Aerial Train Track Base Station

"We cannot leave him behind," Zander said to Augustus.

"I will never abandon any comrade," Augustus knelt on one knee beside the wounded man and said to him, "You will survive."

"Sir, I am dying," the wounded man's voice was exceptionally weak and calm.

"Although I don't know much, he appears to have lost too much blood. We should find a place where we can give him a transfusion," Omo offered his suggestion cautiously.

"I know that much too, tell me something useful," Raynor stood up and looked around.

"I brought a radio device," Omo whispered to Raynor.

"Don't tell me you grabbed the wrong one," Raynor knew his childhood friend all too well; although Omo was not a clumsy fool, he often made a mess of things when he worked.

"There was only one in there, but I don't know if this is used for transmitting radio signals; there isn't a single word on it," Omo said, pulling a black electronic device from his spacious backpack that looked like a radio.

"It looks like an old, modified model, and a relic from the colonial era at that. It should be useful. You did well, Omo," Augustus took the backpack from Omo and began to calibrate the device.

When Augustus was very young, influenced by his family and his own interests, he enjoyed studying electronic devices and smart machines. While he could not be called an expert, using a radio device like this was not particularly difficult for him.

"A triple-encrypted signal will be sent directly to the nearest command center." Augustus quickly edited and sent the distress message: This is APOD-1304, a four-engine Possum transport. We have been shot down, and Lieutenant Warfield is wounded. We need all available support. We need medics; there are critically wounded here!

The moment Augustus confirmed the message was correct and sent it, two Kel-Morian fighters appeared. These sharp-angled fighters looked like blades cutting through the sky.

The two Hellhound fighters dove from the clouds toward the Terran Confederacy soldiers on the train tracks, opening fire from two hundred feet away. Augustus felt as if he could hear the sound of the Hellhound fighters' rocket pods opening.

"Scatter and return fire! Watch out for the rockets!" While Augustus was focused on calibrating the dangerous equipment, Raynor took over command. He possessed great strategic intelligence, a talent that had been evident since he was young. If Augustus were not here, he would be the only one capable of commanding this unit of recruits.

At the same time, despite knowing they could not possibly shoot down the fighters, the recruits on the train tracks began to scatter while firing at the Hellfire.

Several recruits tried their best to set up a shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket launcher—a weapon clearly designed for Marines in power armor; ordinary soldiers needed several people just to barely operate and aim it.

Seemingly deterred by the ground-based Confederacy soldiers, the Hellhound fighters suddenly broke their dive, arced through the air, and climbed back into the sky.

Then, amidst the cheers of the Confederacy recruits, two Terran Confederacy Avenger fighters rose from below the train tracks, streaking over their heads with phantom-like speed to pursue the accelerating Kel-Morian fighters.

"Did you see that? They were so cool!" Raynor whistled.

"Where do we go now? Or do we just wait here for reinforcements?" Zander asked Augustus.

"As it stands, waiting here is not the best option," Augustus glanced at the wounded soldier, staring into his increasingly unfocused eyes, then looked at a mile marker by the tracks.

"We are only a mile from the nearest maglev train station, which can provide effective cover. If only we could find one of the patrol vehicles the track administration uses to clear debris. This must be a combat zone or an area contested repeatedly by both armies; no one can guarantee that a Kel-Morian squad won't suddenly appear."

"We must move quickly. This place is too open and too wide, with no cover. This hellhole is so far from the ground, there's truly no way up to heaven and no door down to earth," Raynor said with concern.

Time ticked away second by second. The scattered Confederacy soldiers gathered back toward Augustus. More and more recruits in maroon uniforms were looking at Augustus, waiting for his orders. In the silent stillness, everyone hoped for Augustus to speak, to bring news of rescue forces, or to issue commands.

Augustus looked at them, realizing that these young soldiers had placed all their hope in him. Benjamin, who was still carrying Warfield, was trying to wake the unconscious lieutenant, but there wasn't a single useful dose in the medical kit, so he could only place the lieutenant on a stretcher.

"Assemble," Augustus said, slinging the backpack containing the radio equipment over his shoulder. Now, four full platoons totaling nearly fifty men were under his command; they would live or die by his orders.

"We move east along these tracks."

Under the organization of Augustus and Raynor, this isolated and leaderless platoon of recruits formed two columns and began to run along the circular tracks in an orderly fashion. Because they had four stretchers and several heavy weapons, and needed to care for the critically wounded, Augustus, at the front, intentionally controlled their pace while maintaining the formation.

The high-altitude train tracks returned to silence. The warning lights and illumination lamps on both sides of the tracks had dimmed, and gusts of wind howled past from time to time, swirling scraps of Confederacy flyers and notices beneath their feet.

Augustus and the recruits moved between the two magnetic levitation rails. Since the maglev trains had long since stopped running, they did not have to worry about being ground into pulp by a speeding train.

The one-mile distance was not strenuous for Augustus and the others, who had undergone high-intensity weighted running training daily at the recruit camp. They soon arrived at the nearest train station. The station was a steel tower supporting the aerial train track network, with dozens of tracks of varying heights and sizes passing through the tower's sturdy steel structure, forming an intricate and spectacular transportation network.

The high-altitude circular track where Augustus and his men were located was the highest one, situated at the very top of the steel tower. They stopped on a section of track inside the tower and climbed onto a reinforced concrete platform built into the steel frame, behind which lay the train waiting hall and the maintenance technicians' lounge.

Two vertical aerial elevators could travel from the top of the tower all the way to the ground, and an empty platform and a decommissioned landing signal tower indicated that this place could previously have been used as a landing pad.

Out of caution and the knowledge Augustus had learned at the recruit camp, he dispatched two recruits carrying radio handsets to act as scouts. These two recruits were soldiers from his own platoon: the brave and fearless Harnack Hank and the steady and calm Amy Brandon. This was both because Augustus knew his own people better and to avoid resentment from the other platoons.

After receiving the scouts' report, Augustus led the men into the platform and settled the wounded in the empty waiting hall.

In the maintenance machine shop behind the waiting hall, Augustus found several nearly scrapped trucks, a space station transport barge with its engine removed leaving only a shell, and rusted chairs piled up across more than half of the warehouse. The trucks could still run, but there was not much fuel left in the tanks, and they could not go very far.

Augustus checked the various equipment of the elevators and found that they had long since been damaged.