The Vanguard Vixen

Reunion and Reformation (One)

Bit of language in here.

Up ahead, the sounds of creaking steel rang through the tunnel.

Turana walked beside Zhirkov at the front of the band of mercenaries. They followed Zhirkov, he followed Turana, and she went where ET told her to. The mercenary whose life she had spared due to his claim to know his way around the tunnels had taken a liking to Dr Lukas, and the two hovered behind the leaders, chatting to each other about...

Turana couldn't even imagine what the two would talk about. One was a crazy Vanguard scientist and the other an expert Cafri mercenary. They seemed to be getting along just fine though. She paused when she reached a fork in the tunnels.

"ET, which way?"

He raised his head and pointed left, and then went back to his conversation with the doctor. Zhirkov looked at him sceptically.

"You trust him?" He asked Turana.

"He's all I got," She sighed. "And if he does lead us to the underground tunnel power source, I might be able to start up one of the old trains."

Zhirkov looked impressed. "You are a doctor, soldier and engineer?"

Turana started moving, and he had to follow to listen.

"She was a Jack of all trades, did everything and anything. Got a degree in everything she might need. Medical, electrical, mechanical, it's one of the things that made her the perfect subject."

"This original you talk of, have you met her?"

"I am her," Turana trudged on. "Everything she is, everything she knows."

"But you aren't the same. Do you want to meet her?" Zhirkov pressed, shuffling a bit faster so he was right by her side.

"Okay," she shrugged, taking a sudden interest in her boots. "I do want to meet her. Why wouldn't I?"

"How do I put this..."

Before he could find the right words in the language foreign to him, Turana sharply yanked Zhirkov onto the ground. He spun to see what it was that had been coming at him. Embedded in the wall, still shaking from the force of impact was a steel bar. Zhirkov pulled it out of the wall. The tip was pointed. No, it was sharpened. Someone had thrown it.

Zhirkov gave the signal to his men behind them to stay low, and he called out a few of them to follow him. Here, three tunnels met. The bar had flown in from the tunnel on their right, so they crossed over to the other side and waited in ambush. Meanwhile, Turana analysed the bar. The sharp side was crudely made. With what, she couldn't guess. The other side was machine-cut, but not with the precision an automated machine would have used. 

This one would have been handheld. The last question was how it had been launched. It was long enough that she could hold it like a short spear of sorts, but the balance wasn't right, and it was too fast. So a machine launch, a catapult perhaps? She didn't know of any weapons that had been made to fire steel bars, which left her with the one option. Everything was handmade. Which went against everything the engineers of Vanguard did. They relied on i-tech. If it happened to disappear one day...

All in all, these weren't Vanguard assailants, but their weapons would cause damage to the people she was with if she didn't do something about it.

Turana stepped out in front of the tunnel.

"What are you doing!" Zhirkov furiously whispered. "You're going to get yourself killed."

He pulled her away, and a second later another steel bar struck the wall opposite, in almost the same place as the one before.

"I am trying to make sure nobody gets killed." She snapped back.

Turana took up the same position once more, and again a steel bar came flying through the air. She leaned aside at the last possible moment and watched it the whole way. It went right through the wall. When she straightened, Turana knew right where to throw the bar in her hand. Speed and time, she had estimated. Distance would depend on how accurate the first two were.

A crash further ahead in the dark tunnel notified Turana of her success. And then the sound of running, not at them, but away from them. Turana gave chase. Zhirkov sighed and signalled for the rest of the mercenaries to stay back, whereas those with him surged ahead behind Turana. She had stopped by a mechanical contraption that would have looked impressive, if not for the steel bar sticking down through it. Zhirkov caught up with her.

"How did you know they had only one?" He asked her.

"I didn't." Turana ran off again.

"Wait!" He called, and she stopped, but he didn't know how to say what he wanted to in English.

"They are getting away Zhirkov." She sprinted on.

Zhirkov murmured in Prussian. "What if it's a trap?" But she was too far. He shook his head and followed, murmuring something about impulsive decision-making.

Turana turned right, went straight past a four-way junction and then left at the next one, as she followed the sound of running. She reached another point where three tunnels met.  She saw light coming from the one on the left. She turned into it and immediately had to shield her eyes from the brightness. The people on the other side, she couldn't look at them, but she knew they were there.

"Turana?"

She recognised that voice.

"Hey, turn those off," It came again. "Can't you see you're blinding her!"

"Lewis?" Turana called.

Her eyes still hurt from the light, and she didn't see him coming. She was almost swept off her feet by the hug he gave her though, and she had to take a few steps back to keep her balance. She hugged him back, dearly, and as soon as she could, she kissed him. And then hugged him again.

"You don't know how much I've missed you Turana." He whispered in her ear.

"I think I do. At this rate, you're going to crack a rib."

Lewis apologised and leaned away. He took her in, right up from the straight auburn hair that fell past her shoulders, to her beautiful brown eyes, and down to the rest of her wonderful body. She wasn't hurt, at least, it wasn't anything that he could see.

"Are you okay?" He asked her.

She nodded to Zhirkov and the band of mercenaries with him. "They helped. It is you I was worried about, down here all by yourself. Where is Ali?" She peeked over his shoulder but didn't see the boy.

"We got split up," Lewis replied, and then the rest of the mercenaries poured in behind Zhirkov. He pointed to them. "You had an entire army with you, and you came charging in here all by yourself? What if we shot first?"

Zhirkov started to speak, but Turana interrupted.
"One, it's hardly an army. There's only thirty-two of them," she waved towards the group behind Lewis. "And it seems like you have an army of your own."

Lewis shook his head.
"They are just some friends I made."

"Same."

"So where were you headed?" She asked him.

Lewis produced the map he had. "There's a power station down here that controls the direction of the tunnels. Someone keeps changing them, and we want to find out who. We are kind of lost though, with all the changes."