Post by Ruqa Reyes on Jul 1, 2019 19:28:36 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, that there was no precious cargo in this particular train car. All of the boxes were filled with mostly worthless junk that had the sole purpose of weighing them down enough to fool someone until they opened it up. 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 every box was checked. Even the train car with the real component parts for the CCTS tower had junk crates mixed in with the real ones in order to stall for time. The purpose of the group inside this particular car was not to protect anything valuable, but to divert attention. Winning was great and all, but not required exactly. All they needed to do was stall out for long enough for one of the adjacent teams to finish their battle and provide backup at worst – or win their own battle to assist their own neighbors at best. Really, their only objective was to not die because all of the ‘cargo’ in this particular place could be tossed out the window for all anyone in Atlas cared. The only valuable thing inside this particular car was the students themselves.
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.
____
When they arrived outside the train station Ruqa heads over to the assigned car and pries apart the reinforced door, swinging it wide open and letting light into the dim interior. The lights flicker on as she steps into the hold, illuminating her in artificial light. The train car was cold and claustrophobic making Ruqa wished she brought something warm to wear. But it wasn't meant to be comfortable, this train wasn't taking the scenic route. Here they would fight the humanoid enemies of the Kingdoms over the high valued CCT parts which would decide the fate of the Capital of Mistral. Of course they were briefed beforehand that there was nothing of value in this car as apparently someone had the bright idea of filling up the crates with junk to trick the bandits into wasting their time. It was a decoy to distract from the real target and Ruqa and Qui'li were just here to make it harder for the bandits to come away with the prize. While she wasn't the strategic type, preferring to run into a situation and wing it, improvising wherever possible, Ruqa saw the merits of the plan. They had the advantage in information and when it came to fighting human targets that could decide the winner of the resulting outcome.
The train car was smaller than she thought it would be, just about wide enough for two people to stand next to each other without bumping into each other. There just wasn't enough room to run around in which basically ensured there would be an upfront melee confrontation. Course that was what they more or less wanted, the two hunters-in-training specialising in close range combat but they added a little something to push the scales of fate in their favour
Ruqa had been the one to suggest the glue traps, thinking that this trap would be the last thing the bandits would expect coming aboard this train. Unsuspecting what laid inside the train car the bandits would get caught into the adhesive mess and the two students would beat the snot out of them while they couldn't move.
When she introduced the idea Ruqa was smiling like the cat that caught the canary as though she already had the criminals cornered. Just a few hours ago she was so certain that the bandits would fall right into this trap but she wasn't so hot on the idea now that it was time to execute it. Honestly? It was basically a joke she threw out, not expecting Qui'li to agree to it. It was mindblowingly stupid what they were attempting. If it somehow went to shit, if they didn't fall for it, they could fucking die.
After dragging in the netting they would cover the ceiling in, Ruqa turns to face her partner, a bit of a smile on her face but some concern evident in her eyes.
"Hey Kali," Ruqa muttered, still not realising she'd been getting his name wrong the entire time. "You didn't just say yes to my glue idea because you felt you had to go along with my crazy idea, right? S'like. I won't be mad at you. S'just... we need to REALLY think this through, y'know?"
She sets down a five litre bucket of extra strength Beringal Glue beside a crate and points her hands out, framing the length of the car. "So we could either (A) put glue along the sides, near the windows, and stand in the safe zone in the middle OR (B) we put glue at the end of the hallway, way down at the top half of the car, put glue there and push the bandits in. Huh, Kali? Kalliiiiii."
WC 633
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, that there was no precious cargo in this particular train car. All of the boxes were filled with mostly worthless junk that had the sole purpose of weighing them down enough to fool someone until they opened it up. 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 every box was checked. Even the train car with the real component parts for the CCTS tower had junk crates mixed in with the real ones in order to stall for time. The purpose of the group inside this particular car was not to protect anything valuable, but to divert attention. Winning was great and all, but not required exactly. All they needed to do was stall out for long enough for one of the adjacent teams to finish their battle and provide backup at worst – or win their own battle to assist their own neighbors at best. Really, their only objective was to not die because all of the ‘cargo’ in this particular place could be tossed out the window for all anyone in Atlas cared. The only valuable thing inside this particular car was the students themselves.
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.
1421 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. This post is in Ruqa's post because your admin is a big dummy and deleted the opener instead of the post they meant to delete because they posted in the wrong thread.
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. This post is in Ruqa's post because your admin is a big dummy and deleted the opener instead of the post they meant to delete because they posted in the wrong thread.
____
When they arrived outside the train station Ruqa heads over to the assigned car and pries apart the reinforced door, swinging it wide open and letting light into the dim interior. The lights flicker on as she steps into the hold, illuminating her in artificial light. The train car was cold and claustrophobic making Ruqa wished she brought something warm to wear. But it wasn't meant to be comfortable, this train wasn't taking the scenic route. Here they would fight the humanoid enemies of the Kingdoms over the high valued CCT parts which would decide the fate of the Capital of Mistral. Of course they were briefed beforehand that there was nothing of value in this car as apparently someone had the bright idea of filling up the crates with junk to trick the bandits into wasting their time. It was a decoy to distract from the real target and Ruqa and Qui'li were just here to make it harder for the bandits to come away with the prize. While she wasn't the strategic type, preferring to run into a situation and wing it, improvising wherever possible, Ruqa saw the merits of the plan. They had the advantage in information and when it came to fighting human targets that could decide the winner of the resulting outcome.
The train car was smaller than she thought it would be, just about wide enough for two people to stand next to each other without bumping into each other. There just wasn't enough room to run around in which basically ensured there would be an upfront melee confrontation. Course that was what they more or less wanted, the two hunters-in-training specialising in close range combat but they added a little something to push the scales of fate in their favour
Ruqa had been the one to suggest the glue traps, thinking that this trap would be the last thing the bandits would expect coming aboard this train. Unsuspecting what laid inside the train car the bandits would get caught into the adhesive mess and the two students would beat the snot out of them while they couldn't move.
When she introduced the idea Ruqa was smiling like the cat that caught the canary as though she already had the criminals cornered. Just a few hours ago she was so certain that the bandits would fall right into this trap but she wasn't so hot on the idea now that it was time to execute it. Honestly? It was basically a joke she threw out, not expecting Qui'li to agree to it. It was mindblowingly stupid what they were attempting. If it somehow went to shit, if they didn't fall for it, they could fucking die.
After dragging in the netting they would cover the ceiling in, Ruqa turns to face her partner, a bit of a smile on her face but some concern evident in her eyes.
"Hey Kali," Ruqa muttered, still not realising she'd been getting his name wrong the entire time. "You didn't just say yes to my glue idea because you felt you had to go along with my crazy idea, right? S'like. I won't be mad at you. S'just... we need to REALLY think this through, y'know?"
She sets down a five litre bucket of extra strength Beringal Glue beside a crate and points her hands out, framing the length of the car. "So we could either (A) put glue along the sides, near the windows, and stand in the safe zone in the middle OR (B) we put glue at the end of the hallway, way down at the top half of the car, put glue there and push the bandits in. Huh, Kali? Kalliiiiii."
WC 633
