The knife, of course, met nothing but air and metal as the swing kept going and hit the door frame of the car. It wasn't what he wanted to see, but it seemed it did delay the cat for a moment, and a moment was all he needed. Without a second thought, the mouse clambered up the side of the passenger car, hands grabbing onto the top corner. He pulled himself up, kicking up snow still stuck to the car's top, covering his dark blue suit with the white flakes.

In his scramble, he dropped his knife as he tried to keep a grip, the switchblade hitting the edge of the platform car. The fleeing rat didn't seem to notice.

He was too distracted by the attack chopper that he only just now noticed behind him

He stood on the roof of the car, briefly frozen, head turned over his shoulder, staring at the big menacing helicopter.

"No one told me there was going to be a copter," he whispered under his breath.

He snapped his eyes away from it and towards the back of the train. One car away sat his prize, in the cargo car with the open hatch. If he could salvage the situation and secure the cargo...

The cream mouse glanced down behind him to check how close his pursuer was, if he had recovered quickly or not, then took off running towards the engine, his brown boots keeping their traction quite well on the snow-covered train car.

"Yes, ferreal bad," Casey answered as he took the box, his colloquialism probably not aiding her understanding. He knelt for a moment to set up the linked feed, before hooking the box onto the side of the gun, turning it into a cumbersome, weighty mess of a weapon, but one with plenty of ammo.

"Stay here, now," he cautioned gravely. "I mean it! Stay. Here." He pointed for emphasis, then trundled to the door.

He found himself between train cars again, peeking out and up at what turned out to be... a pretty burly helicopter. Big, heavily armed, dangerous — the kind of thing that could easily blow the train apart. However, it stood to reason that it wouldn't blow the train apart, because there was very apparently something onboard that its operators wanted.

Casey didn't know who was at work, but he had gleaned this much: the aggressors did not seem like nice people. It was time to intervene.

He leaned against the doorframe for stability and cover, half-poking out, and raised his weapon. The helicopter was crabbing alongside the train to keep its sights on those on top of the freight car. This gave him a full buffet of things to shoot at... but what does one shoot at on an armored helicopter?

Casey must have had some working knowledge of helicopters, because sure enough, when the "PUM-PUM-PUM" of heavy automatic fire started rattling out of his gunarm, it was placed right at the singularly weakest point, the tail area, in hopes of damaging the rotor transmission or the rotor itself.

Between his surprising celerity, and just how not easy it was to maintain one's balance after nearly teetering off of a locomotive in-motion, the rat had plenty of time to move before Ace could get in shouting distance, let alone catch up to him. Not to say he didn't try, though.

As he scrambled his way back on solid(er) ground, Ace took a fleeting glance to the blade that was dropped before scooping it up himself and quickly pocketing it before hopping up to the train car's topside. The ratman was already too far away to attack. Rarely was it that the alleycat found conditions that even he couldn't throw a card in, but if there ever was one, this was it. Even if he could hit him spot on, it'd probably fly back in his face like a poorly-planned loogie. He'd need something like...

PUM-PUM-PUM

...a gun?

Ace finally saw fit to look behind him, and almost wished he didn't. At least now, he wouldn't have to pretend there was something capable of imminent death a few easily crossed meters behind him if he wanted to catch up. Because a freaking attack helicopter and matching squad were right freaking there at his backside. "Hoohohhh f&$#," he swore under his breath, as if saying it quietly was less likely to attract its attention. Contrawise to this belief, however, he up and hauled ass best as he could in the opposite direction.

Luckily for the serval, he was too far away to be very well seen by the crew, as none of them appeared to even be eagles, let alone have an eagle's sight. This wasn't such good news for Casey, however, who was already drawing plenty of attention to himself.

With a shout of something from the bandoliered man, the men remaining hardly missed a beat rushing down the roof in Casey's direction. As it was, though, he was a remarkably small target from their point of view, and the tiny, scattered bullets shot from their SMGs were more of a deterrent than anything else. Still, they seemed keen on firing what bullets they could have left to fire while slowly advancing on his position...

With another glance behind him, the suited mouse saw that his pursuer was still after him, and seemed even more concerned about the whirlybird than himself. But that wasn't his problem. The mystery man jumped, easily clearing the distance between the two passenger cars, and hit the next roof running. He had a plan in his mind.

Nothing stopped him from reaching the end of the car. The train engine was just ahead, black smoke billowing out of the machine, floating just barely above the rat. He could still smell the choking, burnt stench though. Standing at the edge of the passenger car, he turned around and stood his ground, quickly catching his breath as he waited for the yellow cat to catch up.

Archer nodded in acknowledgement to Geoff's questions. They were definitely good questions. Ones, which he did not know the answer to, or at last the latter he wasn't sure of anyways.

"I don't know," He said as he walked over to the crate. It was locked tight. He probably could hack the lock, but really, he wasn't that interested in the contents, "But whatever it is, we need to secure it, before those thugs reach here." He said before looking around the room.

"Judging by where they came from, I doubt we can count on backup from the Security Staff..."

Archer walked over to the wall, where a towing belt was hanging, "Maybe we can use this." He said as he took it and tossed one of the ends to the hedgehog. "Just wrap it around somehow..." He said, as he demonstrated by first wrapping it up in the edge of the skid it was sitting on, and then ensuring that it stretched over the crate.

It was clear he had no idea what he was doing, because every few moments, he'd have another idea, "Okay..now push your end through the skid, so we can criss-cross!"

Actually, with the gap between the train cars as insignificant as it was, Casey would not be a viable target at platform-level until the rooftop troops were very near to him, cresting the "horizon" of the car they stood on, so to speak. That meant his cover was not all that valuable, as they'd be able to shoot from quite close.

After getting a good flurry of shots off at the chopper, he just plain ducked and covered, crouching low back inside the baggage car as bullets hailed in. In an awkward, hunkered run-crouch, he rumbled a few steps away, retreating from the door to take cover behind a considerable heap of luggage.

The first unfamiliar face to pursue him into the baggage car was going to get an unpleasant welcome, needless to say.

Should've seen this coming. Geoff had absolutely no reason to trust a total stranger. Especially in these circumstances. Hell, he was smart not to. Despite it however, he tossed the belt next to the crate, and let out an exasperated sigh.

"I get that you're suspicious. But I guarantee you, it won't matter whose side I'm on once they start swarming in here." He said. He dropped the belt.

Then he looked at Desmond, who was making a whole lot of noise. And throwing around threats.

"Look, pal" He said, "Let's get something straight. I am not with that helicopter pilot. I got lucky with that break in their fire. That being said, there's no way I can call them off."

Before now, he'd been playing it pretty friendly, but it wasn't working how he'd hoped; he was in a room with two people who seemed like they would rather kick his ass than help him. It was like being back in school. He grew tense, "Now, remind me. How's this going to turn out?"