Santa Rosa Aerodome
Santa Rosa, California "The Shattered Peninsula"
Unified States of America
August 20th, 2298
12:00pm (PDT)

In the time it took for Ryan to return to the “4-8-8-4”, the sun had reached its peak in the sky, signalling that the time of day was noon, with the shadow of the Legion mirrored with the host airship. Suddenly, a deep, howling whistle split the air throughout the Aerodrome as the former Union Pacific Locomotive 844 pulled into the makeshift railyard with its haul of additional railcars that will be expanding the 4014's vast consist.

Much like the 4 Big Boys, “4-8-8-1” (4017), “4-8-8-2” (4018), “4-8-8-3” (4023), and “4-8-8-4” (4014), UP 844 has been fully rebuilt and converted into an Atomic Locomotive with her old firebox and boiler being gutted for the same fusion reactor that was used on 4014. Though with it being smaller than the Big Boy, it only has space to fit one contra-rotating steam turbine to power its single set of eight driving wheels. Just like 4014 though, 844 was upscaled with stronger materials to support the additional weight of its new boiler and turbine, while also being lengthened from the original 114ft 25/8”, to her new overall length of 149ft 25/8”. The atomic boiler sits upon a monstrously enlarged chassis that replicates the original "4-8-4" wheel configuration with four 48" leading wheels, eight 80" driving wheels and four 54" trailing wheels. The wheel arrangements on the tender have also been enlarged to match the trailing wheels, just like how 4014 was upgraded and upscaled prior to the Black Friday Offensive.

The weaponry mounted on the 844 is relatively light compared to the 4014 in terms of self defense. With little to no space on the front cowling to mount a heavy-caliber weapons platform, a set of smoke grenade launchers were fitted on the front platform instead, with additional units installed along the sides of the boiler and the tender. Two single 8" casemate Gauss cannons are fitted to the sides of the locomotive forward of the fusion reactor, and serve as the main offensive weapons of the 844. The most striking and oddest feature of the engine is the large rotating quantum radar dome (or rotodome), fitted on top of the tender, and spanning thirty feet in diameter. The former UP 844 was selected to become the Railway Warfare Corp’s first Electronic Warfare Asset (EWA), or as designated, the Railway Early Warning and Control (REWAC) Locomotive with a strong focus on the local “Over the Horizon” early warning systems, electronic warfare, and quantum cyber-warfare countermeasures.

The tender itself had been fully rebuilt on the inside with the old oil bunker stripped out and replaced with a state of the art electronic warfare suite to operate the 844’s full capabilities in all theaters of future warfare, and the old water bunker was converted to store the same special Super Coolant Liquid (SCL) used on the 4014 to keep the core reactor temperatures in check. Lastly, the old backhead controls to operate the locomotive were stripped out and replaced with the same modern operating computers that are present on the 4014, with the latest edition being an AI relay pedestal to allow Serina to access the 844’s mainframe and permit social interaction with the crew in the physical form of her avatar.

Making up the consist behind the locomotive are a set of various cars that will be added to expand the war train’s already formidable consist. An additional 250,000 gallon tank car loaded with reactor coolant would be coupled up behind the existing tank car behind the 4014’s tender for improved longevity. Behind the tank car were two streamlined aluminum baggage cars that had been converted to carry munitions and supplies, and will be connected to the existing three baggage cars on the “4-8-8-4”s train. The next car in Ryan's old Observation Car that served as his living quarters prior to being given the Skytop Lounge Car as a gift from President Sampson just before the disastrous Battle of Vegas. The Observation Car had been rebuilt, and repurposed to become the personal car of Victoria to relocate her living space to, as well as containing a workshop, and power armor repair gantry from the robotics repair car. The last car is the one that will be serving as the heavy lifter for the transportation of Lady Liberty; the Schnabel Car WECX-801, on lease to the U.S.R.W.C from Westinghouse Nuclear, the sister-company of General Atomics.

This specialized railroad freight car is a behemoth compared to every other common freight car in North America, and is designed to carry heavy and oversized loads in such a way that the load takes up most of the car’s length. Lady Liberty will be suspended between the two ends of the cars by lifting arms connected to an assembly of span bolsters that distribute the weight of the load, and the lifting arm over its 36 axles (18 for each half). The R.W.C have made special modifications to the railcar to make loading, transfer and unloading a breeze with the addition of a pair of prototype gravity well generators to lift Lady Liberty in between the two halves of the car by projecting an artificial gravity field around the giant robot. Once loaded, the overall length of the Schnabel car would peak at a maximum of 286ft. The old wheels on the Schnabel were replaced with the special ‘Maglev’ wheels already installed on the 4014, 844 and all the other railcars where the wheel flanges are made of super conductive magnets to help keep the train glued to the tracks, and preventing derailment at higher-than-safe speeds.

Ryan had caught up with the others by the time the 844 came to a gentle stop alongside the 4014, the high pitch whine of the steam turbine was reduced to a low hum as it was set to an idling state. Up in the cab, a middle-aged man could be seen climbing down a ladder to the ground, and a middle-aged woman emerged from the Electronic Warfare Suite in the tender and followed him down.

“Hey there!” Ryan called out to the new arrivals.

“Hello there! You must be the new Acting-CiC.” The middle-aged man called back to Ryan.

“I am. Ryan Homer’s the name.”

“Mark. Mark Atkins,” 844’s driver briefly saluted the young Acting-Railway Admiral before extending a handshake. “And this is my wife, Lamona.”

“Hello, Admiral.” Lamona stepped in to greet Ryan.

“A pleasure to meet you both.” Ryan said as he shook Lamona’s hand, “Did Jefferson brief you on our upcoming mission?”

“Dave wasn't very clear on what we’re doing here. He just told us to bring these cars down here and speak to you.” Mark replied.

Ryan tapped his watch three times to summon his A.I companion. “Not a problem. Serina will bring you two up to speed, while the crew gets these cars positioned to hook up to the “4-8-8-4”’s consist. You’ll be double-heading with 4014 when we depart, so if we do come under direct attack, Serina can extend the particle shield bubble to cover the 844.”

Mark gave a thumbs up in acknowledgment. “Cool. We’ll start rearranging the consist to take in the new cars. It should only take about two hours to get it all done.”

Ryan nodded. “No rush, Mark.”

Mark nodded, and then he and Lamoa went to talk to Serina to get up to speed on everything.

Once Mark and Lamoa were talking to Serina, Ryan turned to see Michelle approaching him with their trusted canine companion, the battle-hardened and heavily cyber-enhanced German Shepard, Rex, at her side. Rex had been resting in the Acting-Railway Admiral’s personal car at the very back end of the train when the Emerald Angel called for him.

“G’day, Rex!” Ryan crouched down to pet the dry, ruffled fur of the middle-aged dog, who returned the greeting with a happy yawn, having just woken from his four hour slumber.

Michelle then glanced over towards the 844 as Lamona and Mark re-embarked. “When did they pull in?”

“Just over a minute ago,” Ryan replied. “We’ll need to rearrange the consist to put these new railcars into their appropriate spots within the consist.”

“Two hours tops to get it all hooked up they said?”

“No more, no less I reckon. Probably another hour or two after to prep Lady Liberty when Victoria’s kids are done patching her up.”

The super soldier shot a bewildered look at the young officer’s direction. “Wait. Victoria has kids?! Since when and how long?!”

“Longer than the two of us have been on this shithole of a planet.” Ryan stood to his feet after giving Rex a much deserved scratching under his chin.

Wow, must have been a long overdue reunion for them, huh?”

“Way too long, judging by Vicky’s physical expression when she literally jumped out of her power armor and almost resisted the urge to run into the tent and give them a motherly bear hug!” Ryan almost chuckled.

“Naw, she must’ve missed them so much if it has been a long time since she last saw them.” Michelle chuckled, trying to picture Victoria running to her kids, and hugging them.

“A very long time, yes. Vicky hasn’t seen her kids since Boston was wiped out by a Lucifer satellite 12 years ago in 2286. This war has pulled countless families apart, and displaced just as many in the name of Liberty or Socialism.”

“War is hell, but it’s a hellish reality that makes up a big part of Human Nature, and our ever-evolving self-hatred with ourselves.”

“One that will haunt us for many generations to come, just as it’s been haunting our ancestors since the past World Wars. The Atomic War was supposed to serve as a grim reminder of what happens when we take our pursuit of greed, profiteering, and exploitation of our non-renewable resources in the name of monopolization too far. We, among the past generations before us, are left scrambling over the little scraps that the big dogs have deliberately left in the ground with everyone to fight over, while they so happily count their multi-dollar bills and endless rain of gold coins from the safety and comfort of their mega-billion dollar corporate towers in the old mega-cities.”

“Just like how it was with the previous World Wars, and that....um.....'Second Cold War’, I think it was called? Or something like that.” Michelle finished. “Our ancestors risked life and limb every single day to keep those previous would-be world-dominating empires from achieving their goals, while behind the scenes, a select few on both sides of the wars made their fortunes from making and selling weapons. It’s absolutely shameful.”

Ryan nodded. “I couldn’t agree more, Big Sis.” He said slowly.

They continued to talk about this for a while longer.

As the next four hours came and went, the “4-8-8-4” had her consist rearranged, and Lady Liberty was loaded into the Schnabel car using a set of gravity well emitters. Lady Liberty’s A.I, Lauren, was transferred into the war train’s mainframe with Serina for safe travels to Seattle. Once the package was ready to be sealed up for transport, Victoria had made her way back to the yard with her three children, and a pack of four Cyber-Deathclaws in tow.

Much like their organic contemporaries, these particular Deathclaws are the pinnacle of their man-made evolution since their induction at the end of the Atomic War as the ultimate weaponized Apex Predator. Their brains were harvested from their original bodies at a juvenile age, and placed into large cybernetic exoskeleton mechs that replicated what their original bodies would have been if they had matured into full adult alphas. A small fusion reactor powers their exoskeleton, which is covered in 1.5 meters (4ft, 9in) of Ceramic Rolled Homogeneous Depleted Uranium Armor, and at full height stands at a head-spinning 20ft 8in! Outside of being virtually a walking tank, the Cyber Deathclaws also have their own personal arsenals of Human-pulverizing weaponry.

On top of retaining their raw melee strength in the form of soul-tearing titanium claws in their monster-sized hands and feet, they also have their mouths lined with varying rows of man-mincing chainsaws for teeth, and crude jagged spikes running down their backs to the tip of their tails. These walking tanks are more than capable of tearing their way into lightly armored vehicles and structures to seek their prey with the assistance of X-ray and thermal vision in their eye-shaped sensors, allowing them an undisturbed 360-degree field of view. Nobody is safe from these genetically engineered man-made horrors of the wasteland. Since these Cyber-Deathclaws were domesticated, and their intelligence was greatly heightened to near self-sentience, they have also gained the ability to use ranged weaponry such as the M2 Browning .50 Cal heavy machine gun mounted in the tip of their tails, and even a set of vertical missile tubes in their backs, which holds hundreds of pencil-sized anti-personnel missiles. There have even been conflicting reports regarding several Cyber-Deathclaws manning heavy turrets, and even assisting artillery crews with loading and positioning their howitzers!

Despite the crude development of these tamed apex-predators, their creation is a far cry of the wrongful acts of inhumanity compared to the volumes of horrors that countless millions of people under the boots of the TCA were subjected to. Whether you were worked to death in one of their “re-education camps'', or executed for not being a good little sheep in their flawed collective society, the dead don’t stay forever dead when TCA scientists revive you into a Feral Ghoul, or lock your brain inside one of their war machines, and send you off to endure a thousand deaths before they finally let you die in peace. Even women and children who are residents of foreign nations under Communist occupation are more likely to endure similar fates when they disappear, and become indoctrinated to the Communists's maniacal cause. Some reports even indicate that captured women were given experimental drugs to allow them to have up to 8 babies during each pregnancy, all of which were then raised from birth to be indoctrinated by the TCA. For every year that passed since the world slipped into eternal darkness under the umbrella of radiation in 2098, the more cruel and horrifying Reality becomes for those who are trying to make the best of the situation before them.

With things like the Geneva convention, and the Laws of War now a long-forgotten memory, the next generation of conflicts to scar the Earth are now decided by those who are most willing to sacrifice their Humanity, and get their hands covered in the most blood. The only true winners of the post-nuclear age are the people controlling the strings from the very top of the world where it remains untouched by the devastation of the conflict, as well as those behind the Military Industrial Complex supplying all of the weapons. While they indulge themselves in boundless luxuries and guaranteed safety several miles below the inhospitable surface of Greenland, the rest of the world fights over the remaining resources in a seemingly endless conflict that continues to further degrade the Earth’s environment to the point where it's now under threat of permanent self-destruction. Heck, even Ryan’s views on the ongoing conflict changed completely since returning from Equestria. The US President’s handling of the occupation of the Unified States has been nothing short of disastrous from the get-go. Time and time again over the last six years, President Thomas Sampson had shown himself to be completely heartless, wholly uncaring, totally incompetent, and holding little regard for taking swift action to expel the TCA invaders from the US Mainland, unlike his predecessors, US Presidents Blake Raymond, and Maxwell Clark. With growing distrust rising from the US Citizens who entrusted him to getting the job done, and with the damning, and rightfully justified accusations of conspiring with the opposition through divisive policies and pro-socialist grandstanding in his campaigns, not to mention his hand in allowing the horric Gen 2 Emerald Angel Program to go forwards, many were glad that his term in office was coming to an end now that he had been voted out of power. It didn’t take as much effort as Serina theorized it would for her the hack into the White House’s mainframe to reveal President Sampson’s sinister intentions that he had in the works as far back as his starting days in politics.

Ryan holds no form of political influence to confidently bring Sampson’s treachery to light without support from those already established in Capitol Hill, but for now he has to focus on his job as a military commander, and finish what his predecessors, Captain Hood, and Rail-Admiral Callaghan already started. A quick glance at his watch told him that he needed to get the train rolling within the next ten minutes if they were to get to Seattle in time to stop the Hawking Gates from being activated.

“Well, time to get moving I suppose.” He then tapped his watch twice to summon Serina. “Serina, initiate pre-departure recall protocols for all disembarked personnel to return to the train in ten mikes.”

“Aye, Acting-Admiral, recalling the troops.” Serina acknowledged, the 4014 letting out a long, howling blast of its whistle to signal all disembarked personnel to return to the war train.

The Cyber-Deathclaws then leapt onto the Schnabel car, and with a few taps on the holo-display console, the giant robot and its four man-eating guards were concealed in a large sarcophagus fabricated by billions of nano-machines. Once Ryan had re-boarded the train with Rex and Michelle in tow, Antanase stopped by to give his farewell as Victoria returned with her sons and daughter. They were needed to keep working on Lady Liberty’s core systems, and monitor Lauren in transit; this wasn’t a reassignment to the “4-8-8-4”s crew for the sake of a family reunion. Once they reached Seattle, Victoria’s next of kin would be parting ways once again as the only form of family she has left outside of the war-train charge headfirst into battle with Lady Liberty in what was being anticipated as the key battle that would decide the outcome of the war front in North America.

“I wish you all the best of luck with this mission, and godspeed, Acting-Rail Admiral.”

Ryan saluted. “Thank you, Elder. We shall do our best to complete this mission, and get Lady Liberty to Seattle on time. You can depend on us!”

“Until we meet again, Acting-Rail Admiral.”

“Until we meet again.” Ryan echoed as he stepped back into his private car at the back of “4-8-8-4”’s consist.

Then, with a two-tone blast of the whistle and the spin up whine of her steam turbines, the U.S.R.W.C’s flagship war-train, with 844 joining her, set off on the long, perilous journey through the contested territories of the Pacific Northwest to the final damned foothold the TCA had left in the former Mainland USA.

Biggs Junction
22 kms East of the The Dalles Checkpoint
Oregon Republic, Unified States
August 25th, 2298
11:45am (PDT)

The last few days spent in transit to Seattle had been mainly uneventful in regards to ground action. The journey through the rest of the Shattered Peninsula had been brief, though everyone on “4-8-8-4” was on edge as they passed into the Oregon Republic, which had only recently been snatched back from the Communists.

Oregon was liberated through a massive Resistance uprising shortly after Victory in California Day (VC-Day). While preparations for the crossing over the San Andreas Fortifications Line into California were being made, an Underground Railroad Faction aligned with the Unified States smuggled weapons, supplies, and Allied soldiers to the Resistance groups in occupied Oregon. Then, once the San Andreas Fortification Line was breached, the signal was given to start a full-scale uprising. This uprising caught the TCA completely by surprise, and threw them into total disarray all over the state. Eventually, with the Allied and Resistance forces gaining ground fast, and the TCA being unable to adequately suppress them due to their supply lines being cut off, not to mention California falling into the hands of the Allies, the divided Communist forces were forced to cut their losses, and while a few were captured, the rest abandoned Oregon to the oncoming coalition forces for the safety of Communist-occupied Washington State. With their state liberated, the occupants of Oregon set up the Oregon Republic, and continued to help the Allies with the war against the Communists. However, even with Oregon officially liberated, some TCA forces still remained at large in the state, determined to do whatever was necessary to take back Oregon for themselves. It was because of these remaining Communist forces still being on the loose that had the crew of “4-8-8-4” on edge as they passed through Oregon, but so far, none had been spotted.

In fact, the only thing worth highlighting was the fact that the war-train was almost derailed from a Blowout Anomaly (better known as an “Emission”), in Tygh Valley two days prior. It was truly an unusual, yet completely terrifying encounter of its kind. In all of Ryan’s years as an experienced Anomaly Hunter, this was his first (and dared he hoped last), time seeing an Emission in person. Surviving that night left him, and most of the crew, severely shaken from the near-death experience, with the remaining minority being left completely traumatized. Michelle was one of the worst ones affected by it. Even within the safety of her battle suit, the overwhelming fear of Ryan being microwaved alive by the tsunami of a radiation emission scared her so much that she used her nanites to encase the two of them in a shield-bubble, and never dared to let go of her Little Brother until several minutes after Serina had given the All-Clear signal that the danger had passed. The emission waves were so powerful that had the “4-8-8-4” not been equipped with the magnetic flanges on all its wheels, the whole train would have been torn from the tracks. Unfortunately, there were fatalities from this event. An accommodation car was breached, killing all occupants instantly due to not having ballistic glass installed on all the windows. Luckily, the rest of the train remained intact, and was able to continue on once the emission dissipated.

The war-train arrived in the nearest settlement 30 kilometres away, only to find that all the inhabitants were atomized by the emission wave. As predicted, they had no warning, as it was impossible to track these killer anomalies before the event horizon ruptured, and unleashed its untamed power upon anyone and anything unfortunate enough to be exposed to it. It was there at that lifeless village that the crew waited for a supply train to arrive to deliver relief troops and supplies to repair the breached railcar, and they only had a few hours to get back up to speed in order to make up for lost time. First enduring a terrible war, then being displaced to an alternate dimension, and now that Mother Nature seemingly had him set in her crosshairs, Ryan just couldn’t catch a breather without something going up Shit Creek. Unfortunately for Ryan though, the day was not going to get any better. In fact, it was about to get a hell of a lot worse.

Ryan was monitoring the Train’s progress along a set of hastily assembled tracks on top of the still-abandoned Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway that ran parallel alongside the Columbia River that still acted as a natural border between the Oregon Republic and Washington State, and it was during this moment when Serina got The Call.

“Ryan, we’re receiving an incoming call from D.C. It’s the President.”

“Patch him through, Serina.” Ryan replied unfazed as he maintained his composure thanks to the fact that his super soldier sister has been stuck to his side ever since that night the Emission struck.

The holo-display table rotated out the tactical map, and in its place projected the communications display as the link was secured at the same time. A holographic projection of a set of static lines appeared hovering centerline above the projection display. The President then greeted the Acting-Admiral with his vibrant New-Yorker accent.

“Acting-Admiral Homer! Long time no see! How goes things on the Western Front?”

“Mr. President, a 'pleasure' as always.” Ryan returned the greeting, while rolling his eyes. “We’re slowly but surely making our way to Seattle. We had a bit of a setback in Tygh Valley after getting caught in an 'Emission' with some casualties and minor environmental damage-”

“So I heard.” Thomas Sampson interrupted, not wanting to drag the call out for too long. “Unfortunately, I don’t have much time to take this call, and need to quickly inquire to you about something that has gotten the attention of the Administration recently.”

"Bastard Asshole“ Ryan thought, upset about the President interrupting him. Out loud though, he said, "Well, luckily for you, Sir, I have time on my side. What does the Admin want?”

“Good, I wanted to talk to you about what happened after the collapse of the Black Friday Offensive last year, from your perspective.”

Michelle and Serina broke their trances with mild panic rapidly taking over their rational thinking for assuming the worst. Ryan brought an index finger to his lips to keep the girls quiet.

“There’s not much to go over other than what I’ve already disclosed in my after-action report the day after. We rallied what little troops that survived, and set up an evacuation checkpoint at Primm to allow most of the survivors to escape into Arizona.”

“I remember reading all that, but what you forgot to mention was the Space-Time Anomaly that somehow managed to send you and your train into another dimension.”

“.....Fuck.” Ryan mentally cursed as Michelle suddenly released her grip from him to vent her disbelief of the revelation.

Serina’s avatar stood quietly with her face buried in her hands. She had forgotten to purge the train’s black boxes of all visual and audio data of their time in Equestria! Now their secret was no more, and Equestria was now in severe danger of being exposed to the world.

“How many people know about this, Mr. President?” Ryan asked, more than a hint of fear in his voice.

“Just the Administration, or at least that was true up until a few days ago.” Sampson sighed regrettably.

Ryan turned pale, and was shaking bad enough that Michelle had to help hold him steady. “What happened?”

“TCA Netrunners breached our database around the same time you got caught in the Blowout Anomaly. They got away with a fair bit of secured information regarding force deployments, weapons research, and most unfortunately, the entirety of the R.W.C’s recovered black box data. The black box data regarding your detour to this ‘Equestria’ was among the stolen data.”

Ryan could do nothing but go ragdoll-limp in Michelle’s arms while he recomposed himself following this revelation. Once he was able to stand again, Ryan bit his tongue, and let out a furious sigh.

“It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. God knows what they intend to do with the data, though it’s not like they can get to Equestria anyways.” Ryan muttered, a mixture of fear and anger in his voice.

“That would be the case if they didn’t possess some stolen teleportation devices. We just received word from our spies in the RSR that the one they took back to Russia has gone active as we speak.”

“What, already?! We’re still more than a day’s travel to Seattle! I don’t think we’re gonna make it in time to start the offensive!”

“We have no other options, Acting-Admiral. Congress won’t let me nuke the city to cut our projected losses and destroy the Hawking Gate in Seattle unless it has been activated, which as of right now, it has not.”

Ryan was surprised. “Wait, the Seattle gate isn’t online yet?”

“Not yet. We assume that the Communists are testing the device first before they commit troops. We don’t know what condition the gates are currently in, though I assume that after sitting in an abandoned research facility for 200 years, they probably saw better days.”

Ryan allowed himself to relax a bit, but was still deeply concerned. “I just hope that they haven’t somehow managed to decrypt our Space-Time coordinates to find the other world we visited. The natives living there WILL NOT stand even a snowball's chance in Hell against an all-out invasion by the Commies."

"The Equestrians weren't even able to fend off the invasion from the Griffon Khans without our help, and those bastards's armies were barely a fraction of the size, and had barely a fraction of the firepower that the Communists do.” Michelle murmured. "They would be doomed if the Commies ever came knocking."

Ryan and Serina nodded in quiet agreement with what Michelle murmured.

“The Hawking Gates were never designed for inter-dimensional travel, Acting-Admiral." Sampson replied to Ryan, not hearing what Michelle murmured, "Let’s hope for your sake it stays that way.”

“I really hope so, Mr. President. Otherwise they're gonna have to fight tooth and nail for the Space-Time Projector."

“You... have a device that is capable of inter-dimensional travel?”

"Yes Sir, and if anyone other than Victoria lays their hands on it, the 4014 will go nuclear. We can’t afford to let it fall into the wrong hands.”

“That’s quite the drastic measure, Acting-Admiral.”

“No disrespect, Mr. President, but I made a promise to the Equestrian leadership that I don’t entrust the existence of the S.T.P and its secrets to anyone outside of the train.”

“And I fully respect your decision, Acting-Admiral. You are a man of honor, Ryan, and I hope your parents are-”

The connection between "4-8-8-4" and the White House was suddenly disrupted as a TCA cyber-attack overwhelmed and disabled the train’s quantum communications, along with the 844’s electronic warfare capabilities.

“Serina, what’s happening?!” Ryan turned to his A.I subordinate.

“TCA Netrunners have breached our firewalls! They must have used the call as a backdoor to bypass them!”

“844 to 4014 Actual, we’ve lost all electronic warfare capabilities, and are unable to counterattack!” EWO Lamona said through Ryan’s headset.

“844, sever all connections to the outside, and reboot everything! Serina, lend assistance if you can!” Ryan replied with his leadership instincts kicked into overdrive and sounded all hands to action stations.

“Yes, Sir!” Lamona replied.

“On it, Ryan!” Serina added.

Michelle immediately took her post between the Acting-Admiral and the AI pedestal to oversee her squadron suit up.

“Serina, how the hell could you forget to wipe the black boxes before we left Equestria?!”

“I was so focused on monitoring the S.T.P, and making sure we weren’t gonna get zapped into oblivion when it kicked off that I guess I kinda forgot about it when we came back to Earth, and went straight back into the shitshow that was the aftermath of Black Friday.” Serina shrugged innocently.

“‘Kinda forgot?!’ Serina, you have AI levels of smarts, how could you forget about something as simple as that?!” Michelle pressed accusingly.

“Just because I was brought up to an artificial state of near immortality, it doesn’t mean I still can’t make mistakes like a normal Human being!” Serina retorted defensively. “Hell, I WAS Human before I died in battle! Plus, how many people are going to actually believe that we went to a land of Magical talking Ponies?! Most normal people would laugh at us, and even the Communists would say that it's nothing more than propaganda!"

"The Communists have ALL of the data on Equestria, PLUS the Hawking Gates, AND some of the best scientists in the world! You seriously don't think that they'd at least TRY to get to Equestria, a land still ravaged by the war against the Griffon Khans, ESPECIALLY once they realize that the Ponies can't defend their nation against the might of the TCA, you Stupid Machine?!"

“Lock it down, both of you!” Ryan interjected. “What’s done is done; we can’t change the past! Now if you don’t mind, how about settling the matter on that regimental rotorwing’s worth of Super-Hinds converging on our position?!” He then pointed at the blob of red circles on the 3D holo-radar display slowly moving towards the center of the projection. “The Commies still here in Oregon just made themselves known, and now we need to take them out!”

“Right!” Serina and Michelle sighed collectively.

“I’m taking flight, you’ve got the guns?” Michelle asked Serina as her nanosuit enveloped her body.

“Gladly.” Serina nodded confidently with data rings materializing out of thin air.

“Weapons free ladies, keep them off the locos.”

“Yes, Sir!” The Girls acknowledged.

Michelle then made a break for the right side access door of the railcar with a burst of her thrusters. Meanwhile, Serina took remote control of the war-train’s AA defense grid with an opening volley of the 4014’s surface-to-air laser-guided missile batteries, and a salvo of the 8in Gauss cannons at the heavy gunships. The Communist helicopters live up to the legacy of the original Hind as an upscaled and up-armored successor that takes the title; “Flying Tank”, and dialing it up to eleven with a fatal dose of Communist-fueled testosterone. The lead helo absorbs 6 of the 8 missiles launched at it before going down from losing its engines from shock overpressurization of the impact explosions on the armored airframe. Another two would be turned inside-out from direct hits of 8in slugs that were sent into the formation at twice the speed of sound. While this battle was happening, EWO Lamona was able to reboot most of the 844’s electronic warfare systems to assist in deploying countermeasures to deny the enemy from launching guided munitions at the train, and forcing them to use their unguided rocket pods and autocannons.

Many of the enemy’s rockets ended up going wide, saturating the immediate area around the train, with some being intercepted by the onboard close-in weapons systems (CIWS), the modular-active protection systems, or harmlessly striking the locomotive’s shields. The 30mm C-RAM on the 4014’s lead truck opened up with an air-shredding burst of Ion energy, making quick work of another two helos with focused fire at the cockpits. A third Super-Hind would lose its tail section, and spiral out of control to the ground, but having an armored chassis meant that the helicopter bounced off the ground, and then landed directly into the path of the 4014. This is where everything that could go horribly wrong did go horribly wrong. The resulting collision, and following explosion from the Super-Hind's remaining ordinance detonating had inflicted heavy damage to the front end of 4014, with the C-RAM destroyed, but salvageable once the locomotive’s nano-repair system kicked in to conduct emergency repairs. Unfortunately though, that would be the least of the crew’s worries, as the impact had nearly destroyed the S.T.P, rendering the Space-Time traveling device crippled, glitching, and barely functional.

“Serina, damage report!” Ryan spoke with sudden shock from feeling the collision from the back end of his train.

“Heavy damage to the front end, Acting-Admiral! We lost the C-RAM, and the S.T.P is critically damaged!” Serina replied as she analysed the locomotive with eagle eyes as she directed the trillions of nano-machines to the damaged front end to start repairs.

“Shit! Really? I thought the S.T.P would be well protected. Is it still functional?”

“Just barely. I don’t know if me or Victoria can fix it without going back to Equestria.”

While Ryan was still processing that, the already bad situation was about to get dialed up to 11.

“844 to 4014 actual, urgent!” Lamona’s voice echoed through the speakers in Ryan’s headset with developing worry.

“4014 actual to 844, is everything okay?”

“Negative! I’ve got a thermonuclear spike tracking us from orbit! It’s an OKBM satellite!”

“WHAT?!?!” Both Ryan and Serina recoiled with enveloping fear.

“Do I need to repeat myself?! Did I fucking stutter?! We’re about to get nuked from orbit!!!”

Ryan knew that there was only one course of action he could take to save “4-8-8-4”, and every man and woman onboard it. “Serina, spool up the S.T.P! Emergency jump to either Seattle, or Equestria!”

“Ryan, the nav computer for the S.T.P is gone. We’ll be going blind into the unknown with the Space-Time Continuum itself at the controls. Plus, the remote access module is out too; someone will have to activate it manually.”

“That’s a one way trip for whoever decides to ride it out on the front.”

“It won’t matter if they can’t access the core without some form of psionic ability.”

“Like Alice?”

Serina simply nodded grimly. The last time Ryan had to awaken Alice from her suspended animation, she nearly destroyed Equestria’s Dimensional Realm, killing Sombra in the process. Now though, she is the crew’s last hope to escape imminent nuclear annihilation.

Ryan sighed in defeat. “Unseal the hushed casket, Serina. Awaken Project Rubicon.”

“Ry, what are you doing?!” Michelle called out over the comms.

“Sis, get to the hospital car and take Alice to the S.T.P right now! We need her to operate it to escape the OKBM the Commies are about to drop on us!” Ryan replied.

“Ryan, you know what happened to her when she fought Sombra. She can’t control her powers! She nearly destroyed-”

“I’m aware of the risks, Mickey, but we’ve got no choice!"

"But she'll die! It's a suicide-mission!"

"MICHELLE, LISTEN TO ME!!!! We either wake Alice up, and get her to help us get to either Seattle, or Equestria, or we die! WE HAVE NO OTHER OPTIONS!!!!”

“OKBM launch detected! T-minus to impact, two minutes!” Lamona almost shouted through her headset.

“Michelle, the S.T.P has been critically damaged, and only she has the ability to directly control it! It’s now or never!” Serina pleaded with the Battle Angel.

“Okay, Serina. But you seriously owe her for her sacrifice.”

“We all will if we survive.”

Michelle didn’t waste a breath of air before making a direct beeline for the hospital car where her old friend was contained. Upon entering, she made her way upstairs to the ICU compartment where Dr. Oleg Kirov and his nurses were scrambling to release Alice from her containment pod. The pod’s hatch was already released, revealing the alien-humanoid that had been frozen in Time since the final battle within the Crystal Empire. Alice’s subconsciousness was contained within her otherworldly body, which had undergone significant changes since the initial transfer. Her new body had reshaped itself to become more Human-like, with the textures of the android’s skin resembling that of a late 1990’s female Anime character.

Once she was awake again, Alice’s eyes opened for the first time in months to see her best friend lifting her out of the pod. “Michelle, is that you?”

“It’s me, Alice. Sleep well?” Michelle almost beamed at hearing her best friend’s voice again.

“Better than I did the last time. What’s going on?”

“No time to explain. I need to get you to the locomotive, and link you to the S.T.P before we get nuked from orbit.”

“Wait, the what and the what?” Alice asked blankly, but Michelle spared no second to pause as she bridal-carried the Android towards the railcar’s access door.

The Battle Angel hastily brushed past the nurses on the way down, and immediately took flight for the front end of the train. A quick update from 844 informed her that the warhead had breached the stratosphere, and was now going supersonic towards their position with less than a minute to impact.

“Shit!” Michelle cursed to herself.

She then immediately opened up the throttle to full afterburner on her wing thrusters to get to the locomotive as fast as she could, which only took her less than fifteen seconds, though it was already down to the wire, and time was running out. Alice was quick to come to her senses, and used her profound psionic abilities to read through Michelle’s memories to get up to speed on what it was that she needed to do. It hurt her knowing that she would have to sacrifice herself to save the "4-8-8-4", and everyone on it, but she knew that it had to be done. Alice then reached for her head, and pulled out an alien-like Ethernet cable to plug herself into the S.T.P on the front of the locomotive. Thankfully all internal systems were still operational, and she could still activate the projector to open a portal.

“Serina, I’m inside, and have full control. What do I do next?” Alice speaks to the AI telepathically.

“Can you create a portal tether to a location close to Seattle or Equestria?” Serina replied through a small speaker embedded in the lead truck.

“Not without assistance from the S.T.P’s navigation computer, which is down. I can only get us to Equestria, and even then, without the nav-computer, we could end up landing anywhere in the Country.”

“That’ll have to do.” Ryan’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Mickey, take cover in the 4014’s cab. We don’t know if your suit can protect you from the space-time continuum.”

“What about Alice?” Michelle asked with hesitation to leaving her friend alone on the front of the locomotive. "I don't want to leave her alone out here!"

“I’ll be fine, Mickey. You won’t stand a chance being exposed to the continuum. Now go, we don’t have much time!” Alice assured Michelle.

“Good luck, Alice, and....g-goodbye. I'm so, so sorry it has to be like this.”

"It's not your fault, Michelle. I'm not mad at you, or anyone else on the train. I've made peace with what I must do."

Michelle nodded, before hugging Alice one last time, and then taking off for the safety of 4014's cab. Once she was in the cab, Michelle fully shut the doors, windows, and other panels, before bracing for whatever was to come.

“See you all on the other side!” Alice smiled as she activated the S.T.P. The wormhole projector barely flickered to life, and a tear in the fabric of Space and Time began to appear in front of the train.

“Ten seconds to impact! It’s now or never with whatever the hell you guys have planned!” Lamona almost broke into a panic-attack on the comms.

“All hands, brace for emergency jump to Equestria!” Ryan announced over the train’s PA System.

“Jumping in three….two….one….mark!” Alice counted backwards.

And with a single thought process, Alice channeled all of her full psionic strength, and all of her Life-Force into the damaged projector, and with a great implosion of fusion reactions, was able to open the portal to its full radius to allow the whole train to enter. Both locomotives went through just as the 50 megaton kinetic warhead impacted the Earth, and with blinding atomic fire and shattered grounds, the city of The Dalles, Oregon was instantly uprooted by the underground implosion, with all 15,159 inhabitants instantly vaporized. The following explosion completely enveloped Wasco County in a blinding light with the train several kilometers away from ground zero, but still dangerously close to the kill zone. The first shockwave ran parallel along the train’s consist, dealing minor damage to exposed equipment as the train rapidly tunneled deeper and deeper into the portal in a deadly race to beat the main blast cloud from reaching the event horizon. It was neck and neck between both sides when Ryan’s Skytop Lounge Car narrowly made it through just as the irradiated pyroclastic cloud struck the front end of the anomaly, causing it to instantly dissipate.

The crew of the “4-8-8-4” were once again returning to Equestria, but it won’t be the same Equestria that they first came to. Due to the damage that the S.T.P endured, a glitch occurred during the portal’s creation, causing a slight detour that would displace the crew to an alternate universe where the Past will meet the Future, or rather, where the Future will meet the Past.......

Author's Note

And, that was Chapter 2

I really hope that you all enjoyed this chapter, as this was the one that derailed the story for so long while Iowa and I struggled to finish it. Again, I can't take too much credit for this chapter, as it was largely Iowa's work, but at the same time, I did all of the proofreading, and I did add a few bits of my own here and there, such as explaining the liberation of Oregon. And since I've repeated this several times, some of you may be asking, when will I start writing parts that are wholly me? Well, that will happen in Chapter 3, including a scene that picks up mere microseconds after "Tracks Backwards" leaves off, finally explaining what Iron Glory's crew saw in the Desert Woods.

But now, aside from Oregon getting nuked, and over 15,000 people losing their lives, the crew of "4-8-8-4" and 844 were forced to temporarily abandon their mission to get to Seattle on time to go to Equestria to get their Space-Time Projector fixed by Princess Twilight, it seems that their machine malfunctioned, and sent them to the wrong Equestria. What Equestria were they sent to? How will they react when they arrive there? And how will the locals react to their presence? And what will happen when the Commies attempt to use the Hawking Gate to move General Alexander Kostya and his elite forces to North America? And what will the Commies do with the black box information about Equestria that they stole from "4-8-8-4"? Well, you know the drill, stay tuned, and Iowa and I will tell you

In the meantime though, as always, comments, feedback, questions, as well as spreading the word about this EPIC crossover story are always appreciated, and Iowa and I will see you all again in Chapter 3!

ScarFox out for now!

Until next time fellow sailors,
I'll see you on the naval battlefield!

-Iowa.