The Starlight Sentinels: The Amusing Story of a Struggling Superhero Team

Chapter 1: Snipe Hunt

Daryl slowed his bike to a stop in front of a sprawling sea of railroad tracks littered with dozens upon dozens of boxcars. The veritable gallery of graffiti on the cars coupled with the slight smell of rust in the air made this place look more like a graveyard for trains than an active hub.

"Finally," moaned Sam. "Are the roads in the city designed so you hit every possible red light or are we just that lucky?"

"Just lucky I guess," mumbled Daryl as he removed his helmet. "Well, we better get started. Where's Olivia's car?"

"Probably trapped in another time zone thanks to a damn red light."

"Here they come." Daryl approached Olivia's car as it slowed to a stop.

"I'm sorry," Olivia said to Daryl. "We—"

"We can't get around because the chief of police hates us too much to sign off on us using sirens and lights for our vehicles," groused Eric.

"Washington said whatever the TSA found might try to get out of town by train, so we're to investigate for any unusual activity," said Daryl. "You two go to the control tower, ask the yardmaster if they saw anything and if any trains are leaving here in the immediate future. After that, you can help Sam and I search the area."

"Got it. Race ya!" Eric took off for the tower in a dash, leaving Olivia to follow far behind in the boy's footsteps.

"I'll do a fly over to get a bird's eye view while you search the area on foot. Understand?" asked Daryl.

"Yeah. We're not sure what we're looking for, and we don't know where it is. So we'll wander around in the hope that we both find it and that it doesn't want to kill us. That about the size of things?" asked Sam.

"Not how I would've worded it, but yes," said Daryl. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"No, but this does sound a lot like a snipe hunt," noted Sam. "I just heard that kid say the chief of police hates you guys and looking at this place I'm getting a vibe that we're just being given something to do."

Daryl sighed. "Our relationship with the police could be... better. But the Starlight Sentinels work in cooperation with them. So dead end or not we've got a job to do."

"A'ight, you're the boss. Let's go to work."

"I'll be right above you the whole time. If anything happens, just yell." Daryl quickly leapt into the air, seamlessly floating right into the sky.

"Holy shit," awed Sam as she watched Daryl's cape flutter in the wind before disappearing from view. "He really can fly." Turning her awestruck gaze back towards the ground, Sam looked at the endless lines of boxcars stretched out in front of her and sighed. "This is gonna take all day."

Searching the yard proved as tedious as Sam suspected. She checked unlocked boxcars, investigated engines, looked under trains, and without fail found nothing of interest. After a while, Sam reasoned anything hiding here probably would have caught tetanus just from being around so much rusted metal. During a check of another trio of boxcars, Sam tried to recall when her own last tetanus shot was. Before long, Sam's mind was wandering so much she almost didn't hear someone calling her name.

"Sam!" Looking up Sam saw Daryl, descending gently towards her. "Have you found anything?"

"Whole lotta nothing." Daryl landed softly on his feet. "You?"

"I haven't seen anything unusual."

"Telling ya, snipe hunt."

"Eric called a little a while ago. The yard master said he hasn't seen anything either, but there are a couple of trains leaving here soon. We should probably check them out before that happens."