Post by Wolfe on Jun 27, 2019 15:25:10 GMT -5
As the thick metal doors between the train cars closed on the Argus Limited, the point of no return had been reached. Each one was specifically designed to withstand a tremendous amount of damage before breaking apart, so the only one who could open the doors were the ones with the passwords. The windows were still bulletproof glass but were not locked down just yet. The exterior of the train was durable, sure, but not enough to survive a concerted onslaught the entire ride over. Bringing enemies into Argus, though, could possibly be very bad as the train ended its tracks inside a highly populated residential area, and even with police and other security forces waiting at the other end it would certainly not be ideal to bring bandits and Grimm to the middle of their city.
Each car had one remote control that would shutter that individual car as fully and completely as possible. It cut off the retreat route for anyone inside, at least for a time, or made the car a bit more defensible from attack from the outside. Unlike the doors inside of the train cars, the shutters on the windows were a lot easier to smash apart. It was a compromise, just like everything about the modified design was. Even encasing the entire thing as securely as possible had its downsides, namely the fact that the driver car had to have a way to see and thus couldn’t be as securely protected. Taking out the tracks was too much of a risk due to the technology being transported being fragile, so the bandits would not do anything that would result in the destruction of the train until that precious cargo was taken… hopefully.
The second that cargo was off the train, everyone left on it was probably fucked. There were several areas to which the train could be diverted and thrown off the tracks with little effort along the route, and none of them could be reliably be called anywhere close to safe or under Mistral’s control at this point in time. The trainees didn’t know the strategy of the other side, only that there would almost certainly be an attempt to take the technology inside of the train at some point during the ride. There were basic turrets mounted on top of the cars, but they would provide little more than a nuisance to anything or anyone truly dangerous. The entire system was rigged with cameras that the conductor could see both inside and outside the train, so ideally there would be some advance warning of an attack. Of course, in some areas of the track that was much easier said than done.
In the moment, though, the communication system was silent. The insides of each and every one of the train cars was heavily modified, with almost all conventional passenger features taken out in order to replace the tables, chairs, and beds in the higher-class cars with boxes completely identical to the ones carrying the actual equipment needed for the Cross Continental Transit System. This was the deal that the Council of Mistral had made with the Kingdom of Atlas, securing their combat droids and getting back their equipment in exchange for setting up two towers in Mistral and Argus. The one in Mistral was more or less completed at this point inside of the Haven Academy grounds after weeks of work by Atlas technicians, but the one in Argus desperately needed the extremely difficult to manufacture parts that were stuck in Mistral for months due to the blockade. The bandits likely had no idea what the parts did, but what they did know is that they were valuable enough to be smuggled out of the city while there was a battle raging outside of the walls. That alone was enough to ensure that there would be some sort of response to the Argus Limited’s first journey in months.
Each student was given two doses of the dust of their choice, exhausting the reserves that the school had of the same. There would be a resupply waiting for them in Argus, but that was still a long way off. They were divided into groups, with one of those groups occupying each and every train car. It was rumored at this point that the outlaws had their own version of a strike team, and it was that team that would likely come out if and when the train got attacked. It was unknown how strong each member of the opposing side was going to be, but it was unlikely that they would be expecting the capital to spare so many to defend the train. It was likely that they would come in one or two to a car at most, and when they entered it would be an easy matter to close the trap and engage them.
The suggestion was to keep hidden until enemies showed up in one place or another, and if there were less opponents than train cars then it would be a simple matter for one group to reinforce any other group adjacent to their own with the passwords that were supposed to be memorized by every member at this point. Each train car was 60 ft 9 in (18.52m) in length, 9 ft 10 in (3m) wide and 12 feet 9 inches (3.89 m) high. There was a lot of room forward and backwards to move, but not a lot side to side. There were metal containers lining both ends of the wall and secured on either side, taking up about two feet (0.6096m) worth of space on either side going down most of the car except for the last two meters on either side. The intent of this layout was to trap whoever came in to the middle of the car where there was less room to maneuver in a situation where they would ideally be attacked from both sides with no room to escape due to the windows being shuttered and at least theoretically unable to be smashed through without being exposed to attacks from everyone else in the train car.
The fact of the matter was, though, was that the first two cars had next to no room for error. Roughly half of the actual cargo was in the driver car stuffed into corners and secret compartments, while the other half was in the second car guarded by the most individually powerful student at Haven. The second car had some dummy crates, but the driver car didn’t have any because if anyone made it inside of that car the jig was up anyway. Each one was locked and would require an individual to break that lock to look inside, which would ideally eat up a lot of time as the dummy crates were obviously on top of the real deal, stalling for time if anything were to go wrong. There was a bit of extra supplies, sure, but only enough to fill about half a crate. If they lost even one it would be a mission failure, so the stakes and pressure were ratcheted up really high for this one.
Nobody knew the semblances of the people who would come in to try and sabotage the train, but that worked out both ways. Nobody would expect the trainees to be on the train when by all rights they should be at the capital, so they would get at least a momentary advantage due to the fact that most of their semblances were not public to any degree… and even if they were, it doesn’t matter if the information is public if nobody thought to actually study it or seek it out. The typical complement to this train would be the automated turrets on the roof and a small number of licensed Huntsmen to protect it under normal circumstances, but it was likely that the expected resistance was just a few combat androids given the pinch on licensed huntsmen at the present. There was no way that they would expect something both more powerful and more numerous than even the newest model of the Atlesian Knight line in the students, and ideally that miscalculation would be enough to at least start things out on the right foot.
Each car had one remote control that would shutter that individual car as fully and completely as possible. It cut off the retreat route for anyone inside, at least for a time, or made the car a bit more defensible from attack from the outside. Unlike the doors inside of the train cars, the shutters on the windows were a lot easier to smash apart. It was a compromise, just like everything about the modified design was. Even encasing the entire thing as securely as possible had its downsides, namely the fact that the driver car had to have a way to see and thus couldn’t be as securely protected. Taking out the tracks was too much of a risk due to the technology being transported being fragile, so the bandits would not do anything that would result in the destruction of the train until that precious cargo was taken… hopefully.
The second that cargo was off the train, everyone left on it was probably fucked. There were several areas to which the train could be diverted and thrown off the tracks with little effort along the route, and none of them could be reliably be called anywhere close to safe or under Mistral’s control at this point in time. The trainees didn’t know the strategy of the other side, only that there would almost certainly be an attempt to take the technology inside of the train at some point during the ride. There were basic turrets mounted on top of the cars, but they would provide little more than a nuisance to anything or anyone truly dangerous. The entire system was rigged with cameras that the conductor could see both inside and outside the train, so ideally there would be some advance warning of an attack. Of course, in some areas of the track that was much easier said than done.
In the moment, though, the communication system was silent. The insides of each and every one of the train cars was heavily modified, with almost all conventional passenger features taken out in order to replace the tables, chairs, and beds in the higher-class cars with boxes completely identical to the ones carrying the actual equipment needed for the Cross Continental Transit System. This was the deal that the Council of Mistral had made with the Kingdom of Atlas, securing their combat droids and getting back their equipment in exchange for setting up two towers in Mistral and Argus. The one in Mistral was more or less completed at this point inside of the Haven Academy grounds after weeks of work by Atlas technicians, but the one in Argus desperately needed the extremely difficult to manufacture parts that were stuck in Mistral for months due to the blockade. The bandits likely had no idea what the parts did, but what they did know is that they were valuable enough to be smuggled out of the city while there was a battle raging outside of the walls. That alone was enough to ensure that there would be some sort of response to the Argus Limited’s first journey in months.
Each student was given two doses of the dust of their choice, exhausting the reserves that the school had of the same. There would be a resupply waiting for them in Argus, but that was still a long way off. They were divided into groups, with one of those groups occupying each and every train car. It was rumored at this point that the outlaws had their own version of a strike team, and it was that team that would likely come out if and when the train got attacked. It was unknown how strong each member of the opposing side was going to be, but it was unlikely that they would be expecting the capital to spare so many to defend the train. It was likely that they would come in one or two to a car at most, and when they entered it would be an easy matter to close the trap and engage them.
The suggestion was to keep hidden until enemies showed up in one place or another, and if there were less opponents than train cars then it would be a simple matter for one group to reinforce any other group adjacent to their own with the passwords that were supposed to be memorized by every member at this point. Each train car was 60 ft 9 in (18.52m) in length, 9 ft 10 in (3m) wide and 12 feet 9 inches (3.89 m) high. There was a lot of room forward and backwards to move, but not a lot side to side. There were metal containers lining both ends of the wall and secured on either side, taking up about two feet (0.6096m) worth of space on either side going down most of the car except for the last two meters on either side. The intent of this layout was to trap whoever came in to the middle of the car where there was less room to maneuver in a situation where they would ideally be attacked from both sides with no room to escape due to the windows being shuttered and at least theoretically unable to be smashed through without being exposed to attacks from everyone else in the train car.
The fact of the matter was, though, was that the first two cars had next to no room for error. Roughly half of the actual cargo was in the driver car stuffed into corners and secret compartments, while the other half was in the second car guarded by the most individually powerful student at Haven. The second car had some dummy crates, but the driver car didn’t have any because if anyone made it inside of that car the jig was up anyway. Each one was locked and would require an individual to break that lock to look inside, which would ideally eat up a lot of time as the dummy crates were obviously on top of the real deal, stalling for time if anything were to go wrong. There was a bit of extra supplies, sure, but only enough to fill about half a crate. If they lost even one it would be a mission failure, so the stakes and pressure were ratcheted up really high for this one.
Nobody knew the semblances of the people who would come in to try and sabotage the train, but that worked out both ways. Nobody would expect the trainees to be on the train when by all rights they should be at the capital, so they would get at least a momentary advantage due to the fact that most of their semblances were not public to any degree… and even if they were, it doesn’t matter if the information is public if nobody thought to actually study it or seek it out. The typical complement to this train would be the automated turrets on the roof and a small number of licensed Huntsmen to protect it under normal circumstances, but it was likely that the expected resistance was just a few combat androids given the pinch on licensed huntsmen at the present. There was no way that they would expect something both more powerful and more numerous than even the newest model of the Atlesian Knight line in the students, and ideally that miscalculation would be enough to at least start things out on the right foot.
1430 words.
In the next round of posts, please detail exactly how your car is modified. Next storyteller post is estimated in seven days to kick off the action, so feel free to post as many cycles as you wish during that time – the train ride itself is several hours.
In the next round of posts, please detail exactly how your car is modified. Next storyteller post is estimated in seven days to kick off the action, so feel free to post as many cycles as you wish during that time – the train ride itself is several hours.
