Much like his father, Xerxes used the Slugterranean Express for transport. It was larger, heavier, and better-armored than the luxury Slugterran.
Most of all, it made a statement.
The Slugterran Express was a common occurrence in the Western 99 Caverns, rosy-red and accented in brass. Pleasing to the eye, and to the pocketbook. However, heads turned when the cargo-trains that were the Slugterranean Express moved through. Big, loud, powerful. And always the curiosity as to what was carried in them. Unfortunately, it also made them a considerable target for those would-be daredevils who wanted whatever was being freighted across the caverns.
Gold? Fuel? Materials that could be used for survival or personal profit?
Vagabonds were frequently attacking his freighters. Thus was the need for the Aerial Sentries, remote-controlled armed flying machines that protected the trains and whatever was carried on them, whether it be people or goods.
Out here, in the northernmost reaches, the air was too chill for the Sentries. The temperatures plummeted too swiftly and so steeply that their inner machinations and sensors froze. He was working on that, but first, a trip out there was necessary.
On top of studying for a workaround of his Sentries, the rails needed replacing. Another artery to change to the monorail system he was slowly integrating the rest of the rails to. It was a simple matter of mapping out the paths they carved through the landscape and figuring out how to make it work properly in efficient time.
The horn echoed through the tunnels and chambers, a deafening herald to the metal monster’s approach. The massive freighter engine rumbled through the caverns on its weekly supply trek with a passenger of honor.
Standing in the engine’s control room was Xerxes Blakk. Back straight, head lofted with his arms resting at the small of his back. Certainly not the same imposing monolith his father was before him, but his sheer presence more than made up for that. He was silent, letting work continue in his engine around him, but there was a certain unease about those engineers at the consoles. Quite a few of them had worked for his father while he was a boy in training, and the fear of the elder Blakk was still prominent.
The journey had gone smooth, though even Xerxes could feel the frozen rails slipping against the wheels of his train. It was a certain reverberation in the floor beneath him. A singular heated rail, he thought. He could have a prototype drafted within the week.
His thought processes were jarred to a stop almost as suddenly as the engine was. The force caused everyone to brace as they were thrown forward, Xerxes to stumble a couple steps. The next few moments were low chaos, the exhaust ports on the outside of the engine opened with a fwoosh! and expelling super-heated air above the sound of the idling engine.
The sound of the young Blakk’s voice caused a few in the room to jump. With some sort of reflection on it, he realized that his voice had dropped and grated. Not unlike his father, whom he was sure those who had startled had seen the older man in anger. He stood up, straightened his collar a bit, and coughed to resume his composure and smoother vocals.
“Alright. You, you, and you.” A gloved finger pointed toward three of those in the room, all of them had jumped. “You will come with me. I feel ... like a patrol may be necessary. Call it intuition.” He looked to the rest of his crew, turning as though leaving. “The rest of you. Keep working at getting us unstuck. We have a schedule to keep, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
With confirmation of roles assigned, he swept out the door to the rest of the train behind with his detail keeping his sides and back. One of his Vanguard cleared their throats.
“You think the weather got bad enough to freeze the tracks, sir?”
A contemplative noise left him as they continued their trek. “Something tells me this has nothing to do with the weather.”
