Alpha Strike: [An Interstellar Weapons Platform’s Guide to Organized Crime] (Book 3 title)

The silence inside the train car was total, broken only by the faint, steady hum of the engines and the occasional soft chime from the overhead status lights. Seated in a row of bone-white seats, the team seemed small compared to the car's sleek, sterile interior — even if the actual space was quite small.

Beyond the narrow viewports, the world blurred past in streaks of mosslit stone and darkness. Bursts of blue and white light flared as they shot through automated checkpoints, while the occasional cluster of bioluminescent fungi lit up the tunnels like scattered stars before vanishing once more into artificial night.

Maggy and the doctor sat side-by-side, occasionally whispering to each other, while Garrelt and Antchaser took seats on either side of the women. Hugo stood at the control panel and occasionally swiped through screens.

Alpha could monitor the rail himself, or set up an AI to do so, but he was hoping to train a few people to at least seem like they were doing something. One thing the Federation had learned was that people generally were more comfortable with high-speed transport when they believed there was actually someone at the controls.

Despite how illogical that sounded.

About an hour way into their trip, Maggy was bouncing her legs, fidgeting with pent-up energy. Her staff lay across her knees, fingers drumming lightly on the wood. Every few seconds, she glanced between the sealed cabin door and the softly glowing map display on the back wall. A thin blue line crept steadily across its surface, marking their path toward the end of the track.

"I apologize for the lack of accommodations," Alpha said, his antborg tucked neatly into one corner to give the others space. "These cars are still being used primarily for moving workers and cargo. Comfort wasn't exactly the priority."

Garrelt chuckled, arms folded behind his head. "You're underselling it. This is smoother than half the carriages I've taken on surface roads. I doubt many adventurers would complain. You could do a lot worse than this."

Maggy turned, fixing Alpha's antborg with a sharp stare. The construct met her gaze, antenna bobbing slightly with each subtle vibration of the rail.

"Alright, I need to ask," she burst out. "How did you even build this? The Nexus, the train — the whole transit system. You've got stations that would make most city-states jealous, and it's barely been a few months since the goblins found you!"

She jabbed a finger toward him. "And don't even try to tell me you've been planning this for years. You said yourself you didn't start building outside the dungeon until after the Bosco incident!"

Alpha chuckled, the antborg's antennae flicking in what almost looked like a shrug. "Proprietary secrets, Miss Greenwood. Surely you don't expect me to give up my edge that easily?"

Maggy groaned, dropping her head against the seatback with a dramatic thud. "Oh, come on! That's not fair! You could at least give me a hint. Or, I don't know, trade for it? What do you want? I'll do research, I'll gather samples, I'll even help with your experiments! Name your price."

Across the aisle, Garrelt snorted softly and shook his head. "You'd sell your soul for a blueprint."

Maggy shot him a glare. "It's not selling my soul, it's… curiosity! Scientific curiosity!" She turned back to Alpha, eyes wide with pleading intensity. "Please?"

Alpha's red eye pulsed once, then twice — a mechanical imitation of a blink. "Tempting, but a smart AI knows when to hold its cards. Let's just say I had some 'head starts' that most locals don't. Besides, what fun would there be in giving away all my secrets right away?"

Maggy slumped deeper in her seat, letting out a dramatic sigh. "You're impossible, you know that?"

Dr. Maria's quiet laughter drifted from her seat at the front of the car. She was reclining with her travel bag tucked beneath her arm, the picture of relaxed authority. "Don't mind him, Maggy. He's already offered your teacher a seat at the table, hasn't he? You'll have your chance to pick his brain when he comes to visit the goblin cavern. If anyone can wring a few secrets out of Alpha, it's Halirosa's Archmage himself."

Maggy pouted, pushing her hair behind her ears. "That's not the same as seeing it for myself. I want to know how the circuits work, how the trains run, what powers the rails. I mean, does it use mana, or is it something else? The energy signature isn't like anything I've ever seen."

The more the young mange spoke, the more excited her voice became. The twinkle in her eyes as she was almost predatory in its own way, as if her gaze alone sought to strip the train car apart for all its secrets.

Alpha let out a digital chuckle, a low, warbling tone that almost sounded smug. "You're not the first to ask, nor will you be the last. Curiosity is healthy. But some mysteries are better unwrapped slowly."

Maggy sunk lower into her seat, knees drawn up and arms draped over her staff. "Look, I'm bored, ok? Even when we were traveling here from Halirosa, I had something to do. Collect samples, plan research groups, coordinate with the expedition scholars, that kind of thing. All this—" she waved a hand at the sterile, gently humming cabin and the streaks of light blurring past the viewports "—waiting? While we know Robert is days ahead of us?"

Her eyes darted to the glowing map again, but the blue line had hardly moved. "Maybe I just need something to distract myself," she muttered.

Alpha's antborg let out a soft, sympathetic chirp. "If it's a distraction you want, Miss Greenwood," the AI's voice came, light with mischief, "I might have just the thing."

Before anyone could ask, the lights overhead dimmed, and the cabin's inner walls began to ripple like the surface of disturbed water. Seamless alloy shimmered, losing its opaque sheen. Maggy sat up, eyes widening in alarm as the walls seemed to dissolve into nothingness. Garrelt swore under his breath and braced himself against the seat.

For an instant, it felt as if they were riding through open air—hurtling at impossible speeds through the heart of the earth, untethered, exposed. But even as Maggy's heart skipped a beat, she realized the air inside remained perfectly still and warm, the only sign of movement the muted roar beneath the carriage floor.

The image that replaced the metal was crisp and clear: the tunnel's rocky walls blurred past with dizzying speed, broken by the rhythmic glow of blue checkpoint lights. As if reading their confusion, Alpha's red eye flickered. "Don't worry. It's just a little projection — one of the car's proprietary features. I figured a change of scenery might help."

Maggy pressed her nose to the now-invisible wall, awestruck. "That's… actually really cool."

Antchaser grinned and leaned back, propping his boots on the seat ahead. "Show-off."

Alpha's antenna waggled in agreement. "Guilty as charged. Now, keep your eyes forward. You'll want to see this."

A subtle shift in the tunnel's sound — a deepening resonance, a coolness seeping through the air — heralded a change ahead. At the front of the car, a single pinpoint of white light grew rapidly, like a distant star pulled into focus.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Alright, everyone," Alpha said, voice pitched like a ringmaster's. "Ten seconds to visual. Nine… eight…"

Maggy's pulse thrummed with anticipation. Garrelt leaned forward, knuckles white on his staff. Even Dr. Maria, usually composed, adjusted her spectacles and turned to watch.

"…Five… four… three…"

The pinprick became a blazing halo.

"…Two… one—"

The train shot out of the tunnel and into a breathtaking expanse.

They emerged onto a bridge of simmering light, suspended high over a colossal cavern. The air beyond was shockingly clear and cold; every breath inside the train suddenly tinged with imagined frost. Above and below, the world stretched out in a frozen wilderness. White tundra and crystalline icefields, snowdrifts piled like dunes beneath a violet-glowing sky lit by strange, house-sized crystals.

At the cavern's heart, a glacier dominated the landscape — soaring from floor to ceiling, its bulk fractured with veins of turquoise and indigo. The ice gleamed with a light all its own, refracting the crystals embedded in the cavern roof. And within the glacier's core, suspended in frozen stasis, was a gargantuan, indistinct shadow: something ancient, its outline blurred and twisted by the frosted depths. Was it a beast? A machine? The mind balked at its sheer scale.

For a few heartbeats, the team could only stare.

The bridge arched across a chasm so vast the far side was veiled in mist, its boundaries lost to distance and shadow. Far below, herds of furred beasts drifted across the frostbitten tundra, tiny silhouettes crawling like ants across a silvered plain. Above, massive icicles — longer than pikes and glinting like frozen spears — hung from the ceiling's jagged stalactites, catching the pale luminescence of the cavern's glow.

"By the Celestials…" Garrelt murmured, his breath fogging visibly in the cabin air, as if the cold outside had somehow seeped through the glass.

Maggy leaned toward the window, eyes shining with unrestrained awe. "Is that…? Alpha, what is that?"

Alpha's voice came through the antborg speaker, casual and smug. "Classified. But if you're still bored after this, I'll eat my own antenna."

Antchaser gave a low whistle. "Looks like something big enough to swallow the village and not even notice."

Dr. Maria said nothing, her eyes narrowing as she studied the terrain with surgical precision. Beneath her calm exterior, gears were clearly turning.

But the moment passed too quickly.

Without warning, the train slipped back into darkness, swallowed by the mouth of another tunnel. The icy vista vanished, replaced once again by seamless metal and the ambient glow of artificial lighting. The chill receded, warmth returning as the hum of the cabin pressed back against the silence.

Maggy slumped against her seat, still dazed, her breath catching in her throat. "What was that…?" she whispered to no one in particular, eyes distant, mind spinning with questions.

Garrelt chuckled. "The Deep is honeycombed with hundreds of caverns. Most of them are sealed away, totally isolated until something opens a passage into them. Why do you think adventures are so desperate to get here? Each one is a massive treasure trove, just waiting to be found."

Garrelt turned to Alpha. "If you've really dug so far toward Halirosa, I assume that wasn't the only one you've found, either."

Alpha's antborg nodded, regarding Garrelt with a flicker of red light. "You assume correctly," the AI said. "That glacier cavern is one of the largest, but it's far from the only one. The Deep's riddled with places like it — each with their own… let's call them 'peculiarities.' Some are beautiful. Most are dangerous. A few, like the one we just passed, are both."

He paused, as if weighing his next words. "What you just saw is one I'm calling the Frostheart Expanse. It's… not a place you want to linger."

Garrelt nodded, a little grimmer than before.

Maggy, still wide-eyed, managed to pull herself upright. "But… if places like that exist, why hasn't anyone done what you're doing? Why not connect them? You could move people, trade, everything—"

Garrelt cut her off with a weary shake of his head. "People have tried, Maggy. Dwarves, mages, even the High Clans themselves have sent teams down into the Deep. The problem's not finding these caverns. The problem's surviving them." He glanced out at the dark, featureless wall. "Most of those places are death traps. Just the air in a few of them is enough to kill anyone who hasn't broken into the second Greater Realm. Some have monsters that'll hunt anything that breathes. Others…" He shrugged. "Let's just say nature's more creative than any trapper I've met."

Alpha's antborg bobbed in agreement. "He's right. The Frostheart's spirit pressure alone would crush any ordinary person flat in seconds. Not to mention the ambient cold. I lost two dozen survey drones mapping the place. That bloody ice fog fried their circuitry before I could even get a proper reading."

Antchaser raised a brow, curious. "So what'd you do? Just build the train through and hope nothing noticed?"

Alpha's response was more candid than usual, perhaps swept up by the memory. Or by the need to talk to someone who could appreciate the effort. "Not quite. I tried every conventional bridge design I could — suspended gantries, reinforced tunnels, even a spirit-warded trestle. Every one was destroyed. The beasts there ignore anything that's not actively alive, but even the glacier itself is… restless. One bridge lasted twelve hours before the ice shifted and swallowed it whole. Another just… melted, like it'd been erased from existence."

Dr. Maria tapped her fingers thoughtfully against her knee. "And the solution?"

"Hard light projectors," Alpha replied, antenna drooping a little as if in resignation. "Painfully expensive, but they're the only thing that works. The projectors form a bridge of solidified light. It's immune to the temperature, adjusts to stress, and only exist in the instant that the train passes over them. Maintenance is still a nightmare, but its easier to protect the projectors on either side of the crossing, than an entire span of bridge."

Maggy stared, awe written all over her face. "Solid light…? But that's… That's years ahead of anything I've seen. It must take a fortune in resources!"

Alpha's voice held a note of pride. "It does. Which is why I only use it where I have to. And why you're riding in a single car, not a full train yet."

Garrelt gave a low whistle, shaking his head. "No wonder so many expeditions vanish down here. Most people never even see the things that kill them. Spirit pressure, ancient toxins, monsters older than the tribes…"

Alpha's lens narrowed, his tone softening just a little. "It's not just the living you have to worry about. Some caverns have… echoes. Things left behind by whatever came before. I've learned not to open new routes lightly."

Maggy exhaled, rubbing her arms as if the memory of the icy cavern still clung to her skin. "That… thing, in the glacier — was it alive?"

Alpha's pause was longer this time. "Not anymore. But I wouldn't call it dead, either. Some mysteries are best left undisturbed."

A hush fell over the group. The reality of what lay outside their swift-moving capsule, all the silent dangers and ancient secrets, pressed in at the edges of their thoughts.

The train sped onward, the lights in the tunnel flickering rhythmically overhead, the journey suddenly heavier with the knowledge of what lay just out of sight.

The journey settled into a mesmerizing rhythm as the train continued its breakneck pace through the Deep. The seamless walls would shimmer and part at intervals, offering the team fleeting glimpses of worlds hidden from the surface — each more startling than the last.

They shot through a cavern of glowing crystal spires, where rainbows refracted in the air and the track ran along a lattice of diamond-bright bridges. Boarslayer let out a low whistle as they passed, her eyes wide, while Maggy speculated about the properties of the luminescent minerals and what kind of arrays might be drawn from their essence.

Next came a vaulting chamber thick with clouds of violet mist, drifting lazily around floating stones. Every few moments, flickers of ghostly fish could be seen weaving through the air, their translucent fins trailing like banners. Dr. Maria described similar anomalies she'd read about, and Garrelt joked that if the train ever broke down here, at least they'd have a "fish story" to bring home.

Later, the train dipped beneath a forest of hanging stalactites, each one pulsing with bioluminescent fungi and trailing thin streams of rainwater into pools far below. For a heartbeat, the team was plunged into a world of dripping echoes and glimmering light. Antchaser pointed out the signs of burrowing predators, his voice a mix of caution and admiration for Alpha's navigation.

Each new cavern brought fresh conversation, a blend of nerves and wonder. They shared old expedition stories, compared notes on unusual hazards, and even found time to tease Maggy about her running tally of "world-changing discoveries."

Through it all, Alpha kept up a steady patter of commentary, occasionally offering cryptic hints about the origins of a structure or the potential dangers lurking out of sight. Every now and then, a hush would settle, as the sheer scale of the Deep pressed in. Reminding them how small, and how lucky, they truly were.

At last, the map display blinked a gentle warning, signaling the approach of their destination. Maggy straightened, anticipation thrumming in her fingertips. The others checked their gear, eyes sharpening with focus as the journey's end neared.

Outside, the world blurred one last time — a final, brief vision of a cavern lit by a field of silver grass swaying in an unfelt breeze — before the tunnel swallowed them once more.

In the warm, humming stillness of the car, hearts quickened. The real challenge, at last, was about to begin.