the night on the train.
Nina opened the door to the old-style sleeper and hustled Denise in. The window there looked out on the train station platform. Soon enough it would offer a view of rolling Ohio countryside, then Pennsylvania farmland, then mountains, and more.
Shepherd asked, 'So what's your plan?'
Denise stared out at the masses queued on the landing. Streaks of snowy rain raced along the glass.
'First we’ll get settled. Then we’re going to the dining car. I’m starved and I don’t think Denise has had much more than hot chocolate in a couple of days.'
'Some chow sounds right fine by me,' Shepherd had not realized his hunger until she mentioned food.
'Then Denise is going nap. I think she’s had even less sleep than she’s had food.'
'Sounds like you’ve got a pretty good plan lined up.'
Nina faced him head on and, with the same friendly tone, said, 'And after I get her tucked in, you and I are going to sit down and you’re going to tell me why the Emperor came all this way just to find me.'
Nina left him standing at the doorway as she entered the compartment to stow her bag.
General Jerry Shepherd lost his appetite.
– The rectangular Railscout's electronic motor whirred as it buzzed along the tracks on metal wheels with sensors and cameras measuring the landscape from a small dome on the center of its suitcase-sized frame.
Information transmitted miles back to its host engine affirmed that the tracks remained in good condition, the icy rain had stopped, and, so far, no sign of any threats from the woods, plains, or empty villages surrounding the railway.
– Jerry Shepherd waited in the dining car, his heart thumped and sweat greased his brow.
How exactly am I going to get out of this one?
Nina approached along the aisle swaying side to side in abeyance of the wobbling car then sat across from him.
'You want a coffee?'
She ignored the gesture and started right off, 'Why did Trevor Stone come to find me? I’m just one of a hundred thousand soldiers. There has to be hundreds of soldiers missing all over this war and he takes the time to go after me. Why?'
'I don’t like your tone there, Captain Forest. I think you need to remember who it is you’re talking to.'
'Listen, don’t pull that with me, Shep. You’re not allowed to. You’ve never fallen back on rank before so you can't do it now. I won’t fall for it. I want answers.'
He slowly sipped his mug of coffee. Another delaying tactic.
She was right, of course. He had never — never- pulled rank on her. To do so now only made him look more guilty. Instead, he grabbed for another tactic.
'My oh my, you sure got one bloated noggin' on those shoulders. Listen to you; ‘why did Trevor Stone come out here looking for me?’ Do you hear yourself?'
'So, what? He came out looking for Odin?'
Shepherd almost laughed because Nina did not know that Odin had originally been Trevor’s personal pet. He wondered how intense her questions would become if she found out that little nugget of information.
'Now you listen to me, because I’m a right bit tired of getting interrogated every six months by you. The Emperor came to Ohio to surprise the troops. I came along because I heard you had gone missing and I wanted to find you. Maybe you don’t recall, but there was a time way back in the beginning when there weren’t many people other than Trev, Brewer, Johnny, and yeah, Nina Forest. So when I told Trevor I was going looking for you, he decided to take charge of the whole thing himself. You ask me, I think he was just tired of sitting behind a desk.'
He then nonchalantly sipped his coffee. To his surprise, he saw her eyes waver. Hitting at her ego-or suggesting her ego got the better of her-helped. She seemed off-balance. Unsure whether to proceed.
'General Shepherd?' The interruption came from the Conductor, a man who appeared to have lost all color in his cheeks and spoke through trembling lips. 'I’m sorry, Sir, but I heard you were on board and, well, we have a problem, Sir.'
Several Internal Security agents wearing plain cloths but identified by I.S. armbands hurried through the car on their way forward.
'What is it?'
'Could you come up to the security car? We could use your help…'
…The Railscout slowed forward momentum allowing the steam engine to catch up. The cow-catcher at the front of the locomotive opened and the Railscout fit perfectly inside a compartment there with a metallic clang.
In the armor-plated security car, a sharp buzz from a table top of electronic controls signaled the I.S. Onboard Chief Officer (O.C. O) that the surveillance drone was secure.
Shep and Nina stood behind the O.C.O. seated at the console as he replayed a video image for the third time and said, 'I was hoping you people could tell me what that is.'
The grainy image played on a malfunctioning monitor, I.S. never received the best equipment and train security occupied a lower rung on the totem pole. Nonetheless, the image displayed a house-sized mound of flesh with a big ugly mouth straddling a road fifty yards off the tracks.
Two creepy, flat eyes moved-drifting up, down, and side to side like flotsam atop a pond-on pale, slimy skin.
General Shepherd ran a hand over his eyes as he told the O.C.O. as well as the assembled security force, 'Hostile Number one-five-seven. It only gets a number because no one has figured out a polite enough name for it.'
'It looks like it’s just sitting there,' the Chief observed. 'No arms or legs. Maybe it can’t reach the tracks.'
Nina scoffed, 'Keep telling yourself that.'
'Then we should stop? We have to hit the brakes now if we’re going to stop before we get to it.'
'Nope. Can’t do that,' Shepherd explained. 'We need to push through really fast. Tell your engineer to crank the steam. Seems to me, that’s the best way to get by this thing.'
Nina added, 'Listen, you’d better radio I.S. HQ for this sector. They’ll need to get some military units over here to clean up that pile of shit. Tell them you’ve got a one-fifty-seven.'
The Chief pointed out, 'There’s no way military units will get here in time to help us.'
Shepherd said, 'She knows that. What she means is that you should radio them now, ‘cause we might not be around to radio them later…'
…The steam train chugged across the western Pennsylvania landscape gaining more and more speed as it ran on rails cutting between a collection of soft hills, patches of forest, and then one of the hundreds of ghost towns inside The Empire’s borders.
The mound of pale creature sat on a stretch of road at the edge of the empty village. It spoiled what could have been a Norman Rockwell painting of small town America. Other than the movement of its two yellow eyes and the occasional grinding of its massive, ugly mouth, the thing showed no sign of life.
Five I.S. agents traveled on the train, including their Chief who remained in the security car to monitor the situation while the Conductor searched for soldiers or volunteers to help.
The I.S. agents not watching monitors divided, a pair went to the locomotive to protect the crew and another two took positions in the old-fashioned caboose.
Nina and Shep, carrying assault rifles with grenade launchers, waited at the middle of the train, a train that included the large steam locomotive, its tender, the armored security control car, two mail coaches filled with packages and bags, a dining car, and four old-style passenger cars followed by the caboose that also served as a secondary security station..
With time short, Nina sent a porter to find Denise in the sleeping car and fill her in on the situation. Other attendants moved passengers forward to the enclosed mail cars where the windowless walls and heavy doors provided better protection.
On Shepherd's advice, they planned to race past the creature as quickly as possible. By the time the train reached the danger zone, the locomotive hit top speed. Smoke billowed from the stack, the cars rattled and shook
