Issue 40 – Iron Horse
- Jacksonville, Florida, November 25, 2039, evening
“Those weren’t federal troops. Did you see that Abrams leading them? It had skulls and teeth all over it. Those were mercs trying to sneak into the city! I say we go after them and kick their butt!”
Blackwood calmly regarded Grey – he could see that she still was high on adrenaline, blood pumping from the action that took place two hours ago in the outskirts. He propped himself against the wall and took a few seconds before answering.
“Calm down, Kate. We already won. You saved a few local boys, they’re happy as they can be. Hell,” he added with an impish smile, “I’ve seen more than one of them eying you after what you did. No need to be lonely tonight, if you get my meaning.”
He could see Seagrove giving him an angry look across the room but decided to ignore him. Their discussion was interrupted by the fourth person entering the room – one of the maintenance chiefs. Blackwood couldn’t remember his name, but luckily for him, Seagrove did.
“Hey Tom, what’s up?”
The man was covered in grease and looked tired. Before answering, he grabbed Seagrove’s glass of beer standing on the nearby table and emptied it with one gulp. His hand left black marks on it. Sighing, he turned back towards them.
“Trouble, boss. Me and the guys finally inspected the rest of our stuff and it’s bad. Our tanks, they’re almost done. They have a few miles left in them, sure, but most are ready for a full overhaul. I’m talking about fully equipped facilities. The last time I saw those, we were still in England. We did what we could, but...”
All of them frowned, but he continued.
“But that’s not the worst part, boss. The junk they have here – sure, there’s a lot of it, but most of it is in the same condition or worse. Saw a few Sheridans, those might be workable. But that Stingray we were eying earlier? They dragged it from Thailand or something and they had to have it stored for a decade. Somewhere salty. It’s all rusted. The captured Abrams tanks are junkers too. Looks like the feds have been skimping on maintenance. In short,” he concluded, “we’re screwed.”
Silence fell like a blanket over the room with each thinking of what to do. It was Grey who raised her head first.
“Guys... follow me.”
They all got into her jeep and drove west through the city. It was late but the streets were still brimming with life – they had to honk the horn a few times to get through and once they had, avoided what looked like a large-scale street-fight. They passed the Fighting Falcon mercs running towards it to break it up and finally reached their destination, the old Amtrak station in the north-western part of the city.
It was mostly a pile of rubble now with overgrown trees obscuring much of the area, but the goal of their trip appeared in front of them almost immediately.
“Damn, ain’t she a beauty, boss,” exclaimed the maintenance chief, wiping his forehead with his equally dirty sleeve.
“Do you think you can get her running?”
The repairman shrugged.
“We can try. Looks like she hasn’t been used for a while now. A decade, maybe. But these things were built to last.”
They quietly stood there for a while, looking at the massive locomotive and piles of heavy-duty wagons, standing silently in the middle of the near-abandoned rail yard. They could feel the eyes of some of the poorest citizens of Jacksonville who lived in the ruins upon them, but nobody stepped into the light. They knew better than to provoke mercs.
After a brief close-up inspection, the maintenance chief nodded to himself.
“Yup, looks surprisingly good. We’ll start working on it first thing in the morning.”
“Alright,” concluded Blackwood, “I’ll talk to the city commander, but they clearly have no use for it anyway. Looks like we just got ourselves a ride.”
