"We can't leave him behind," Zander said to Augustus.
"I will never abandon a comrade." Augustus knelt beside the wounded man and said, "You're going to live."
"Sir, I'm going to die." The wounded man's voice was incredibly faint, but calm.
"I don't know much, but he looks like he's lost too much blood. We should find somewhere they can give him a transfusion," Omo offered cautiously.
"I know that. Tell me something useful." Raynor stood and looked around.
"I brought a radio," Omo said quietly to Raynor.
"Don't tell me you grabbed the wrong thing." Raynor knew his childhood friend all too well. Omo wasn't exactly clumsy or scatterbrained, but somehow he often managed to make a mess of things.
"There was only one in there, but I don't know if it's actually for transmitting radio signals. There isn't a single word on it." As he spoke, Omo took a black electronic device out of his broad backpack. It looked more like a radio receiver.
"Looks like an upgraded old model, and a relic from the colonial era at that. It should come in handy. Good work, Omo." Augustus took Omo's backpack and started setting up the device.
Influenced by his family and his own interests, Augustus had loved studying electronics and smart devices from a very young age. He wasn't an expert, but operating a radio like this wasn't particularly difficult for him.
"A triple-encrypted signal will be sent directly to the nearest command center." Augustus quickly composed and sent a distress message: This is APOD-1304, a four-engine Opossum transport. We've been shot down. Lieutenant Warfield, our commander, is wounded. We need all the support we can get. We need a medic. We have a critically wounded man!
The instant Augustus confirmed the message was correct and sent it, two Kel-Morian fighters appeared. Their angular frames looked like blades slicing through the sky.
The two Hellhound fighters plunged out of the clouds toward the Terran Confederacy soldiers on the train tracks. They opened fire from two hundred feet away. Augustus could almost hear the Hellhounds' rocket pods opening.
"Spread out and return fire! Watch out for the rockets!" While Augustus focused on setting up the dangerous device, Raynor took command in his place. He had a natural gift for strategy, one that had been evident since he was young. If Augustus weren't here, Raynor was the only one who could lead this squad of recruits.
At the same time, although the recruits on the tracks knew they had no chance of shooting down the fighters, they scattered and opened fire on the Hellfires.
Several recruits struggled to set up a shoulder-fired rocket launcher. It had clearly been designed for Marines in Power Armor; it took several ordinary soldiers just to operate and aim it.
Perhaps intimidated by the Confederacy soldiers on the ground, the Hellhound fighters abruptly pulled out of their dive. After sweeping through an arc, they climbed back into the sky.
Then, amid the recruits' cheers, two Terran Confederacy Avengers rose from beneath the train tracks. They swept over the soldiers' heads at phantom speed, pursuing the Kel-Morian fighters as they accelerated away.
"Did you see that? They're so cool!" Raynor whistled.
"Where do we go now? Or should we just wait here for reinforcements?" Zander asked Augustus.
"From what I can tell, waiting here isn't our best option." Augustus glanced at the wounded soldier, whose eyes were growing increasingly unfocused, then looked toward a mileage marker beside the tracks.
"The nearest elevated train station is only a mile away. It'll give us decent cover. If we can find one of the railway authority's patrol vehicles for clearing debris from the tracks, even better. This could be a combat zone, or an area the two sides have fought over again and again. There's no guarantee a Kel-Morian squad won't show up without warning."
"We need to move. This place is wide open, with nowhere to hide. And we're so far above the ground that there's no way out, up or down," Raynor said, worried.
As the seconds ticked by, the Confederacy soldiers who had spread out gathered around Augustus again. More and more recruits in maroon uniforms looked to him, waiting for orders. In the silent stillness, everyone hoped he would speak, bring news of a rescue force, or give them a command.
Augustus looked at them and realized these young soldiers were placing their hopes in him. Benjamin was still carrying Warfield and trying to wake the unconscious lieutenant, but there wasn't a single vial of medicine in the medical kit that could help. In the end, he could only lay the lieutenant on a stretcher.
"Form up." Augustus slung the backpack containing the radio over his shoulder. Nearly fifty soldiers in four full squads were now under his command. Their lives and deaths would depend on his orders.
"We're heading east along these tracks."
Under the direction of Augustus and Raynor, the stranded, leaderless platoon of recruits formed two orderly columns and began running along the circular tracks. They had four stretchers and several heavy weapons, and they also had to tend to the critically wounded. Augustus led the way, deliberately controlling their speed while keeping formation in mind.
The elevated train tracks fell silent once again. The lights along both sides of the tracks, including the warning lights, had dimmed. Gusts of wind howled by now and then, sending several Confederacy flyers and notices spinning at their feet.
Augustus and the recruits made their way between the two magnetic rails. Since the maglev trains had long since stopped running, they didn't need to worry about a speeding train crushing them to pulp.
A mile was no great distance for Augustus and the others, who had undergone daily, high-intensity weighted running drills at boot camp. They soon reached the nearest train station. The station was a steel tower supporting the elevated train network. Dozens of train and road lanes of varying heights and sizes passed through its sturdy steel framework, forming a sprawling, intricate transportation network.
The elevated circular track Augustus was on was the highest one, at the very top of the steel tower. They stopped where the track ran through the tower's interior and climbed onto the reinforced-concrete platform built into the steel frame. Beyond it were the waiting hall and the maintenance technicians' break room.
Two vertical elevators ran from the very top of the tower all the way to the ground. An empty platform and a decommissioned landing signal tower showed that the site had once served as a landing pad as well.
Out of caution, and drawing on what he had learned at boot camp, Augustus sent two recruits equipped with radio transceivers to scout ahead. Both were from his own squad: the fearless Harnack Hank and the calm, steady Amy Brandon. He knew his own people better, and he also wanted to spare the other squads' feelings.
After receiving the scouts' report, Augustus led the others onto the platform and settled the wounded in the empty waiting hall.
In the maintenance garage behind the waiting hall, Augustus found several nearly scrapped trucks, a space station transport shuttle with its engines removed and only the shell remaining, and a pile of rusted chairs that filled half the warehouse. The trucks could still run, but there was barely any fuel left in their tanks, so they couldn't go far.
Augustus inspected the elevator equipment and found that it had long since broken down.
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