BOOM! CRACK!
Sparks showered across the middle doors of Car #3 as thirty spiked iron boarding pods clamped onto the sides of Star-Train No. 8 like ugly black ticks.
Before the pirates could even finish cutting through the outer door seals with their blood-flame blowtorches, Ye Guhan frowned and tapped a brass button on the wall labeled [Emergency Door Release — Station Use Only].
Hiss—clunk!
All six heavy sliding doors of Car #3 and Car #4 slid open neatly on their greased tracks.
An airtight Vacuum-Shield Curtain—fused by Pei Xuan into every train doorway so air wouldn’t leak out at stations—shimmered with a pale blue glow.
Outside in the boarding pods, First Mate Scar-Face Liu and two other Rank 6 Blood-Skull Pirate Lieutenants—Iron-Tooth Ma and Butcher Sun—were still pressing their shoulders against the doors, getting ready to ram them open on the count of three.
When the doors slid open by themselves, all three pirate bosses stumbled forward on empty air and tumbled headfirst onto the clean linoleum floor of Car #3 like three sacks of rotten potatoes.
