder and Lash? Oh yeah, not to mention your human brick Flak."
Glock and Cyanide enjoyed my lively attitude, but Hawke remained his usual stoic self.
"Lash is preparing our laser light show." Glock answered.
"And those other two are in the diesel engine, so don't worry your pretty little head about them." She assured me. "Just sit back and enjoy the catastrophe."
Hawke moved past me and the two alien grunts spun my chair around. They just about sliced my arm on the corner of that damn table. It was really sharp... Hey.. wait a second... While I was thinking about a plan, Hawke had moved over to a large flat monitor and pressed a button so that some external camera was looking at the roof of a large car.
I remember seeing that car, it was two or three down from the one we were in. Anyway, it seemed like we had come out of the tunnel, and was now rolling around someone's country. It was nighttime so I couldn't really tell. There wasn't a whole lot of snow around, so I could only assume it wasn't Blue Moon. Maybe we were in Orange Star, I had no way of knowing.
"Watch carefully Heckler." He instructed me, and radioed Lash to start something.
The top of the train car on the monitor began to open up, and a large arm popped out. It kinda looked like some funky "u" on a stick really. Until the second arm of the "u" began to unfold the dish section of their Death Ray. In a matter of minutes, it was ready to blast a city to pieces. Hawke turned back to me and looked me in the eyes.
"The only thing I'll ever enjoy inheriting from Sturm. His Death Ray was more of a scare tactic than a practical weapon. It was stationary, control room poorly guarded from bombs, and the charge time was a horrendous seven days. But now... it's truly a useful weapon. All it needs now is to be taken to our HQ to be watched over."
"Mistress Lash and I have made a great deal of improvement." Cyanide winked at me. "Now, it takes mere hours. Sturm had pulled out all the stops for the development of this one. If it weren't for Andy's quick fixit skills... We would have never gotten it ready on time."
"So... I'll leave you here while I go check one last time with your country. If they refuse, I'll have no choice but to destroy a major population area." He paused to adjust his hat and waved toward Glock and Cyanide to come over to him. "I always get what I want Heckler."
The three Black Hole COs began to huddle up and talk about something. During the big speech on Death Rays and such, I was using the sharp corner of the table to wear away the toughness of my rope. It was almost undone, and one of the alien grunt was standing a bit in front of me. With a final snap, I broke the bonds and jumped up to grab his gun and turn it on his buddy.
There was a thundering bang as I blew out the window and the glass faceplate of the other soldier with the spread fire, and then kicked the soldier I was stealing from to the floor of the car. Hawke, Cyanide and Glock all spun around as I freed Andy and pushed him down the stairs. When we got to the door leading out of this car and to the back of the train, I could already hear Hawke yelling to get guys after us.
"You can't escape Heckler!" Glock yelled.
"That was some quick thinking!" Andy told me as we ran into another car.
"Shut up and run!" I yelled back.
I was really too panicked to think positive right now. I was on a train full of enemies with a death weapon aimed at Orange Star... A regular worst-case scenario. Anyway, the car we entered was some kind of maintenance car... there was tools and broken down guns lying all over the place. And some radios... Hey... Radios! We could use those! While I was getting that, Andy moved to pick up some pipe on the floor and rammed it through the door handle and effectively locking the door for now.
"Sami!" I yelled out after tuning it to my frequency I had with her. "Ma'am? Are you there? Is anyone there?"
I heard a surprised voice answer, and I quickly explained what the hell was going on. It was easy to hear how shocked she was, even though I figured there wasn't a whole lot of surprises left with Black Hole. It was almost expected from them now. Come to think about it, what is it with me and trains anyway? What is that supposed to mean? That I should become a conductor someday? Jeez...
"Look, you need to get the coordinates of that train so we can send a squadron to destroy the Death Ray!"
"I'm working on it! One miracle at a time!"
There was already soldiers kicking at the door Andy had jammed with the pipe. If they were alien soldiers, or Flak, we had no time at all to clear the car before they broke in and started spraying the place with lead. We quickly moved on to the next car, which to my surprise was a missile battery... Oh hell... a missile battery? Andy picked up on my fears quickly.
"Oh man! If they send a squadron... they're gonna get cut up!"
"Think I don't know that?" I snapped back. "It's even worse this whole train is black! They won't see what's coming until it's too late! We gotta sabotage it somehow!"
"How? We don't have any explosives..."
A metallic ping interrupted our conversation as we saw Glock enter the car with his .44 blazing. When I think about it... he had grazed the bridge of my nose with that shot. My adrenaline was way too high to feel any pain though.
"Come on! Let's move!"
"Heckler!" Glock yelled. "You can't win! Not now! Not after we worked together! I know how you operate!"
Almost as if to confirm his words, I turned around to fire on him, which he promptly took cover behind the door to the car. It was a straight shot through the missile car. The rest of it was occupied with generators and reserve missiles. Hell, I was lucky I didn't blow us all up. I felt a whole hell of a lot better when we got out of that place...
Of course, the next car we entered was the Death Ray car. Man, it was really close. Maybe I could smash the controls or something... I don't know what I was thinking, because the controls were on an upper level behind a locked door in a room with Lash and ten other soldiers. Andy let me in on the enemy count, and I knew any sort of attempt to break into the room was suicide. We had to keep moving, and find some other way.
There was another missile battery car after we got out of the Death Ray car, and Glock caught up with us again, except this time he had friends. A couple soldiers from Lash's room broke off to pursue us, and they were packing their lovable gun arms too.
I shot back, but I was careful not to empty the clip on automatic mode. I didn't have any extra 12 gauge shells... Once I ran out... I ran out. Onto the next car, it was some kind of fancy meeting room with all sorts of monitors and laptops. Andy pushed one of the big cushy chairs up against the door and took a breather. It was then I realized how tired I was.
"Oh man... we're never gonna disable that thing. We need the air strike now!"
"Don't be so negative." I began, out of breath. "We don't even know if they're ready to fire yet."
Course, I had to open my big mouth and I looked over to one of the laptops to see a countdown and the trajectory of the Death Ray shot. I had roughly an hour to think of something good... but at least that little map of where the Death Ray was shooting had coordinates and I quickly called Sami to relay our location. We were in Northern Orange Star, around where Flak has his factory in the second Black Hole Invasion.
"Copy that, Good work! We just scrambled the Thunderbolt Squadron from Dawn Airbase. ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) is half an hour! Your objectives now are to get Andy and yourself off of that train!"
"No good ma'am. I meant to tell you. They got missiles, lots of missiles. They won't stand a chance when they get here!"
"Don't worry, they're the best we have! Now get out of there!"
Sami didn't understand. This whole train was painted jet black. From the sky at night, you wouldn't even be able to see the Death Ray. Not to mention this train was moving at a good click. How fast am I talking? Like jumping from it would be the equivalent of jumping out of a car going 80 on the highway. And let's not forget all the trees on the side of the track. Hell... we had to slow this thing down, or stop it altogether.
But those missiles... the Thunderbolts were going to get cut down before they knew what hit them. Hawke just about thought of everything for this. Still, I was on that train... I was going to do something... Even if it wasn't very smart.
The chair didn't hold the door for long, and it was only the table and the monitors that kept us from getting blasted by Glock and the soldiers after us. The next area of the train was different... it was that big flatbed car with the T Copter and Flak's Big Bertha on it. Andy was making a break for the other end as I came to a dead stop in front of Big Bertha and looked it over.
"Heckler! What are you doing? Glock's gonna be here any second! You're gonna get shot!"
Without so much as giving him a heads up on what I was doing, I scrambled up the side of the tank and opened up the main hatch to get in. I think when I disappeared into it, Andy got the hint and followed after me. Now we were both inside Big Bertha, as I was fooling around with the controls to get it started.
"Whatcha thinking?" Andy asked me frantically. "We need to keep moving."
"No, we need to stay right here."
I pressed the switch to throw the tank on and soon looked toward the camera positioned directly over the main cannon. It was aimed directly at the meeting room car we had just exited. When Andy saw that, I think he got the picture and began to work the straps to the seat he was in around his body. Me? I was too eager looking for the cannon switch to think about all the recoil I was about to get.
A red button flashed as the onboard computer detected armed individuals, and I could see Glock on the turret camera kick open the door with his .44 ready to go. There was a split second, when he was confused why he couldn't see us. Then he looked toward the tank, and made an silent "no" with his mouth. I couldn't say I felt very sorry for him as I finally located the switch and pressed it.
"Goodbye Groling." I said, and the tank roared off a Neotank round straight ahead.
The whole tank shook with the chains holding it down and I nearly bashed my head into the control console in front of me. Andy let out a scream of surprise as the round I fired went forward, blew up the meeting room car and kept going to level the missile car. The small bits of audio we picked up was a chorus of whizzing sounds as the missiles were set off and launched in any and all directions.
Some hit the Death Ray, some hit our car, some snaked around the Death Ray and hit the other missile car. Hell, I bet the whole train was lit on fire with that explosion. Man, what was I thinking? It sounded like someone was going crazy with fireworks. I finally had the sense to put on the seatbelt and simply tried to watch the monitor the best I could.
Then a stray missile hit the tank and killed the video feed before rattling us good again. It was at least five minutes before Andy popped the hatch and let us get out to survey all the damage I had just done. Yeah, like I said before, what the hell was I thinking?
"Whoa!" Andy muttered in amazement.
"Well uh yeah..." I said acting as if I knew what I was doing. "I bet the Thunderbolts can see the train now."
It seemed to me, that the whole train was lit up from caboose to diesel engine. But to my dismay, it was still moving and a quick look let me know that the other missile car had made it out just fine. Jumping was still out. For some reason, I looked down, and saw Glock clutching a couple of chains holding the tank down. I suppose he did it to keep himself from being thrown off the car. I wasn't really surprised. Even with his funny new armor, he was really rattled though, and his face was black from the smoke residue after the blast.
"Guess you're still... full of surprises..." Glock coughed at me. "Death Ray's still gonna fire though... So I'm not mad... Hawke was right though... you'd make one hell of a soldier."
His head soon fell forward as he dropped his gun. I jumped down as fast as I could to grab his weapon and put it a pocket of mine. Andy soon popped his head out over the side of the tank to see what had happened to Glock.
"Is he dead?"
"Oh." I responded in an annoyed tone as I check his pulse. "We could only hope to be so lucky. But no, he's still kicking. Let's get out of here before he pulls a blasted magic trick or something."
"What are we going to do now? There's no way we can reach the diesel train after that stunt! The two cars we used to get back here are totaled!"
I stood up to see his point. The meeting room car and the missile car I had leveled were smoldering pieces of scrap. I had effectively cut us off from the rest of the train... unless we wanted to traverse melted metal and broken glass to get back to the front. And that wasn't gonna happen. I punched the tank in anger. That was a big lack of foresight on my part. I just saw Big Bertha and thought "shoot".
"Wolf! Do you read? Where are you?" Sami asked.
"Still on the train. What's going on with the Thunderbolts?"
"They'll be there in five minutes! Their flight leader reported some sort of explosion, the train is completely visible now."
Hell... I didn't expect to kill that much time... But we were as good as dead if we tried to jump. The forest line was that close. We'd wrap ourselves around a tree for sure. Jumping off the back was just as bad, it'd only be with the uncomfortable metal tracks instead of the wooden trees. Man, our guys were en-route to blow this whole piece of scrap apart. Except we were still on the train with no way out...
-To be Continued...
--Next Chapter: Last Stop