Steel screeched against steel and the wheels of the locomotive sparked against the rails sending out a yellow glow against the crops outside. The transport containers rock violently from side to side threatening to derail the train. The wind brutally slammed against the containers, causing them to teeter precariously at an odd angle before they came smashing back down onto the rails. Traveling as fast as the wind, the locomotive flies down the tracks at an absurd speed, and the interior of the cabin aggressively shakes with the vibrations. Rattling loudly, the sound of the speeding hunk of metal pierces the ears of Vikta and Echo.

Forced to yell over the sound of everything rattling to its core, Echo shouts, “We need to slow down! The hydraulic fluid is getting too hot! If we don’t get killed by the hydraulics bursting, then we’ll definitely be killed by the train slamming into the blast shield at the end of the tracks!”

Vikta shouts as well, “No! Don’t slow down! We need to make it to Launch Central before they catch us!”

Echo asks in a loud tone, “Who are they anyways? They were hauling some complicated cutting-edge gear with them and that Skera was damn scary.”

Vikta shakes his head and grits his teeth as he looks down to check on his ankle. Thankfully, the magical ice was still holding strong and protecting his vulnerable muscles and bones. The ice was beginning to sweat and melt but was still thick enough to keep him from bleeding out. Unfortunately, the ice underneath the surface was starting to turn red, and he was internally hemorrhaging blood. It wouldn’t take long until he passed out from blood loss as it was beginning to build up inside his lower leg and wasn’t traveling back to his heart. Vikta returned to talking with Echo after checking his ankle. His time was short, and he felt that his son deserved, to a certain degree, an answer to his question.

Vikta answers, “They are from the BMT Society. An extremist and militaristic organization that controls all technological and magical progress in the galaxy.”

Echo goes pale as he asks, “The BMT? BioMagiTech!? Aren’t they supposed to be that scientific society full of geniuses?”

Vikta shouts, “Yes, that BMT. Don’t believe the news articles that you read about them on the InfoNet. They are not the benevolent scientists that the news says they are and they have become tremendously adept at hiding their mistakes from the general public. They are the kind of geniuses that are smart enough to get away with murder. Some really fucked up things happen in that organization. Some very questionable ethics are involved too. Some would call it war crimes, and others would call it playing god. They like to call it progress. They control the flow of biological, magical, and technological advancements as they own all the best scientists from around the galaxy on their payroll. If they catch us, we’ll become slaves to their experiments. Especially you.”

“I’m just a farm boy. I have nothing that they could want. We’ve been here on Keto since I was born. To become a plaything for a scientist is unheard of as far as I know. I have never read anything like that about BioMagiTech in the Andromeda Galactic News articles. Why would they want me for experimentation?” Echo asks as he shakes his head in confusion and shrugs his shoulders. He was shocked that he had become the target of possibly the most powerful scientific organization in the entirety of the Andromeda galaxy.

Vikta yells, “Because you’re my son. They don’t need any other reason than that to pull you apart piece by piece. There’s something different about your genetics because of what they did to your mother and me before you were born. Genetically speaking, you’re not even supposed to exist. We were both diagnosed as being sterile, or at least that’s what they had told us while they were prodding us with needles and modifying our genes to their pleasure. It’s possibly the reason you were born with purple eyes. We’re still not sure why though. It’s kind of hard to explain right now with them chasing us down and this damn hunk of metal screeching so god damned loudly. Son of a bitch, this busted ankle keeps throbbing.”

Echo’s face scrunches up in confusion. He turns his head to glare at his father in the passenger seat. Echo turns his head even further to look over his shoulder at the monitor on the back wall. The readout for the power was still in the green, but the hydraulic temperature gauge had just turned from orange to red.

Echo turns his head back to his father before saying, “We’re okay on power, but if we run the engine this hot for much longer, then the hydraulics are going to blow. We’re still a few kilometers from Launch Central. I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

Vikta turns his head, and his eyes widen with fright. He begins babbling to himself in a low undertone, “We have to make it. We have to. I can’t let her down. I promised her that we would save her. We can’t let them...”

Vikta’s eyes roll into the back of his head as he loses consciousness and slumps in his chair. Even with the ice protecting his broken ankle, Vikta had lost too much blood due to internal bleeding. The ice had melted against his warm blood. A trickle of blood droplets seeps out from cracks in the ice and stains the floor around his foot in a deep red. The ice wound on his shoulder that Andrea caused had finally melted as well. The dark red blood tarnished his undershirt and spilled out through the gash in the thick leather jacket in small rivers of red.

Echo noticed Vikta fall unconscious and began shaking his dad’s arm while yelling, “Hey! No! Don’t leave me to do this alone. I can’t do this without you! WAKE UP! DAD! WAKE UP!”

Echo began punching his father in the arm in a futile attempt to keep him from passing out. It was too late. Vikta had already lost too much blood, but he was still breathing in a light sleep. Passed out but not dead, Vikta had only a few minutes before he would desperately need medical attention. While Echo was paying attention to his father passing out from blood loss, he failed to notice that the crops out the passenger side window were suddenly brightly lit in the midst of the nighttime hurricane.

A massive arrowhead shaped black tank cruiser pulls up beside the locomotive, matching its speed. Its large spotlight on the top turns to bathe the train in the radiant white light. The tank plows through the crops upon four spherical wheels set into the bottom of the ship which allows the vehicle to travel in all four directions on the ground at top speed. Slick in design, the edges of the vessel were sharp and aerodynamic. It was large enough to fit up to two fully equipped squads of soldiers. Upon the top of the tank cruiser sat an enormous gauss cannon which could be fitted with various ammunition and ordinance. Dual jet engines are attached to the back end of the arrowhead-shaped design, as well as a propeller in the middle. The Valkyrie class stealth tank cruiser is a high-tech and cutting-edge design built for air, sea, and land combat.

The tank cruiser pulls ahead of the locomotive and without warning, changes direction and jumps over the hill that the trains tracks are on. Landing on the other side of the train with a small bounce, the cruiser makes a sharp spin and begins traveling sideways while still matching the speed of the train. The front tip of the arrowhead design was now pointed at the locomotive with strong intentions of malice and hostility. On the side that the tank cruiser was previously on, another Valkyrie pulls up next to the locomotive. The second tank cruiser also spins to face the train as it continuously plows through the fields of crops. Spotlights from both Valkyries lit up the sides of the train in a harsh luminescent white light that turned day into night. The mammoth-sized gauss cannons of the tank cruisers come to life and begin rotating to acquire their first target for the night.