The Vanguard Vixen

37 (Three)

Vivian watched the building day and night. She was an observant person. She was alive because she noticed details. But there was nothing much to see from where she stood, hidden in the nighttime shadows, one hundred yards away. There were no patrols outside, courtesy of Deputy Kolarov, only four sentries that stood still at the one exit.

But the man had mentioned something about the number seventy. So all the rest were inside. All those men for a bunch of refugees. No, there was something else. But more soldiers on the inside would make it harder to pick anyone off. Not in an enclosed space. Not without getting seen.

Someone very smart was running the security here.

But it was too open. There had to be someone watching the other parts of the Bastion, in case of any attempted entry or escape from an assailant. It left only one option. There was a fifth guard. No, not a guard. A sharpshooter. Because the theory didn't work without the existence of a fifth person. The guards and the walls were irrelevant without someone else to watch them from the outside.

Vivian looked at the walls and at the buildings that surrounded her. The small rays of moonlight that streamed through the holes in the roof above were not enough to illuminate most of what was below. To her eyes, it was clear as day. A small bump, hidden amongst a cluster of rubble on the roof to her left stood out. To anyone else, it might have seemed like someone had demolished a concrete wall, shattered it into pieces, and then neglected to remove the debris. In her experience, it was a perfect spot.

Well, it was nearly perfect. For now at least.

Vivian headed left, not fast or slow, but something in between which was faster and quieter than creeping or running. She stopped five feet away, where the cracked concrete and scattered rubble began, still as the urban landscape surrounding her. Chances were that this was an expert sniper, for he had been left to watch the entire temple by himself. But the one basic thing that came with being human was that when one lay down and aimed forward, they got paranoid about what was happening behind them. Human nature. It was why snipers operated in two-man teams, with spotters. Spotters were supposed to acquire targets and calculate range and all that, but their real value was a second pair of eyes. All things equal, a sniper's performance depended on their breathing and heart rate. Anything that helped to calm either one was invaluable.

Vivian stepped back and listened hard.

One heartbeat. Slow, and sure. She inhaled deeply, hoping to detect the kind of chemical tang that would betray the presence of anything that wasn't organic, anything that could warn the man hidden within the rubble. No scents arose other than the familiar aroma of dusty concrete and weathered wood. She walked a silent curve, working on the assumption that most people were right-handed. She wanted to be on his left before she let her presence be known because that would give his gun a longer arc before it found her. By then, it would be too late.

Atop the rubble, there was a humped shape. She recognized legs and elbows, all preceded by the soles of boots, brightly illuminated to her eyes by the low moonlight. The fifth guard, armed with a rifle.

The pieces of stone spread around the spot meant a silent approach was not an option. Not that he would hear much.

Her first step was heavy, onto the debris and it made them crunch loudly. The sniper was arching his back, craning his neck... The second step was more of a crushing stomp, on his neck. A sharp crack and a motionless body were all that was left. Vivian dragged it out and set it beside the pile. She would be long gone by the time they found it. She glanced at the gun. Custom-built, walnut stock. A fancy toy. Product of Mainstream Arms, from the initials on the side. Expensive. Vivian guessed it cost about seven thousand credits to put together. The scope had been zoomed through about two-thirds of its magnification so that at one hundred yards it showed a circular slice of life about ten feet high and ten feet across. 

She knew who her target was. 

The man was a Prussian General, and Vivian wondered for a moment what he was doing in an isolated refugee camp in Vanguard. But that bridge would be crossed when she came to it. This general was military, and he would not let the door inset within the gate be opened for him. He would do it himself. Once again, on the theory that most people were right-handed, her target would stand a little left of the centre so that his right hand when extended would meet the handle in the middle of the gate. The door itself was less than seven feet high. In trying to open the door, he would put his skull maybe a foot left of his right hand, which in terms of the horizontal axis would put the aiming point about six inches beyond the left edge of the door. As for the height, Vivian would adjust on sight.

She smuggled behind the gun, put her eye back to the scope, and laid the cross hairs on the top left corner of the door. She eased them slightly left and laid her finger gently against the trigger. The night air was damp and heavy, cold and dense, the kind that cradles a bullet and holds it straight and true.

Vivian waited. She knew she might have to wait all night, and was prepared to. She was a patient woman.

One hundred yards.

A single round.

**
Surprise.

Haraka was there, escorting the General. She had both of them in her crosshairs, but she didn't take the shot. A well-known Vanguard mercenary getting shot dead in the middle of a Prussian sector would only raise more eyebrows from the criminal underworld.

Haraka she would get to kill someday, but not like this. Not a hundred yards away with a bullet. She wanted to be right there, to look him in the eyes and make him feel the pain that she felt. The pain that she still felt. The target followed behind them. Vivian adjusted the height. Six inches left, six inches up.

And then she squeezed the trigger.

By the time the General's body hit the ground, Vivian was sliding down to the ground. By the time the alarm was sounded and seventy soldiers flooded into the compound she was safely past the Thirty-Third sector's outer border.

She checked her watch and increased her pace, partly to put in more distance from the scene of the crime and partly because she was late.