Chapter 256: The Silver Streak (Part 1)

The hover-bikes made loud noises across the desert like angry hornets on steroids.

The engine made Seraph’s body vibrate. The speedometer read three hundred miles per hour.

Ahead, the Silver Streak moved through the dessert like it owned the place.

They were about to make it very angry.

“Thirty seconds to contact!” Rook’s voice came through her earpiece, barely audible over the wind. Back in the city, his people were setting things on fire. Expensive things. The kind of chaos that made security forces panic and forget about train routes.

Seraph looked to the side. Draven was hunched over his bike like a bear on a bicycle. The bike looked silly under his huge size, but he kept up anyway.

This was a terrible idea.

But they were doing it anyway.

Torres and Kira were behind them, followed by six others whose names Seraph kept forgetting under pressure. That’s nine bikes in total. Nine people about to do something stupid.

*The train’s rear car loomed larger. Automated turrets swiveled on the roof, tracking targets with precision.

*”Rook, those turrets better be offline in five seconds or we are all decorating the desert!”

“I’m working on it! I said I’d handle it, didn’t I?”

Four hundred yards. Three hundred.

The turrets locked on.

“Rook!”

BANG.

*Something exploded on the train’s roof. Smoke billowed. The turrets went dark, barrels drooping like flowers in a drought.

“Told you!” Rook sounded way too pleased with himself.

“Shut up and keep the line open.” Seraph gunned her engine. The bike lurched forward, eating up the distance. Two hundred yards. One hundred.

She could see details now. Warning labels in three languages. A maintenance door that was definitely locked.

They were going through it anyway.

“Torres, light it up!”

Torres pulled alongside, something bulky strapped to his back. He aimed and fired. A magnetic breaching charge shot forward on a cable, trailing sparks. It hit the door with a loud CLANG.

The bikes jerked hard as the cable went taut. Her hands almost lost their grip.

Then they matched speed, being dragged along like tin cans behind a wedding car.

“Blow it!” Draven’s voice boomed over the wind.

Torres hit the detonator.

BOOM.

*The door didn’t open. It evaporated. Metal peeled back like aluminum foil, revealing a smoke-filled corridor beyond.

“Go, go, go!”

*Seraph let go of the handlebars, grabbed the cable and started pulling herself forward while the desert blurred beneath her at speeds that would turn her into paste if she fell.

Don’t think about that. Don’t think. Just move.

Her hands burned. The cable cut through her gloves but she kept climbing.

She reached the opening, swung inside, hit the floor hard and rolled, then came up with her gun already drawn.

*Narrow corridor. Metal walls. Harsh fluorescent lighting that made everything look sick and washed out.

*Draven crashed through behind her, then Torres, then Kira. The rest of the team piled in, everyone stumbling over each other in the tight space.

“Move up!” Seraph pushed forward.

A mercenary appeared at the corridor’s end. Probably thought he was hot stuff with his fancy armor and tactical gear.

He raised his rifle.

Seraph dropped to the floor, slid forward on her stomach, put three rounds through his kneecaps before he could blink.

He went down screaming.

She was back on her feet before he stopped falling.

“Contact front!” someone yelled behind her.

More mercenaries flooded in. They weren’t cyborgs or Weavers. They were just regular humans with gun.

Sometimes regular humans were the worst.

*The corridor exploded into noise. Gunfire ricocheted off metal walls, so loud Seraph’s ears went numb. She moved on instinct. Duck. Weave. Return fire. Muscle memory from too many fights in too many places.

A mercenary lunged with a knife. She caught his wrist, twisted until something popped, used his momentum to throw him into the wall. She kept moving.

Draven fought beside her with his greatsword. No room for big swings, so he used it like a spear.

“Gas! They are deploying gas!”

Seraph saw it. Purple mist coming out from ceiling vents.

Her skin started tingling. Then burning.

Mana-dampening gas. The expensive kind that shut down magical abilities, turned Weavers into regular people, made someone like Draven fight without his armor.

“Masks!” Kira threw something.

Seraph caught it. It was a cheap filter mask, the kind that barely worked in the Undercroft’s toxic zones. She strapped it on. It didn’t help much. The gas was everywhere, soaking through clothes and seeping into skin.

Draven’s golden armor dtarted fading like a dying lightbulb.

“I’m fine!” he growled before she could ask. “Keep moving!”

They pushed forward. One car. Two. Three. Each one identical. Same narrow corridors. Same lack of cover. Same mercenaries who knew the layout and used every advantage.

*Seraph took a knife to the arm. Felt it punch through her jacket, through skin, scrape bone. She killed the guy before her brain registered the pain.

Blood ran down her sleeve. She ignored it.

Beside her, Draven grunted. She looked over.

He was still fighting, sword moving in tight, controlled arcs. But something was wrong. His movements were heavier. Slower.

Blood spread across his left leg, where the cyborgs had shot him weeks ago.

The wound had reopened.

“Draven, you are bleeding!”

“I’m aware!” He brought his sword down on a mercenary’s rifle, breaking it. “Keep going!”

Four cars. Five. Six.

Bodies behind them. Some wearing resistance gear. Most wearing Sterling’s colors. The math was working, but barely.

Draven stumbled. Caught himself on the wall.

“I’m fine!”

He wasn’t fine. Anyone could see that. But arguing with Draven mid-firefight was pointless.

Seven cars. Eight.

More mercenaries. These ones looked scared. Good. Scared people made mistakes.

Nine cars.

Draven went down.

He just dropped to one knee, using his sword to keep from falling completely.

“Draven!”

“I’m up.” But he wasn’t. His leg was a mess. Too much blood. Way too much.

A mercenary saw the opening and started to raise his weapon.

Seraph shot him three times. He dropped.

“Torres! Kira! Cover!” She grabbed Draven’s arm and tried to haul him up.

“Leave me,” he said.

“That’s not happening.”

“I’m slowing you down.”

“Then slow faster.” She got under his shoulder, taking as much weight as she could. Which wasn’t much, but it was something. “We are almost there.”

Ten cars. Eleven.

Draven’s breathing sounded wrong.

“Stay with me.”

“Where else would I go?”

Despite everything, that almost made her laugh.

The VIP car’s door was different. Reinforced.

“Breach it.” Seraph said to her team.

Torres planted charges. Kira and the others held the corridor while mercenaries regrouped for another push. They had maybe twenty seconds.

“Fire in the hole!”

BOOM.

The door exploded. Smoke poured out.

Through it, Seraph saw a figure in the corner. He wore a suit and his hair was perfectly styled despite everything.

High Overseer Kaine.

Target acquired.

But standing between them and him was a Beta-Weaver.

Eight feet of wrong. Bear parts stitched to insect parts stitched to things she didn’t recognize.

It roared. The sound covered the car and rattled her teeth.

Draven tried to stand. His leg gave out. He crashed against the doorframe.

“I’ll hold the corridor,” he said through gritted teeth. He turned to face the mercenaries advancing from behind. “You get Kaine.”

Seraph looked at the Beta-Weaver. At Kaine cowering behind it. At Draven, injured and stubborn and absolutely refusing to quit.

“Don’t die,” she said.

“You either.”

She stepped into the VIP car alone.

The Beta-Weaver’s empty eyes locked onto her.

It charged.

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