Metal Militia

[Reeves]

"You can leave your equipment here then. Our crews will see it transferred over to the work site. And don't worry, they have ample experience in conveying sensitive equipment."

The words came immediately after Blake elected to see what Ramsey was like. And rather than wait for them to comply with his suggestion regarding their equipment, Damien turned on his heel deftly and began to walk away. They would have to keep up if they truly wanted to get a sense of the place.

The monorail itself was close by, settled in neatly at the platform reserved for the lower priority lines to this district, and the doors were still open. As if to beckon their inbound passengers.

Guards that were stationed all along the way back towards the tram once again performed their rigid yet graceful salutes as the Commander passed them by. For his part, he paid them no mind, but his posture very much sat in line with their steely attitudes.

A quiet hiss punctuated the closing of the doors and a dull thud denoted that they were locked securely with everyone onboard.

It was time to decide if they wished to sit or stand, and Damien gestured for his companions to do the former, while he elected to remain standing.

Regardless of their choice the tram proceeded after exactly a minute more of waiting, likely arranging clearance codes and sorting the route out with a central control room. This ensures there are no interruptions at any of the junctions they would pass by later, or traffic issues with the other trams.

The ride begins through the oldest tunnels - corridors first blasted out of the rock back in 807 AS. The walls here are raw, jagged stone lined with rusting support beams and ancient wiring, some of it still held together with zip ties and soldered patches. Dim, flickering lamps cast intermittent pools of light, giving only brief glimpses of the spaces beyond - munitions storage rooms, barracks chiseled from the asteroid’s core, and a central spire serving as an academy for the Fort's green recruits.

As the car picks up speed, it dives into a more expansive chamber, one of the newer additions hewn during the DSE mutiny and exodus from Toronto. Here, the influence of skilled engineers is evident. Massive gantries hang overhead, bristling with cranes and fabrication arms, and the airspace is cluttered with suspended walkways and humming power lines. Workshops buzz below, where torches flare and robots slog about to deliver heavy materials. Welding masks glow like fireflies in the gloom. The tram passes over a deep excavation site - a new hangar, perhaps, or an expansion of the station’s reactor core. Men in jury-rigged exosuits haul plasma cutters the size of rifles, carving through rock with mechanical precision.

Then comes a shift again, not just in architecture, but in atmosphere. The next sector is newer still, the rocky walls feel darker, more rigid. This is the legacy of those veterans both broken and unwanted upon their return from the cauldron that was the Gallic war. The tunnel here has been widened and plated with clean, military-grade steel. Rows of surveillance cameras blink steadily at every intersection. The lighting is cold, efficient, almost clinical. The monorail slows automatically at a checkpoint - glimpses from the windows reveal a squad of uniformed Xenos in pressed uniforms, each one marked with the insignia of Ramsey's squadrons. They move in sync, no wasted motion, eyes forward. The authoritarian discipline is palpable. Banners hang on the bulkheads, depicting sharp-edged eagles, arrowheads and white circles - all of which serve to evoke a tangible sense of unity. Albeit brutal in its application.

Finally, the tram reaches the observation sector - a rare stretch of transparency in an otherwise walled-off fortress. The car slows to a crawl, offering a wide view of the Georgian Ice Field beyond. Frost crystals cling to the window edges, refracting the scattered starlight of Ontario's B2 star into a hazy blue shimmer. Far off, faint lights mark the remains of DSE mining rigs, half-buried in ice. Patrol craft hum past the station’s perimeter, full tilt into their engines and radiators glowing hot.

As the car coasts to a halt at the main hub, the doors hiss open once more. The rails behind stretch like a steel artery through the bowels of a movement caught between its criminal past and a potentially militarized future.