I really do hate flying so very much.

The air whistled past my ears. My stomach felt like it was constantly falling out of the back of my body, like the most intense point of a rollercoaster ride, but I tightened my diaphragm and forced down the vomit that threatened to rise in my gullet. We’ve practiced this, I reminded myself. We just hadn’t had a chance to practice as much as I would have liked.

The air was filled with dust and below us was sand. As well as my black leather Miracle Force uniform I wore a helmet with a visor to keep it all out.

Did Mute have to wear a cape? Even over the noise of the rushing air and through the helmet, I could hear it flapping around above me, strapped as I was underneath Mute in a harness. He had claimed it would help him steer somehow, but I was convinced that he just wore it for show, to look more like a superhero.

I tried to ignore the flapping of Mute’s cape and searched in the swirling browns and yellows below us as they got rapidly closer. It was hard to make anything out in the hilly landscape except sand and dirt. But then I spotted a long dark rectangle, unnaturally straight, which seemed to be moving, throwing up a cloud of dust behind.

{There’s the target!} I said to Mute over our telepathic link. He wouldn’t have been able to hear me if I spoke with my mouth anyway.

{I see it!} said Mute in my mind.

The path of our descent shifted as he steered us towards the train telekinetically. I pushed down another wave of nausea. The single rectangle expanded into a series; I could discern the individual cars..

{Weakling, Mute.} That was Abram’s voice in my mind over the link which Mute had created. He was a long way up above us in the helicopter we had just jumped out of. It was still unnerving being spoken to telepathically at a distance, but I didn’t have time to be freaked out by that now. {I want you both to remember your training. Your first live mission is now underway. I know I can count on you, boys. I’m sure this mission will be a great success.}

{Sir yes sir!} we each chanted back in our minds.

Before we reached the train I had enough time to gulp inside my helmet and think very loudly to myself, Ok, don’t mess this up.

{I’m not going to mess this up!} said Mute. {Be quiet and let me concentrate!}

{No chatter, please,} said Abram.

Whoops, they had heard my thought. I brought my attention back to the present, back to what was immediately going on, just like I’d practiced in training. You had to stay focused on the present when in the link or your background thoughts clogged up the lines of communication.

The train was about fifty feet below us now. Mute began to pull up and we lost some of our momentum as we tilted back a little in the air. He’d brought us in so that we hovered over a spot where the cars passed underneath one by one. Now the drop was about ten feet.

{Ok, prepare for release!} I said in my mind.

I pulled the yellow cord on the right side of my harness.

Nothing happened.

Panic lanced through me.

{What’s going on, Weakling?} said Mute.

“The cord won’t work!” I said out loud inside my helmet. Then when I realised he wouldn’t be able to hear me, I thought {The release mechanism is jammed!}

{What?}

{It’s not working!}

{Come on, use your super strength or something!}

{I don’t want to break it!}

{Quick, or you’ll miss your chance!}

I yanked on the cord a couple more times, and nothing happened. I put my full strength into it. The cord ripped out of the harness and I fell down towards the train.

“Arrrgh!” I shouted with surprise inside my helmet.

I plummeted straight down and slammed spread-eagled onto the roof of the train’s caboose, belly flopping onto it like a pancake onto a frying pan. A metallic clang reverberated around inside my helmet.

I lifted my head up. Right away, the rush of air running over the top of the train shoved me backwards, billowing around me. I went back heels-over-head and scrambled about madly as it pushed me off the rear end of the train, flailing my limbs around. My hand caught the top rung of the ladder on the caboose. The rest of my body kept moving but then arced round the pivot of my grip so that I crashed into the solid metal back of the train, holding on tight to the ladder.

Any chance of a surreptitious landing had evaporated.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Damn, I thought to myself. Only it wasn’t just to myself, was it?

{Boys, what’s going on down there?} said Abram over the mind-link. {The video feed made it look like you botched the landing!} Abram was watching from a helicopter miles up in the air by means of an extremely powerful camera. Lucky Abram.

{I’m alright!} I said. Then {I mean, we’re fine, sir!} I tried to sound calm and together in my mind, which was difficult. {I’ve made it on to the train. We just had a little...teething problem with the release mechanism is all!}

Mute floated down to the roof of the caboose above me. His helmet peeked over the end of it to look at me. {Are you alright?}

{Never mind that, soldiers,} said Abram. There was a small note of irritation in his voice, all the more noticeable because it was so rare. {Continue with your mission!}

Obeying, I made my way down the ladder rung by rung, taking care not to fall off when the train wobbled and juddered since I wasn’t strapped onto Mute any more. I came down onto a small walkway that stuck out of the back of the train. In the back of the caboose was a steel door. Thankfully it had no window, or else I’m sure the passengers inside would be staring out of it trying to work out what had just bounced off their roof. I tried the handle.

{Door’s locked,} I said over the link. I was breathing fast. What was I meant to do in this situation? I tried to make a good decision. I really didn’t want to mess this up. {I’ll have to rip it off.}

Mute joined me on the platform. {Wait!} He put out his hands. He looked dumb in his helmet. It was just a little bit too big for him, making him look a spindly robot with an oversized head. Not that I was one to talk. {Let me locate the target telepathically first,} he said. {I’m going to break the link for a moment.}

With the mind link broken I couldn’t help but let one of my own thoughts pop up loudly into my mind. Oh yeah, that’s right, he’s meant to do that first… You silly weakling. Come on, keep it together, Lolo, you can do this! My inner bully and champion jostled with each other. Around us, the dust and dirt of the Middle Eastern desert continued to rush past. Mute just stood still apparently staring at the back of the door of the train, his cape still flapping around him. I couldn’t see what his eyes or expression were doing inside his helmet.

{Ok, I’ve found her,} said his voice in my mind all of a sudden. {The people in this nearest carriage were scared by the noise of you bouncing on the roof but they couldn’t see anything out of the windows so they’ve calmed down. I think they’ve decided it was a bird.} Mute didn’t know Arabic or any of the other local languages so he couldn’t understand the inner monologues of anyone on the train not thinking in English. He could however mind-read feelings and images. Those were universal languages. {There’s someone in the front carriage though who’s scared nearly out of her mind. Actually her mind keeps shifting in and out of focus, like she’s half there and half not. That’s got to be her.}

Of course she would have to be in the front car, I thought, forgetting that the link was back on.

{I said that’s enough chatter, please!} said Abram’s voice. {Well done, Mute. Now proceed with bringing in the target! I want you in and out of there as quickly as possible, as safely as possible!}

{Sorry sir! Yes sir!} We took off our helmets and they tumbled in the passing desert, along with our para-harness. Mute’s pasty face and red hair shone in front of me. He looked stupid in his flapping black cape, now a completely redundant addition to our dark Miracle Force leathers, but I managed not to think that too loudly—I hoped.

I took a deep breath and a firm grip on the door handle. “Ready?” I said out loud.

Sweat glittered on his brow but he gave me a tight-lipped nod.

“On three then. One...two...three!”

I tugged on the door handle against the resistance of its lock and the door opened with a crack of metal. I tugged a little too hard, though, and the whole door came away in my hand with a snap.

“Whoops...” I flung the door off the train behind me, the same way our helmets had gone.

From inside the car people screamed and shouted at us.

“Go go go!” I yelled, out of panic as much as assertiveness, I didn’t know which.

I ran down the aisle of the train hoping that Mute was following me. People backed away and cowered from us, holding their hands up to protect themselves and getting as close as they could to the walls of the car.

One tall bulky man was brave enough to stand in my way and hold up a palm to try to stop me in my tracks, his eyebrows bending inwards in noble outrage. “Tw’qaf!” he said in a language I didn’t understand.

I didn’t have time to stop so as I ran past him I merely brushed him to one side with a hand like I was fending off in a football game. The man landed on his ass in the space between a seat and the floor and cried out with surprise.

“Sorry!” I called over my shoulder in a language I didn’t know if he understood. Mute was keeping pace with me.

Thankfully the doors between the cars were not locked so I only had to open the first one I came to before sprinting down the length of the next car. I still managed to break off the handle of the next door by accident though. I dropped it on the floor as we continued to race down the train, trailing chaos in our wake.

{Stop, she’s in this one!} said Mute in my mind after we passed through a fifth door.

I halted suddenly in my tracks and Mute crashed into the back of me. I stayed in place but Mute glanced off me and fell to one side.

{Ouch! Be careful!} he said as he scrambled back to his feet and stood by me.

{Have you found her, boys?} said Abram over the link.

{Just identifying her now, sir.} I took in the passengers in this car properly for the first time. There were women, men, children sitting inside on the grey metal seats. These looked less surprised, probably because they hadn’t heard something land on the roof or seen me rip off the back door of the train, but they cocked their heads in puzzlement at the two foreigners clad in black leather, one in a cape, who had just entered all the same. They began to call out and ask us things. A man with a thick moustache dressed in a blue uniform and carrying a machine on a strap around his neck called particularly loudly. When we didn’t respond, he switched language. “Where do you come from? You have tickets?”

I ignored him, scanning the other passengers, trying to recall the mission briefing and the relevant parts of what I had learned over the last few months. The women inside the train were wearing a variety of different Muslim dress.

“Which one is she, Mute?” I asked.

{Hold on…} Mute kept silence for a few moments longer. He must be trying to lock on to the target’s mind. The questions and protests of the passengers were getting louder. {There—it’s her!} he said all of a sudden, pointing at one of the women half way down the car who was sat by herself and dressed in a black burqa, covering her whole body. When she saw us pointing her eyes stretched wide in the slit of her burqa like twin full moons against the shadow of the black cloth.

Clearly knowing she’d been identified, the woman stood up. Oh no! She was about to use her powers!