Shock overcame the poor guy as he realized he just cut his partner in two.
"Oh shit! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!"
Shepherd pulled him toward the door even as the man continued to apologize to both pieces of his friend’s corpse.
A heavy thud from above announced the arrival of a second insect while the first one tried to claw through the wood of the half-fallen roof.
Nina scrambled to her feet and fired a three-round burst of bullets through the debris, covering Shepherd as he dragged the babbling gunner out of the caboose, across the metal walkway atop the coupler, and through the doorway of the rearmost passenger coach. As she did, she spied two more insect things flying alongside the train searching for avenues of attack.
With one insect at the rear door trying to push through the debris of the roof it had caused to collapse and a second on the stretch of roof that still stood, a third rammed the side of the caboose.
The entire car rose into the air, the two rear wheels corkscrewed then landed off the tracks. Sparks erupted from those derailed metal wheels rubbing against the rail. The friction sent a vibration across the coupler and into the passenger car. They felt the torque of the wayward caboose pull at the coach threatening a chain reaction that could crash the entire train.
"We’re going to friggin’ derail!" the I.S. agent screamed as a frigid wind whipped through the open doorway of the coach from where the three watched the caboose's death throws.
"Cut it loose! Cut the caboose loose!" Shep ordered the guy.
The man looked to Shep with wide, frightened eyes but after a second of hesitation he found the courage to do the job. He put aside his machine gun and crawled on his belly. Nina and Shep took pot shots at a couple of the giant insects flying alongside the train.
The rear wheels grew red from heat as they dragged and flared against the rails. Twisting metal groaned.
Suddenly the landscape changed. Instead of town and roads, the train dove into a densely-populated evergreen forest forcing the flying insects to retreat to the sky or become entangled in branches. The two creatures already on the caboose remained.
The I.S. officer cast aside the metal planks that served as a walkway over the coupler. He then leaned down and yanked hoses and wires.
"Hurry up!" Nina shouted as their two unearthly passengers took notice of the three people standing in the open air between the caboose and the passenger coach.
"Almost there!"
The train rounded a bend at break neck speed. The line of cars-even those still firmly on rails-groaned as g force pulled the entire assembly to the right. The rear of the caboose took to the air. Its motion sent a shiver through the entire train. The physics became unavoidable…the wayward caboose would drag the entire train off the tracks.
Shepherd hoped the crash killed him; he did not want a big bug to eat him alive.
At the last possible second, the agent unleashed the coupler.
The caboose literally flew off the railroad and spun in the air. The two insects clung to the vehicle even as the red car disintegrated in the spin. All of them-the caboose and the two giant insects-exploded into a wall of trees.
The train continued on, one car lighter.
Nina and Shep helped the agent to his feet.
"Well done," Shep patted the shaken man on his back then led the three defenders further inside what was now the last car on the train, one of the four old style coaches. Of course, the entire car had been evacuated.
A radio transmission warned, "Three of them are heading for the roof!"
They heard the creatures land overhead. A moment later one of the massive blade-like appendages smashed through the ceiling all the way down and into the floor.
Seconds later, another scythe pierced the ceiling forcing Nina to dive and roll to avoid its blind strike.
The insects acted like magicians slicing their knife-like appendages through a box in to which the beautiful assistant had been sealed.
"Keep…moving…forward…" Shep implored but it seemed as if another blade from either the roof or the side blocked every step they took…
…The locomotive roared forward out of the forest, across a trestle overlooking a cold stream, and through a rolling field. Ahead of it, on the tracks, landed the fourth flying insect-beast, challenging the engine head on.
From Hivvan saboteurs to human train robbers, this creature would soon learn that while the steam train came from a museum, it did not lack teeth.
A gun pod deployed at the front of the engine just above the cow-catcher compartment storing the Railscout. The weapon spooled to life and released an incinerating fire of plasma, eradicating the insect’s armor plating and destroyed everything except for two fibrous wings that fluttered off in the January wind like oversized leaves…
…The I.S. agent raised his heavy machine gun and fired a torrent of bullets straight up, tearing away an entire section of roof and eating into the belly of a beast. A sickly puss rained down upon him even as his dead target lost grip and fell away from the speeding coach.
That puss smelled like gasoline and it burned. He screamed.
Shep came to his assistance, forcing him forward even as blades from the remaining creatures tried to skewer them.
One of the monsters stuck its head in through the destroyed patch of ceiling. Nina hit it with full-automatic fire right in the face. It retreated for a moment.
"Go! Go! Go!"
The security man-still screaming from burns to his face and shoulders-let Shep lead him out the door and to the open-air ramp leading toward the next coach. He unlatched the door and saw a small crowd of volunteers as well as the Conductor waiting in there.
Shepherd gently pushed the man inside and ordered them to, "Get this fella some help and get forward."
One of the creatures swung its head between cars and tried to engulf Shepherd as he stood above the coupling. Nina tackled Shep out of the bite of the monster and into the next coach. The sight of the two diving in just below alien jaws encouraged the Conductor and the volunteers to accelerate from a walk to a sprint toward the front of the train.
Nina, lying on the floor next to Shep, turned and fired her weapon through the portal they had just crashed through. The insect thing squeezed into the space between the cars, its spindly legs resting on the metal crosswalk as if it might just follow them into the passenger car.
Nina reacted, "Fire in the hole!"
Shepherd did the only thing he had time to do; he rolled under one of the seats.
Nina launched a grenade from the M203 on her M4's barrel and also rolled for cover.
The grenade hit the creature at close range. The explosion pushed it back into the rear-most coach. Chunks of the creature tore off and the wood frame of the passenger car caught fire as the creature went up in flames. The flash-fire threatened to engulf the entire compartment.
The last two of the insects stood on top of that coach jabbing their scythe-claws through the roof hoping to hit prey but actually cutting at their burning comrade.
Nina stood and reloaded her launcher. She then fired a second grenade into the burning coach. The explosion split the train car in two. The rear half derailed and rolled down an embankment. Two of the dying creatures went with it while the third-the last one-took to the air with its wings on fire. It fluttered for a second like a warped firefly and then fell.
"We need help back here," Shepherd radioed from the floor between seats. "Get us a fire extinguisher and someone who can uncouple the last coach."
Nina, still full of anger, turned to face Shepherd with half-a-mind to restart the interrogation right there. She wanted answers.
Then she saw the metal rod through his shoulder.
"Holy shit, Shep," anger evaporated into panic.
The explosion had sent shrapnel every where, including a foot-long steel rod through the seats and into his right shoulder.