THE x WAR x FOR x THE x RAILS Part 1
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣
NATION OF X’OMNERA — NORTHPOINT DEPOT — BORDER INDUSTRIAL ZONE
The rail line blew open.
Metal tore upward. A section of the High Noon track dropped in a shower of sparks.
Workers scattered. Sirens snapped on.
Otto was already in motion.
He vaulted a cargo barrier and fired four shots in rapid sequence.
Each round split into a streak of crackling aether that punched through XPA helmets and ricocheted off a loading crane.
“Left side, time to shine baby!” he yelled.
Cartel men stormed the depot entrance. Heavy boots. Scrap-metal armor. Aether flaring under impact.
The Gravity Tanks skimmed across the yard, coil-gattlings spinning hot. Streams of white-blue rounds shredded forklifts, tore open reinforced doors, and forced XPA squads to break formation.
The XPA didn’t fold.
Coil Rifles fired from elevated scaffolds.
Tight bursts, head-height, disciplined. Neutralizer shots hissed through the air, glowing cold.
One clipped a cartel bruiser in the ribs. He collapsed instantly, limbs locked.
“Get him outta there!” Otto snapped.
Three cartel fighters dragged the frozen man behind a container while Otto reloaded his revolver with a speed that looked practiced to the point of obsession.
XPA reinforcements hit the field.
Emitter units, four-man squads moving like mirrored shadows.
The lead agent slapped his emitter module into his chest and split into two solid clones, both armed, both moving with perfect sync.
The clones rushed the Gravity Tanks.
“Eyes up!” Otto barked.
He vaulted to higher ground and drew a line of sight between the tank squad and the clone unit.
He fired a single quad-shot.
Four bullets left the chamber at once.
Two hit the emitter module.
One blew out the clone’s weapon.
One hit the XPA agent in the thigh, knocking him out of sync long enough for the Tank gunners to cut down the rest.
The depot turned into a battlefield, fast.
Cartel fighters closed in with Haggardii shock-batons — heavy, metal, built to bruise through armor.
XPA pushed back with polished synthetic aether batons and riot plating.
Clashes cracked across the yard.
Steel against bone.
Aether sparks across concrete.
Men yelling coordinates into comms.
Cartel fighters pulling wounded back behind crates.
Otto dropped from the crane, hit the ground in a roll, and dashed sideways as three neutralizer bolts struck where he’d just been standing.
He fired back — quick taps — shooting the emitters out of an XPA agent’s hands just to prove he could.
The agent froze, wide-eyed.
Otto winked once and fired a round into his chest plate.
The man dropped.
Cartel squads started falling back as the tanks repositioned.
Then the sky shifted.
A low hum passed over the field.
Every cartel fighter looked up at the same time.
Interceptor drones. Dozens. Then hundreds.
Blue eyes. Rotating stabilizers.
Descending in layers, triangulating the entire depot.
“Shit,” someone muttered.
Otto didn’t need to say anything.
His expression tightened once, jaw locked.
He checked the demolished rail.
Checked the smoke rising from the tracks.
Checked the burning storage crates and the broken comms tower.
They’d done enough.
The cargo line wouldn’t stop here tonight.
It would divert — straight into Gable’s lane.
Otto cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted:
"We did our part, time to go home!"
No hesitation.
The Gravity Tanks spun up and reversed.
Cartel fighters peeled toward the extraction route between the shipping stacks.
The drones opened fire.
Neutralizer beams.
Heat-lasers cutting down the front ranks.
Shock pulses knocking fighters flat.
Otto fired upward — six shots, clean — all missed.
The drones flew patterns too sharp for human aim.
“Damnit, move!” he yelled, grabbing a dazed fighter by the collar and dragging him behind a crate.
Drones filled the sky like a shifting wall of blue stars.
XPA agents surged forward again, confident now under drone cover.
Cartel fighters stumbled, regrouped, dragged their wounded.
Otto jumped onto the back of a moving Gravity Tank, spun his revolver once, and yelled:
“WE GOT WHAT WE CAME FOR! MOVE!”
The Gravity Tanks gatlings fired a last suppressive flare and then the cartel slipped into the industrial fog. Some limping, sprinting, bleeding, with drones chasing overhead.
Rain hadn’t arrived yet.
But his sky was already killing them.
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣