“Alright chumps, so here’s the plan,” said Sagar.

They stood in their stolen Imperial armour looking at the large, dirty, blocky building that was Sirra Station from a nearby street. A huge round clock adorned the front of it. Both of the long black hands had almost reached the number twelve, though the longer still had ten more minutes to traverse until it gor there. It was dark. To either side of the station building ran tall, spiked, iron fences.

Five of them had waited here while Sagar had gone inside the station once already to carry out reconnaissance.

“Basically,” Sagar continued, “we can get on a train that will take us right to the border of Manolia. I’ve seen the timetables and there’s an express sleeper train heading there leaving very soon, at midnight. They’re taking troops down there to amass a land invasion force.”

“Why don’t they just invade by airship,” Ryn asked, “like they did here?”

“Because of our lightning projection,” said Nuthea.

“In any case,” said Sagar, “we need to be on that train. So what we’re going to do is go through the front entrance, find the correct train, and board it, as though we’re part of the invasion force that is being transported there.”

“That’s your plan?!” said Elrann.

“Yes.”

“So the plan is basically: We walk onto the train?”

“Yes.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Sagar’s mouth twitched. “Rrrr. It’s a fine plan! We’re in Imperial armour, aren’t we? Nobody will know who we are.”

“Stop bickering,” said Nuthea, apparently now familiar enough with both Sagar and Elrann to reprimand them like this. “It’s the best plan we’ve got, and our mission is urgent. Come on; it’s nearly time.” She drew a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

Ryn walked towards the station with the others.

He went through one of the entrance doors, his whole body tense, hyper-aware of his every movement in his Imperial armour disguise.

The helmet, while not heavy, had grown stuffy, and he could feel his own shallow breaths on the front of his face. While it offered him some protection, from head-wounds and discovery, it also obscured his vision to a horizontal slit that disappeared into darkness at either side, so that he had to turn his head if he wanted to see into his periphery.

The inside of Sirra’s Main Station was massive. The high ceiling sloped up into the pointed roof they had seen from the outside, from which hung lanterns on chains, lighting the lobby with a white glow.

At the far end, a series of desks broke up metal barriers at intervals which barred the way to different doors and passages that Sagar had told them led to the different ‘platforms’. Across the stone floor, to and from these barriers, walked soldiers in the same armour as they were wearing, like a self-organising colony of black-shelled worker ants.

“Pssst. Ryn,” whispered Cid next to him. “Don’t lose your focus.”

Ryn shook his head briefly and concentrated on walking with the group again. He had allowed himself to be distracted for a moment by the sheer number of Imperial soldiers in the station. It was extremely important that none of them lost sight of each other, as they all looked like Imperial soldiers now and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between each other if they got separated.

Although Ryn fancied he’d still be able to tell Nuthea a mile off. She walked in front of him now, her head held high, something very slightly out of place about the way she tried to keep her gait graceful and soft-footed despite the clunky armour she was in—despite her disguise, she was still trying to walk like royalty.

Gods, I hope nobody sees through us, Ryn thought, though he didn’t know why he was still addressing his thoughts to the gods. Especially Nuthea. You can take the princess out of the palace, but you can’t take the palace out of the princess.

Of their party, Vish alone wasn’t wearing armour, though his black attire didn’t seem to attract any unwanted attention from the Morekemians. If anything, the soldiers seemed to give Vish a slightly wide berth. Apparently Shadowfingers were people to be avoided, or at least not gotten too close to. That could be to their advantage.

Sagar led them to the clerk’s desk for platform four, which he’d told them he’d found out was the one with the train bound for Manolia. They took their place in a queue for it and shuffled along a few paces every time another soldier got clearance and went through the barrier.

Ryn tried as hard as he could to slow and deepen his rapid, shallow breaths.

When they got to the front of the line, the armoured grunt behind the desk said “Destination?” without looking up from the papers in front of him.

“Manolia,” said Sagar.

“Unit?” said the grunt.

A pause.

“Er…” said Sagar.

Panic gripped Ryn’s chest. Apparently Sagar hadn’t known this was coming, or thought this far ahead…

The grunt looked up from his desk. Ryn could see the man’s grey eyes through his horizontal helmet-visor, and they narrowed.

“What unit are you with, soldier? It’s a simple question.”

What do we do? What do we do?

“They’re with me,” said Vish all of a sudden. “They’re serving as my retinue for a mission.” The grunt turned his head, then practically jumped out of his seat.

“Oh! My apologies, Shadowfinger Vish, I didn’t see you there! No wonder you didn’t answer,” he said to Sagar. “Please, come right through.” He pulled a lever on his side of the desk and the metal barrier in front of them swung up.

Ryn had to make a concerted effort not to run through. They passed under the barrier and into the walled corridor beyond.

When they had gone a few steps, Ryn whispered “That was lucky,” to Sagar. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

“Be quiet, pup,” Sagar hissed back. “I had everything under control.”

“It’s a good thing we had the bounty hunter with us,” whispered Elrann.

Sagar made no reply.

The corridor opened onto a dark, dusty platform. All along it stood a series of conjoined rectangular steel boxes with multiple glass windows set into them. So this is a train. They followed the stream of soldiers on board.

It was cramped inside the train, and Ryn suddenly became very worried that he was going to lose sight of his companions in the crush of soldiers. A soldier with his helmet off stood just inside the door they entered by, bellowing at the new arrivals as they boarded.

“Keep it moving, soldiers!” he yelled at Ryn and company when they passed him, spittle flying from his mouth, a vein throbbing on the temple of his fat, close-shaven head. “We haven’t got all night! We need to be in Manolia by dawn! Train leaves in five minutes! Eight to a compartment! Get on with it!”

Hang on, eight to a compartment?! But we’re only six! Ryn’s pulse began to pound between his ears as he walked down the narrow walkway that ran the length of the train, passing closed metal doors.

That was still Sagar walking in front of him, he was sure of it, and—he glanced quickly over his shoulder—there was Vish just behind him. But where were the others? Were they still following? And how were they going to make sure they all ended up in the same compartment without two extra random soldiers joining them?

We didn’t properly think through what we were going to do when we actually get to our destination! Sagar had just said something vague about sneaking away from the Imperials when they got to Manolia, just like they were sneaking onto the train. But how was that going to be possible?

Before Ryn could panic any further, suddenly Sagar turned off to the right, through the first open door he had come to. Ryn followed him.

Inside was a small room with two cushioned benches that faced each other from either wall. Between them on the far side of the compartment ran another wall with a window looking out onto the dimness of the station platform.

Following Sagar’s lead, Ryn went and sat on one of the benches next to him. They watched the door carefully. In came Vish, who sat at the end of the opposite bench. That makes three. Then more soldiers entered. Four, five, six…seven! Eight! Ohcrapohcrapohcrap.

The last soldier in shut the door behind him. “Phew!” he exclaimed in a voice Ryn didn’t recognise. He collapsed onto the bench opposite Ryn. “It’s bad enough that they fly us non-stop to Imfis without any breaks and barely any rations, but then they frog march us to the station as soon as we get here! I need some sleep!”

The soldier took off his helmet and rested it on his knee. He had a friendly, grinning face and a mop of thick, brown hair. He was young--maybe in his early twenties. Ryn found that he liked the man immediately, which confused him.

“Ah, quit your whining, Tillbrook,” said the soldier whom he had sat next to. This one took off his helmet too. A somewhat older, more weathered-looking man with greying hair, a hooked nose, and a big scar along one cheek. “This is nothing. In the Umbar campaign I once flew for two days straight without anything to eat, then got dropped directly into combat. At least here we’re getting a run-up.” He looked at Ryn sat on the bench across from him. “Aren’t you going to take your helmet off? We’re off duty now, ya know.”

Not wanting to appear out of the ordinary, Ryn lifted his hands to remove his helmet, but then Sagar elbowed him in the side.

Oh yeah, that’s right. Three of us have bounties on our heads. Ryn’s cheeks blushed hot and all of a sudden he was very glad that he was wearing the helmet.

“We prefer to keep them on,” Sagar said.

The older soldier frowned at him. “What in the hells for?”

Uh-oh.

“Because they’re with me,” said Vish, from further along the bench the soldiers were sitting on.

The soldiers each turned to look at who had spoken, then jolted with surprise.

“A Shadowfinger!” said the younger one.

“I thought you were all chasing a bounty in Northern Imfis,” said the older.

“We were,” said Vish, “but I completed on it, and now I’ve been redeployed to Manolia on a classified mission. These three are serving as my retinue, but they must keep their helmets on at all times. No questions asked.”

The soldiers looked at each other for a moment, then the older one shrugged. “Suit yourselves, then.”

Ryn’s shoulders relaxed a little. It seemed that Vish carried enough authority that this wasn’t going to be queried any further.

Just then a high pitched whistle sounded and the train began to strain forwards slowly. The platform outside began to scroll past through the windows. Outside, the pistons turning the wheels of the train began to pound out an increasingly fast rhythm.