28 January 2015 (finishing off the cybergoons)
One of the Church Policemen backs off to get his gun working again. The Cyberknight starts kicking at David, who retreats into the corridor. Thorfin finishes off his Jazuit, and Stephen knocks his down, though the enemy’s not yet out of the fight; he swipes at Stephen’s ankles with his implanted claws. A kick causes him to lose interest. Diamond grapples the closest Church Policeman, and the one who backed off fires ineffectually.
Diamond throws her Church Policeman into the second one, knocking them both down, then kicks the closer one. Thorfin, lacking other enemies, pivots to take on the cyberknight, who manages to evade the punch. David shoots the distracted cyberknight in the face, killing him instantly, then starts to scoop up spare Herod IV magazines.
Stephen steps forward over the Jazuits and pistol-whips the Church Policeman who’s started to get up, while Diamond kicks him from above and behind. Stephen grabs his flechette pistol as he drops, but it’s yammering at him in French and doesn’t have a trigger, so he throws it to David.
All the surviving prisoners get tied up, and one of the Church Policemen gets asked about the rest of the guards. There are two up ahead, but he’s being evasive about something, and when pushed goes off on a rant about “not all of the righteous wear uniforms”. But they do get the Cardinal’s compartment number, 17.
The team moves up the train into the front sleeping car, Stephen and David in the lead, followed by Diamond and Thorfin. The corridor is only really wide enough for single file, though it’s possible for people to squeeze past each other.
Stephen’s reloaded his pistol and is on the alert, and when a shadowy figure moves out of one of the cabins he opens fire without waiting to identify it. He shoots, and the man goes down, though another man shoots back with a sub-machinegun (doing a pretty poor job of hitting anyone even when they’re all in a row). These two have spiked and coloured hair, and wear leathers; David reckons they don’t look much like Cyberpapal flunkies, so calls on them to drop their guns as they’re outnumbered; they don’t respond.
Diamond and Thorfin, keeping an eye out behind, see the American tourists Sid and Iris, wandering towards the fight in a fascinated manner. Diamond calls to them to stay back, but they don’t seem to be paying attention; she lifts off the floor in an intimidating manner, but this doesn’t help.
David shoots at the lead punk, who returns fire. Sid hauls out a large pistol and blazes away at the group, not doing well in the matter of hitting but catching David in the back; meanwhile Thorfin’s hit by stray rounds from in front. Diamond rushes down the corridor over Thorfin’s head, and kicks at Sid ineffectively; Iris pops a set of blades and swipes at Diamond, but ends up bloodily wounding Sid in the back, and when Diamond kicks him a bit more effectively he goes down. Stephen takes down one of the punks, and David the other; Diamond kicks Iris, who goes down.
The Cardinal proves to be in a reality bubble of his own, connected to the GodNet. David puts a round through his deck, and he looks confused as he comes back to reality, but does his best to be persuasive: “Ah, good, you made it”. The team’s not having any of this, and starts considering how they’ll get him back to England.