Upsilon Chi sat on the junction between the second and third cars of the train. He inhaled recycled air through his armored suit. Below him, the ground flew by in a blur of red rock and metal. They were still underground but they would be breaking through to the surface soon. Upsilon dimmed his visor in anticipation of seeing the sun.

The train made a sharp turn before snaking into a coiled tunnel. The train rose faster now. The thousands of chunks of preprocessed ore rattled against each other as each tiny imperfection on the nearly perfectly smooth rails was magnified by the pure speed the train was accelerating to. Upsilon felt a chill run through his body as the train's cooling system came online. Freezing blue fluid pumped through the train like a pulse. The train roared, the second and third fusion cores had come online too. A gentle hum added to the symphony of rattling rock and pumping iron. The train pushed faster.

  Upsilon was smashed against the front of the car behind him, ringing the metal like a bell. His weak bones struggled against a force of acceleration unknown to them. The train was painfully cold now. He felt the stinging chill penetrate deep into his bones, numbing the pain of his recent injury. The tunnel walls were barely recognizable as real anymore. The speed blurred everything to the point of absurdism.

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  Then, in a single moment, the train straightened out, the beating pulse of the cooling system quickened, and Upsilon Chi was bombarded by overwhelming light. There was no way to describe the sun as anything other than oppressive. Upsilon grew nostalgic for that deep chill that penetrated his bones only a moment ago. Despite the best reflective surface science could offer, the flaming heat of the sun still managed to touch his skin. His body throbbed as the heat thawed the recent wound on his back. Upsilon's only relief came when the train's acceleration slowed releasing him from his inertial prison. He took the moment to survey the small silver horizon.

  That's when he saw the UND Medusa.