The maintenance train was even smaller than Angron had imagined.
Its dark grey body squatted on the underground rails, stretching only five cars from front to back.
The hull was covered in scratches and grease stains, and one of the headlights was broken; the remaining light flickered fitfully, illuminating the tunnel ahead like a half-open eye.
The old maintenance slave squirmed into the driver’s cab.
He fumbled around under the console for a long moment, dragged out two severed wires, bit off their insulation, and twisted them directly together.
Sparks flashed.
The entire train jolted violently.
A heavy grinding sound came from beneath the wheels.
“It moves.” The old man poked his head out.
“Brakes aren’t great.” Standing by the train door, Karrus heard this and looked down at the pitch-black track ahead.
“How bad?” “If it stops, consider us lucky.” Karrus swore under his breath.
Angron stooped and ducked into the first car.
The roof was less than a palm’s width above his shoulders; if he stood upright even slightly, the muscles on his back would scrape against the metal plates.
All the seats had been stripped out, replaced by toolboxes and parts racks bolted to the floor.
The air reeked of stale motor oil, rust, and slave sweat.
Not many had come along.
The old maintenance slave at the controls.
The tech-slave.
Karrus.
A dozen or so maintenance workers who knew the underground lines.
And twenty veteran gladiators.
Angron hadn’t brought any more.
This wasn’t a frontal siege on a city.
No matter how cramped the cars were, they couldn’t hold an army.
Besides, those newly rescued could barely stand.
Shoving them into the train would only mean more bodies lost if something went wrong in the tunnel.
Angron leaned near the doorway, looking down at the terminal in the tech-slave’s hands.
The urban relay tower was still glowing red.
The red dots surrounding three slave sectors flashed fitfully.
Occasionally, one would go completely dark.
The tech-slave didn’t dare look up.
He knew Angron had seen it too.
“How fast?” Angron asked.
The old maintenance slave’s voice rasped from the cab.
“Normally half an hour.” “And now?” “This line hasn’t run at full speed in a long time.” The old man paused.
“You lot had better hang on.” Angron reached up and gripped a crossbeam on the ceiling.
“Drive.” The maintenance train lurched forward.
Karrus lost his footing, his back slamming into the car wall.
“You old bastard!” A faint reply came from the cab: “Told you the brakes were bad.” The train plunged into the tunnel.
The lights of the Outer Labor Sector were swiftly swallowed by the dark.
The flickering half-broken headlight danced wildly across the tunnel walls, revealing thick lines of pipes and conduits.
They stretched forward along the tunnel; some were still dripping, while others had rusted into hollow, paper-thin husks.
The maintenance train picked up speed, running faster and faster.
The clatter of wheels striking rails merged into a continuous roar.
Clutching the terminal, the tech-slave swayed violently with the motion of the car.
Two more red dots winked out on the screen.
Angron glanced down.
A surge of fury swelled in his chest.
He didn’t know how far they still were from the relay tower.
He only knew those people couldn’t wait half an hour.
“Faster.” The old man in the cab didn’t reply.
The next moment, the train surged forward in a brutal burst of speed.
Everyone lurched backward simultaneously.
Karrus gripped the edge of the doorway, his face dark.
“Did he rip the damn brakes out entirely?” Angron didn’t answer.
As long as the train kept moving forward, the brakes were a problem for later.
The first maintenance station appeared up ahead.
Three grid guards stood beside the tracks, in the middle of closing a switch track.
They clearly hadn’t expected a train to come barreling down this disused track.
One of them raised his rifle.
Angron reached out, grabbed the sliding door, and ripped the entire metal panel off its hinges.
Before the guard’s weapon could fully light up— The door panel was already airborne.
*BOOM!* All three men, along with their control console, were slammed into the tunnel wall.
The maintenance train didn’t slow down.
It roared past the bent switch, its wheels crushing shattered metal and broken weapons.
Karrus poked his head out to check.
“Clean.” Angron thrust his arm outside and seized the warped switch lever.
With raw strength, he wrenched the track back into position behind them.
The cars violently shuddered, but somehow managed not to derail.
This thing could hardly be called a decent vehicle.
In his past life, it would have been impounded the moment it rolled off the factory floor.
But right now, as long as it ran, it was enough.
The map on the terminal screen pressed steadily forward.
Drawing closer and closer to the relay tower.
The tech-slave suddenly looked up.
“Blast door ahead!” A line of red warning lights flared at the end of the tunnel.
A massive circular blast door was descending slowly.
It was immensely thick—thick enough to seal off the entire railway completely.
The train didn’t slow down.
Karrus bellowed toward the cab, “Stop the train!” The old man yelled back, “I can’t!” Angron stared at the closing blast door.
A few hundred meters.
Two hundred meters.
One hundred meters.
The maintenance slaves inside grabbed hold of the safety straps nearby.
The tech-slave’s face was as pale as a corpse’s.
If they slammed into it, Angron might survive.
Everyone else on the train would be turned into paste against the door.
Angron planted his feet on the floorboards.
The metal plates buckled under his boots.
“Get down.” Everyone in the car ducked immediately.
Angron stooped and hooked his fingers into the coupling between the engine cab and the first car.
The train was still charging forward.
He heaved with violent force.
The coupling joint let out a deafening screech of metal fatigue.
The entire train’s momentum dropped drastically.
Sparks rained down as the locked wheels ground against the rails.
Angron’s feet slammed right through the floorboards, landing directly onto the tracks between the rails.
The train shoved him forward as he skidded.
The soles of his boots and the steel rails glowed red-hot together.
Fifty meters.
Thirty meters.
The blast door was already halfway down.
Angron released the train and burst forward.
He ran faster than the speeding train.
In a few strides, he jammed both hands against the descending blast door.
*BOOM!* The heavy slab slammed down onto his shoulders.
The ground fractured beneath him.
Angron’s knees buckled slightly, half his legs sinking into the concrete foundation of the tracks.
The blast door kept grinding downward.
The hydraulic mechanisms above hummed with a heavy, mechanical roar.
It clearly wasn’t falling under its own weight alone.
The High Riders were applying full pressure from the control room, trying to crush him into pulp along with the tracks.
The remnants of the Butcher’s Nails embedded in his skull flared up in fury.
Agony detonated from the back of his head down his spine.
Angron gritted his teeth.
The muscles across his back and shoulders bulged in massive ridges.
Beneath his dark green skin, veins strained like thick cables.
The blast door stopped.
It hovered less than two meters above the tracks.
The maintenance train came barreling up from behind.
The old man in the cab had finally managed to bleed off some speed, but it still couldn’t stop.
“Pass through!” Angron roared.
The old man didn’t hesitate.
The train blasted beneath him.
The roofs of the cars scraped against the bottom of the blast door, producing a harsh, screeching shower of sparks.
The first car.
The second car.
The third car.
The passengers were all flat on their bellies.
Not a single person dared look up.
Just as the fourth car passed, an explosion thundered from the tunnel ceiling above.
They were blasting the structural supports behind them.
The High Riders hadn’t relied on a single door to stop him.
They intended to bury the entire tunnel.
Rubble and steel girders rained down behind the train.
Just as the final car cleared the blast door, the tunnel roof collapsed in massive sections.
Holding the heavy door up, Angron caught sight of three maintenance slaves at the very back who hadn’t made it onto the train.
They were sprinting along the tracks.
The darkness behind them was rapidly swallowed by falling debris.
One was blown off his feet by a shockwave.
The other two turned back to pull him up.
“Don’t stop!” Angron’s voice boomed, rattling the tunnel walls.
The three looked up and saw him.
The blast door was pressing down on his shoulders.
Chunks of rock were beginning to cave in around the doorframe as well.
Angron kept one hand shoved against the door.
He reached out with his free arm.
The first maintenance slave dove under the door.
The second dragged his injured comrade forward.
Only a few meters left.
The tunnel ceiling split wide open.
Hundreds of tons of rock pressed down like a mountain.
Angron released the door and stepped forward.
He wedged his shoulders directly under the frame.
His right arm braced the door.
His left shoulder took the full weight of the falling steel girders and stone.
*BOOM!* Debris slammed down onto his back.
Angron’s body sank slightly.
Both feet plunged completely into the concrete foundation.
The muscle fibers in his arms tore apart under the load, only to knit back together instant by instant.
Blood trickled from his nose and the corners of his mouth.
His vision swayed.
He did not fall.
“Run!” The two maintenance slaves dragged their injured comrade beneath his outstretched arm.
The moment the last man’s foot cleared the threshold, the tunnel behind them collapsed completely.
Crushed stone sealed the entire railway.
The slaves lay on the ground, looking back at Angron in awe.
All they could see were two massive legs embedded in the earth and arms holding up the world above them.
“They’re through!” Karrus roared from up ahead.
Angron heard him.
He let go.
The blast door and the entire cave-in crashed down at once.
The roar swallowed everything.
A shockwave swept down the tunnel ahead.
Karrus threw himself over the nearest maintenance slave, shielding him with his own body from flying shrapnel.
Choking dust blinded them all.
After a few breaths, silence returned to the tunnel.
The blast door had struck the floor.
Their retreat was entirely sealed off.
Everyone stared at the door.
The tech-slave parted his lips.
Before he could utter a sound— A massive bulge punched outward in the center of the door plate.
*BANG!* With a second strike, the entire blast door buckled forward.
A third strike.
A thundering explosion burst open.
The blast door, along with the mountain of rubble behind it, was blasted completely off the track, tumbling past the side of the train.
Through the haze of dust and smoke, Angron stooped and strode out.
His shoulders and back were covered in wounds.
Several shards of jagged stone were still embedded in his flesh.
As he walked, his wounds pushed the embedded rocks right out of his body.
Karrus stared at him.
“You all right?” Angron spat out a mouthful of ash-laced blood.
“Not quite.” He bent down, picked up the dropped terminal, and shoved it back into the tech-slave’s arms.
“I can still walk.” The front of the maintenance train was completely wrecked.
The front bumper was caved in halfway, and the rails had been warped by the violent force.
The old maintenance slave crawled out of the cab, looked at the train, then turned his gaze to Angron.
“We won’t make it to the base of the tower in this.” Angron looked up.
Less than a hundred meters of tunnel remained ahead.
At the very end stood a sealed bulkhead gate.
A line of characters was inscribed above the gate: [Urban Relay Tower Subterranean Maintenance Level] They were already close.
Angron walked toward the gate.
The tech-slave stared at his terminal, his face turning grimmer by the second.
“The execution protocol has been initiated in all three neighboring slave sectors simultaneously!” “How much time is left?” The tech-slave swiped his fingers across the screen several times.
“Fifteen minutes at most.” Angron stopped in front of the gate.
From behind the gate came the synchronized clatter of weapons being cocked.
The High Rider garrison was already waiting on the other side.
Karrus readied his shock spear.
“Frontal breach?” Angron raised his head.
Above the gate stretched the relay tower, dozens of stories high.
Floor after floor of doors.
Layer after layer of defenders.
Climbing up story by story.
Too slow.
He raised his hand and slammed his palm against the metallic ceiling overhead.
“Who said anything about taking the stairs?”