Three Square Meals Ch. 090

"How about the station then?" Tashana suggested. "It's near the outskirts in a well-built area and not too close to any hive ships. We might be able to sneak in there without being spotted. Getting out will be harder, but Faye and Sakura could come in guns blazing to clear a way out for us."

"I always liked mining trains!" Dana said with a grin. "We could grab one and race straight into the fortress and then evacuate everyone the same way!"

"Let's do it," John agreed, looking around the group and seeing decisive nods from all the girls. Glancing at his excited pilot he added, "Take us in, Faye."

*I'll let Sakura know what you're up to,* Alyssa said, the worry in her voice quite apparent.

John sent her a reassuring telepathic smile. *We've got this. Dana's right, it might actually be easier to evacuate Niskera and her people by train, especially if they've got a lot of wounded.* It was his turn to sound worried now as he added, *How about you? Any problems?*

*We've got an overwhelming speed, range, and firepower advantage,* she replied, sounding supremely confident. *We swatted the initial wave of bug fighters and Calara's just getting ready to gut another drone carrier.*

Relieved to hear her description of the incredibly one-sided battle, John let himself relax a little. *Sounds like you've got everything well in hand. Can you ask Sakura to hang back at the drop zone. There's no need for her to come with us, I don't want to risk the Valkyrie being spotted by Kirrix forces.*

*I started telling her as soon as you thought it,* Alyssa replied, giving him a playful mental wink.

***

Sakura arched her back, making the Valkyrie shift positions from a horizontal flying position to a vertical standing position. Using retro-thrusters to gently feather her descent, she touched down in what had once been an office car park behind a tall commercial building. At least that's what it was marked down as on her map; to Sakura it looked like a monolithic stone tower - the Trankarans definitely believed in building things to last!

With a graceful agility that should have been impossible in a machine of that size, she prowled forward in the thirty-metre-tall mech, taking advantage of the darkness to conceal her careful progress. She smiled to herself as she imagined how the Valkyrie must have looked, the gigantic shiny white robot pretending to be a stealthy ninja.

She stopped to peek around the right corner of the tower block. Far away in the distance she could see the segmented ochre hull of the closest hive ship, looming ominously over that section of the city. It had searchlights focused down on the streets and there was plenty of activity illuminated by those bright beams of light. Sakura pivoted and crept along the concealed side of the office block, before peering around the left corner. She trained the crosshairs of her Photon Lasers down the broad avenue, preparing to open fire if any threats should appear.

Not quite so far away on the left of the street was the entrance to the station, currently unlit and shadowed in darkness, it was both an imposing and depressing sight. On a brighter note, there were no visible signs of Kirrix right at that moment and her thermal-imaging wasn't picking up anything either. Squatting and turning around, she beckoned her tiny companions forward.

John looked up at the crouching mech and nodded to Sakura in acknowledgement. He darted forward across the car park, dodging around stationary hover-cars and avoiding the metre-deep depressions in the ground left behind by the Valkyrie's massive feet. The sensitive audio sensors in the Paragon suit picked up the light footfalls of the girls behind him as they jogged along in his wake.

They didn't have Alyssa to coordinate their fire this time, but he had every confidence in the four women following him across the car park. It was sobering to think that he trusted these four girls - two of whom were only eighteen - far more than the very best of the special forces teams he'd ever led. He felt a surge of pride in them as he reached the Valkyrie's foot, with Tashana, Irillith, Dana, and Rachel joining him in taking cover by the building.

*We're going in,* John thought to Alyssa, knowing she would relay his exact commands to the Asian girl towering over them. *Cover us with the mech until we reach the station, then hold position here. If you're at any risk of being detected, pull back out of the city to safety and wait for our return.*

*Will do,* Alyssa replied. *Be careful, John. Let me know if you get in any trouble and I'll find a way to help! I love you...*

He paused for a second before replying, touched by the passion in Alyssa's words, which he knew were a direct reproduction of everything Sakura had just intended for him to hear. He glanced up at the huge mech and saw its head turned down so that Sakura could watch him. He blew her a kiss. *I love you too, honey. Stay safe...*

Glancing over his shoulder, he nodded to Tashana, then cut out around the edge of the building. Darting across the street with his rifle trained along the avenue, he switched to thermal imaging to get a clearer picture of any threats. The only signs of heat traces were a long way down the road, far beyond the entrance to the station and surrounding the base of the distant hive ship. He began to make his way down the sidewalk, moving from cover to cover, knowing that the girls would be flanking him.

Sure enough, the rest of his squad had fanned out across the road, with Tashana staying roughly parallel to John on the opposite side of the avenue. Irillith, Dana, and Rachel were following at a discreet distance and maintaining well-disciplined spacing. There were a few signs of combat, with a handful of buildings and vehicles showing damage from fire-fights. Additionally, everything from the street to parked vehicles were covered in a light layer of soot, which had accumulated from the many fires that had been started in the city.

When John reached the station entrance, he saw no indication of insectoid footprints in the black layer carpeting the steps. That was a reassuring sign and he jogged up the short flight then entered the station foyer with much less caution than he would have done otherwise. This station was one of the biggest in the rail network underneath Mulbharum and was also the only station with the rail link to the underground fortress several miles outside the city limits.

Taking a chance that the station was deserted, he activated low-intensity external lighting on his helmet. The low-light amplification in the suit's HUD greatly enhanced how much he could see in the gloom. Shining those soft beams of light around the foyer, he could see there were a maze of tunnels heading off into pitch blackness, the only indicator as to their destination written in runic script.

John glanced back at the girls as they joined him inside the station, fanning out to cover the tunnels. "Irillith, I know you're great with languages. How's your Trankaran? Have you mastered their runes?"

"I can speak it fluently, but I can't read it," the Maliri girl said, giving him a frown of apology.

"We need to go that way," Dana said firmly, pointing up at the angular script inscribed on the wall above one of the tunnels. "It says: 'Hol Darim Fortress - Platform Twelve. Authorised personnel only'."

"I didn't know you could read Trankaran!" John exclaimed, looking at her in surprise.

Her eyes drifted down to his face and he could see the shock in those sky-blue orbs as she said in a quiet voice, "Yeah, neither did I..."

Rachel patted her on the back. "You're a girl of many hidden talents, babes."

Setting off again, John followed the tunnel that Dana had pointed out, moving at a fast walk as they began travelling down a number of snaking ramps. There was no light at all down here, rendering image amplification useless. The walls and floors were all made from a matte-grey metal, so their footsteps rang with a sharp metallic ring to it. He would have been worried about the noise they were making, but using heat amplification he saw no sign of Kirrix.

When he was starting to get anxious that the tunnels were ever going to end, they suddenly opened out onto a long platform that stretched away into the distance. Like the rest of the underground passageways, the roof was held up by huge metal-clad columns. These reinforced buttresses looked incredibly sturdy, their broad surfaces covered by strangely elegant patterns on each facing.

"There's the train!" Dana said with glee, having turned the corner from the stairwell to look back along the platform.

John walked over to join her and sure enough, there was a heavy, blocky, slightly oversized train - essentially everything he would have imagined a Trankaran vehicle to look like. In the dim light it was hard to make out colours, but the train was just as deserted and lifeless as the rest of the station had been.

"Can you get it running?" he asked, as he followed the redhead to the train.

She grinned at him and replied, "I'll give it my best shot!"

The doors to the cab had a rune beside them, but they did nothing when Dana placed her hand on the surface. She frowned, then stood on tip-toe to peak through the window. Her frown deepened and she began jogging along the platform until she stopped at a carriage mid-way down the train, where she stopped, looking curiously at the mechanism reaching out of the roof of that carriage.

"Give me a boost?" she asked, giving John her most appealing smile.

He slung his rifle, and interlaced his fingers to make a stirrup for her. She placed her booted foot there and he launched her up effortlessly, with Dana landing with catlike agility on the roof.

"Fucking Kirrix!" she swore less than a minute later.

John looked up at her in concern. "What is it, Sparks?"

She let out a humourless laugh. "That's just the problem, there are none!" Her face appeared above him as she squatted down by the edge of the roof. "This train runs by external power from the electrical rails above us, but the Kirrix must have shut down the power grid. Without any juice, this train's going nowhere!"

John offered the redhead a hand, helping her down. "It was a great idea, honey. Not to worry, we'll just follow the tracks all the way to the fortress."

Dana sighed and gave him a helpless shrug. "At least we won't have to worry about being hit by any trains."

"Alright, let's move out," John said, turning and walking back along the platform.

"Hold on a moment," Irillith said quietly, followed by a crackling sound a moment later.

John turned around to see what had drawn Irillith's attention, then looked at her in surprise as the carriage door opened. The Maliri girl had her hand over the rune, blue electricity arcing over her fingertips.

She arched her eyebrow and said, "All aboard. Next stop, Hol Darim Fortress."

Dana had already leapt inside with a wild grin on her face, while Rachel and Tashana entered the train more cautiously. John paused beside Irillith, looking into her violet eyes. "We're talking about supplying enough power to move a train here Irillith. This isn't going to be like jump-starting a hover-car."

Irillith gave him a coy smile. "We'll just have to see if all that fun you've been having with your loving twins has been paying dividends..."

She gestured for him to proceed inside and once he'd done so, she followed him into the train.

"Over here!" Dana called out to them from the back of the carriage. "I've found the engine, it just needs power."

Irillith started walking over to join her, but John hesitated then darted back outside.

"Where are you going?" Tashana asked him in surprise.

He glanced back at her curious face and smiled. "To make it easier for her! There's no reason to haul the entire train..."

John jogged further along the platform until he came to the end of the generator carriage. Peering off the edge of the platform, he saw what appeared to be a coupling mechanism linking the front half with the back four carriages. He slipped off the edge, dropping down to the rails, then drew his sword and simply cleaved straight through the mechanism with a single blow. Sheathing the weapon again he pushed at the rear of the train, straining for a few seconds before he managed to shove it back a couple of inches.

*Calara wishes she could see you moving a multi-ton train with your bare hands,* Alyssa told him with a smirk. *You know how excited she gets when you show off your bulging muscles...*

*We're recording everything,* John reminded her, grinning at the thought. *Maybe the three of us can get together to watch the footage after this is all over?*

*You're like the best Progenitor boyfriend ever!* Alyssa gushed playfully.

Satisfied that there was nothing linking the two halves of the train together, he climbed up onto the platform, then jogged back towards the door. Suddenly light blazed out of the front of the dark-red train, the first three carriages all alive with power. There was a deep rumble as the train's drive system came to life a few seconds later.

"That was fucking awesome!" Dana exclaimed with glee, just as he climbed aboard.

John turned to look down the carriage and his eyes widened as he saw Irillith standing with both hands placed on the engine, lightning dancing from her fingertips as she provided power to the train. She turned to look his way, grinning in delight.

Giving her a look of concern, John asked, "Are you sure you can maintain that? I don't want you burning yourself out!"

"I've grown much stronger!" she exclaimed, her violet eyes glowing with excitement - both literally and figuratively in this case. "I'm barely feeling this!"

Dana rushed past him. "I'll drive!" she squealed, a huge grin on her face as she ran through the carriages to the driver's compartment at the front.

Rachel watched her lover rush to the front of the train, then shared a wry smile with him. "You'd never believe we were the same age, would you?"

"I wouldn't have either of you any other way," he said, patting her on the shoulder. Glancing back at Irillith, he continued, "Are you alright here if I go and keep an eye on Dana?"

"Go ahead, I'll be fine," she assured him, keeping her armoured hands firmly on the generator.

The look Rachel and Tashana gave him let him know at a glance that they planned to keep a careful watch on Irillith. He nodded to them gratefully, then jogged through the carriages to catch up with Dana. She was standing by the controls, bouncing up and down with excitement as she looked them over.

John stopped at her side and briefly considered asking her to calm down, but her enthusiasm was so infectious, he couldn't resist smiling when she grinned at him.

"I've never driven a train before! I always wanted to!" she exclaimed, reading through runic instructions on the wall, whilst pressing a number of buttons.

A moment later the train lurched forward, then began to accelerate at a steady pace, accompanied by a quiet hum from the electric engine.

John darted a glance at her. "Don't push it too hard, I don't want Irillith to strain herself."

"Don't worry, I'll be a very responsible driver," Dana replied, her face deadly serious. She was only able to hold that expression for a few seconds before the grin crept onto her face again.

Shaking his head in amusement, John turned to look through the front window, watching as the train picked up speed. They were doing close to thirty miles-per-hour by the time they reached the end of the platform and he looked back down the train to check on the girls. Tashana gave him a thumbs-up, a proud smile on her face.

Relaxing a little, he watched the train's progress as they left the platform, the train's headlights illuminating the dark and forbidding tunnel ahead of them. It ran straight as an arrow out of the station, stretching for at least a mile before it ended. A long way up ahead, he saw what appeared to be an orange flicker and something about that wavering light seemed very familiar.

"Why's it always got to be lava?!" Dana groaned, looking up at him and rolling her eyes.

*The Trankarans tap it for Geothermal energy,* Alyssa informed them both. *According to Calara, that's why Mulbharum was constructed here.*

John smiled at the redhead beside him. "Let's just hope there isn't a big dragon lurking down here like last time!"

"Yeah, that's for damn sure!" she wholeheartedly agreed.

It only took them a couple of minutes to reach the end of the long tunnel, Dana pushing forty by the time they entered the huge cavern beyond. The Trankarans had built a majestic bridge that ran straight through the vast canyon, cleverly excavating around this imposing structure as they had mined this quarry for stone. Once they'd dug out all the building materials they needed, they'd diverted a lava stream to fill the base of this huge chamber.

Along the right side of the underground quarry, a long tunnel had been dug from the wall, lined with columns and reinforced with the same grey metal that had been used back in the station. The amber glow from the lava field bathed that broad passageway with flickering light, shadows dancing across the tunnel from the thick columns that held up the ceiling. The dim illumination revealed the entrances to yawning side tunnels, which were spaced periodically along the quarry and had been used to extract the stone.

However, that wasn't all the dancing molten glow revealed...

"Jesus! Look at all that!" Dana gasped, pointing urgently to their right.

John nodded, his smile dying the moment he'd spotted them.

There was movement along that stone colonnade and not just one or two creatures, but insectoid forces in their hundreds marched down that passage. It was hard to make out details in that dim, wavering light, but they all appeared to be heading in the same direction as the train. The sight of all those six-limbed creatures made John's skin crawl and he was unable to suppress a shiver.

"That's a good sign," he finally said, his eyes locked on the hulking, indistinct shapes plodding along in the shadows amongst the stream of smaller drones.

Dana snorted and looked up at him suspiciously as if he'd gone mad. "You're not losing it are you? Have you seen how many of those fuckers are down there?!"

"If the Kirrix are sending reinforcements, it probably means Niskera's forces are still holding out," he explained, trying to get an idea of the numbers in that chitinous horde.

"Oh right! Yeah, that makes sense," Dana said, nodding her understanding. She tapped a display on the blocky console. "Three miles to go, then it's end of the line."

John patted her on the shoulder, then glanced back down the train. "Everyone okay back there?"

"Irillith says she's fine!" Tashana shouted back to him.

*She's tiring a little, but she seems in good shape,* Alyssa informed him a second later, sounding surprised. *You really have been helping her grow! She was never this strong before.*

*We talked about Irillith developing her anti-personnel abilities; I was just helping her get ready,* John explained, the hint of a smile on his face.

*Uh-huh,* Alyssa replied, not sounding convinced in the slightest. *I hear all your thoughts remember. I know how much you enjoy seeing their lovely blue tummies stuffed full of your cum.*

*Guilty as charged,* he replied with a telepathic grin, before his eyes suddenly widened in alarm.

Sickly green neutron bolts began flying towards them, the horde of Kirrix having spotted the train racing across the bridge.

"Take cover!" he yelled back down the train. "We've got incoming fire!"

***

Alyssa watched as Calara focused the Nova Lance beam on the lead drone carrier. She shorted out their shields in a microsecond before the coruscating beam cored through the capital ship, melting an enormous glowing hole through the vessel from bow to stern. That brilliant shaft of energy winked out a second later, leaving only a faint trail of particles behind it. The motes of light linked the eviscerated Kirrix vessel to the Invictus, as if the lifeless derelict was mournfully pointing out its executioner.