Ten minutes after Pei Xuan gave the order, the main interplanetary rail yard on World 26 roared to life.
Five hundred massive Spirit-Furnace Star-Trains—each one three miles long and pulled by an armored black-iron locomotive with a glowing red furnace core—lined up side by side across five hundred floating stone tracks. Steam hissed from their brass valves, and the warm smell of burning Spirit-Coal and roasting pork buns filled the night air.
Standing at the front of Platform One, General Tie Zhan wore his heavy iron armor and a bright red “Chief Conductor” armband on his thick bicep. He held three oversized steamed pork buns in his left hand and a brass megaphone in his right.
Beside him stood Ye Guhan, the aloof Rank 5—now Rank 7 Peak—sword prodigy of the Broken Star Belt. Ye Guhan wore a spotless white cultivator robe... topped with a bright yellow plastic hard-hat that said [CHIEF HIGHWAY ENGINEER] in red block letters, and an orange reflective safety vest strapped neatly across his chest.
“Listen up, you lazy track-sweepers!” Tie Zhan bellowed into his brass megaphone, addressing fifty thousand former pirate soldiers and frost-warriors who were now lined up in neat yellow Debtor vests. “Lord Pei just gave us an emergency night mission! That rock-headed idiot Crag-Devourer robbed every grain bin on Worlds 27, 28, 29, and 30! Twenty billion folks over there don’t even have a crust of dry bread left for breakfast tomorrow! Tonight, we are taking five hundred trains across the border…
