Walkerr found it easy to believe the young man. Ed did not look like a liar, nor did he look like he was old enough to pull it off with such ease. Or relative ease, since Ed stammered through the discussion, fell speechless at key points, and did a poor job of being cool under pressure. Walkerr did not even want to bring him along, but there was only one way to find the transport and Ed was the only one with any clues. And while the young man was honest in every gesture and comment, Walkerr knew he was hiding something that no one would get out of him.
A kam'dass leaned over from the back of the jeep, grunting at the tight space. Ed reached back over his shoulder to pat the creature's neck and moved to straddle the backseat. Two legionnaires sat in the front, one with a revolving crossbow, the other driving as they came upon the train. For the last hundred miles, the motorcade had moved at full speed, following the rails breaking like staples across the torn ground.
A train. While an efficient method of mass transit, the refurbishing of which was an impressive feat for the Church, it was easily traced and fuel was hard to come by. This meant that, with the periodic stops and literal line pointing to it, the train the specimens were loaded onto was a simple target to catch up with.
"Four guards on cars four through seven. Should be a simple task," the driver shouted over the sound of pistons working at a hurried pace.
Walkerr put a radio to his ear, shouting into it, "I want this barge commandeered, you hear me? Rifle team, take out rear guard. Mount the transport and invade if necessary. Do not get shot."
The jeeps converged, two on each side, packed to the gills. A fifth ck, the two legionnaires switched places with the driver and a man riding shotgun. With the initial opposition out of the way, the two soldiers climbed onto the back of the train, lay belly flat on the roof of the caboose, and waited.
"Run the block. On my mark," a legionnaire officer said into his radio. He watched the roof from his place hugging the side of the train car. "Go!"
Together with two more soldiers, the gun-toting freemen rushed the remaining roof-top guard and leapt from the roof. Held by grappling hooks, they swung to the side of the car and fired into the windows.
"Hostages, hostages! Check for civvies in those cars," Walkerr said over his radio. An explosion of splintered wood and one of the legionnaires was beat into submission by an automatic weapon.
"Damn! Get away from those doors. Penetrate the cars."
The second wave moved in, leaving one man in each car except for Walkerr's. He looked over his shoulder to Ed, saying, "How many of your friends are in--? What the hell?"
The kam'dass stared back at him, confused.
Almaa looked up from her respite, noticing the commotion outside. She looked across the train car at the rest of her captured companions. "Raff," she muttered, "what are you doing?"
"Getting this damned cage open before - mff - they get back here." A stout, leathery skinned man pressed his lips against the bar of his cage. Every few moments, he would draw back, a little more of the iron bars worn down.
"You have no idea how frriggin' disgusting that is, do you Rrraff?" a feral child asked.
"Sorry, I wasn't born with fur and claws...I do what I can, you annoying little wendabb."
"Watch who you'rrre calling a wendabb, Bile."
"Both of you shut up." A man with an extremely large arm, which had long black claws at the end of each large finger, huddled in the corner with his smaller hand pressed against his side.
"Okay, okay," the child said.
"Almaa. Are you okay?" a blonde woman asked.
"Fine."
"I need your help."
"Hey, Feverrr, you'rrre awake," the feral child said.
"Stop calling me that, Jerredd. Why do you have this urge to give us all these obnoxious nicknames?"
"Sorry, Rrricahh. I didn't mean..."
"Don't worry. Almaa, I need you to tap us."
"I can't." Almaa touched the polymer headband placed on her skull that extended over her ears. Immediately, she recoiled back from it.
"Ricahh, leave her alone," Raff muttered, wrapping his lips around another bar and closing his eyes.
"What are you going to do, Ricahh?" a brown-haired man asked, standing from his spot against the wall.
"I need you to do this, Almaa. All it takes is focus. And you have more focus than anyone I know. Just put it out of your head. And get into mine, Almaa!" Ricahh shouted.
A booted foot smashed through the window and moved in and out of the frame, cracking glass as it moved about. Ed slipped in through the window quietly and moved to the cage where Almaa sat, subdued. He put a hand around a bar in her cage and frowned.
"Who's your friend, Almaa?"
A legionnaire stepped through the door, looking around. "What the hell is this? Why does the Church want these...these guys?" He stared at them for a moment and shook his head, "Ah, hell. Ah...hell. There is no way. No way." He lifted a radio from his belt to his ear and shouted, "Make that a phase 4, boss. Wing and a prayer, so we'll blow this place to hell."
Ed stared at the legionnaire, who drew a mound of what looked like clay and slapped it against the wall. The legionnaire attached a small digital display to it that counted down from 10:00. "What are you doing? That looks like..." Ed began.
"It is! Look, if they get into the Church's hands we have one big problem on ours. They are a liability," the legionnaire explained.
"Almaa, do it!"
Almaa closed her eyes, drawing all of her attentions on one point in existence, a single mind in a sea of fear and anxiety that hovered around her. But her focus was shattered as the earpieces of the headband exploded with erratic sirens. "Damn," she muttered.
"Almaa. Almaa. There is no distraction. There is no distraction but what you hear. But you can not hear what is not there!" Ricahh shouted.
"What arrre you talking about?" the feral child asked. Aricc slapped him in the back of his head with his left arm.
Ed approached the legionnaire, shaking his head. He said frankly, "That timer will not reach zero inside this car, do you understand?"
"What the hell do you think--?"
The young man dropped to his knees suddenly, without any preparatory movement. A foot lashed out, catching the man in his knee. Exploding upwards with a burst of force, throwing himself forward into a spin with a bowing of his head, Ed brought his right foot down onto the barrel of a swiftly rising rifle and his left foot into the face of the legionnaire. On the ground, Ed propped himself on his shoulders and two feet, angling his body out of the way of a well-aimed but slow kick from the legionnaire. Feet up over his head and suddenly down, his momentum bringing him to his feet, Ed followed up by leaping into the air, spinning, and bringing his foot down on the legionnaire's face.
"Now you die with us." Ed grabbed the knife from the legionnaire's boot, sliding it between the wall and the mound of plastique. Drawing his hand back, he threw the whole mass out the window.
Almaa's face twisted in pain as she tried to grasp at the mind across from her inside the car. Ricahh stared at Almaa in anticipation. Then, suddenly, she smiled. The rest of the people in her cell leapt back, huddling as far away as possible from her.
Ricahh was called Fever by Jerredd because of her superhuman body heat. It was such that her bodily fluids evaporated upon exiting her body, rising as steam. Yet, with Almaa's own gifts aiding her, Ricahh was pushed beyond her own limits, tapping into an internal inferno that allowed her, upon placing her hands on the bars of her cell, to melt them. But it soon burned out.
Aricc reached out, grabbing the cage in his massive hand and tearing the bars free. Jerredd turned to Raff and said, "Hey, it worked better than your stupid puke trick."
Ed moved to Almaa's bars and turned to the now free companions.
"It's too small for me to reach her," Aricc said.
"They really knew how to take her out, didn't they," Jerredd commented.
The brown-haired man moved over to the bars, pressing one hand between them. Sucking in his stomach, he slid cleanly through. He casually plucked the headband from Almaa's head and slipped back out through the bars.
Ed asked, "Why did you wait until now to do that?"
"Too many threats," the brown-haired man said, "we would have been killed anyway. Besides, it was Ricahh's idea."
"Thanks, Wess." Wess smiled congenially.
Ed said, "Almaa. I need your help."
Almaa closed her eyes. The manacles fell from her wrists and the bars to her cell bent outwards and sideways, allowing her an exit. She stepped through and nodded to Ed. "What do you need?"
"Where's Rictorr?" a legionnaire asked Ed.
The young man looked at the legionnaire, shrugged, and said, "Check in the car."
One after another, the previous captives of the train were lifted through a hole in the roof of the train car by an oversized, clawed hand. Almaa turned to look at the legionnaire and smiled. "Would you like this train stopped?"