warfare in another place and time

In a rail car riding over an enormous canyon the wind blew sand in my face. It was the strangest feeling to be traveling several hundred feet in the air across one rail. It seemed as though we were placed with no reference in an exciting yet haunting space and time. As we moved across, the rail came to several switches. He operated a lever to control our direction at each switch though he seemed to do it with great reluctance. He had never been there either. We didn't know where we were going. The car was completely constructed of metal. No seats, no windows other than the long narrow one in front used by the operator while moving forward. The continuous intense scrapping of metal on metal made it impossible to have a conversation as we traveled at high speeds. There were spots of the interior that had rusted out yet the car and the rail were still functional. There were fires burning over the tops of huge chain link fences on the other side. In the distance atop plateaus I could see countless flying objects with wings but too small to be planes. Past the last switch the car came around a winding left turn straight for the edge of the canyon. It felt like a roller coaster yet the rail was seemingly suspended in air. The entire car was empty and stretched about fifteen feet back, maybe six feet across. The rail climbed to make the edge of the flat land where I looked out to the right to view numerous infernos. Massive burning fuel tanks and power plants in fenced compounds were exploding, hit with bombs from the sky but not from planes. Men with mechanical wings that encased small incendiary bombs to dispose of at will were destroying this industrial area with little opposition from a small army trying to defend it. The force of an exploding fuel tank shook the car to point of almost derailing it. As a crazy array of gunfire flew past us I realized that more of these strange rocket powered men were flying over us but it was clear we weren't the intended target. I watched as several of them were hit and rapidly spiraled to the ground. In one last glance at the chaos we were passing a saw several of these men swirling past each other in opposing colors, gray and blue armored suits. The rail car continued to ascend toward another plateau in this unknown desert. We were refugees in some futuristic yet outdated mode of troop transport, trying to stay alive. It was weird.