The Vanguard Vixen

F.O.X.3 Titan Trait (One)

According to her watch's GPS, Vivian's flip off the bridge into a fast-flowing river had taken her several hundred miles through Vanguard and out into the ocean. Her body had slowly healed itself, and it had taken her three days to wake up. She hadn't been floating in the ocean when she woke up, though.

Out of pure luck, something which Vivian had stopped believing years ago, she had been found by a ship sailing across the ocean, and they had picked her up. The captain of that ship had recognised her and ordered his crew not to bother or harm her, despite the large bounty on her head. Vivian had met and interacted with many important characters throughout her time in the dark route, both as a child and during the several times that she had been there on her missions. Captain Hook, as he loved to call himself and ordered other people to call him, was one of the more water-preferring members of the dark route. His 'business' was solely on water, and he sometimes went months without setting foot on land. He was a former London captain who had decided to add a few side duties to his ship. He had been caught and, after escaping, found his way to the dark route.

Vivian had agreed to show her thankfulness for 'saving her life' by protecting the ship from any possible threats they would face along the way. In the waters of a territory like Vanguard that didn't mind much about its navy, the waters were run by pirate gangs. These ships robbed and cleared any merchandise off trade ships and even once too often for involved in wars against other gangs. Captain Luke, for that was his real name, and the only thing Vivian called him, had been part of the pirate gangs some time back. He told Vivian that it paid more to smuggle the goods rather than to steal them yourself.

Where she currently sat, at the extreme top of the ship's mast, Vivian could still catch a smell of the various types of alcohol and narcotics stashed below the deck. It was one of the reasons why she had gone that far up. Partly because she needed to breathe some fresh air after spending three days with her lungs filled with water, and she was also trying to avoid the temptation to kill the crew below. They clearly wanted her dead, owing to the bounty that was on her. The Captain had managed to convince them not to get themselves killed, and they had obeyed, but even where she sat she could see them huddled in groups down below and could hear them thinking out the best way to take her out, and what they would do with two million credits.

Since her armour had completely been shredded by the attack from Haraka, the captain had provided her with leathers that he had somewhere in his cabin, obviously a woman's, but before he could start his story Vivian had asked not to hear it.

She needed time and space to think.

Nanotechnology.

There was none left in the Harbor, she had made sure of that. And there was no concrete wall that could hide the little destroyers from her. She would feel their proximity like a nasty itch under her skin. They were all gone now, partly by the fast-flowing water of the river, and mostly by her superb healing. She still felt the ghost pain of them tearing through muscle and tissue though, and then her heart... The Harbor must have somehow kept on making them, elsewhere perhaps, and Haraka had gotten hold of them and purchased the one weapon that could kill her. He was a problem, that one. Having spent a year in Cafri during her training she knew just how good he could be.

She rolled up the chain she held onto the pole and tapped something on her watch which revealed a little compartment in the side that held the root cause of all the trouble. The little blue chip, smaller than her pinky fingernail, but heavier than the world. Someone had compiled all the data and had sold it to Mainstream, but Lewis and his friends...

Lewis.

Vivian wondered how he was, where he was. She had full trust that Turana could protect him, not because she loved him, but because she had been made to defend and protect. The connection between Vivian and Turana was faint over the distance, but it was there. If Turana was alive, then Lewis most probably was too.

For the past few minutes, she had been watching the approaching Vanguard warship. It was too far for the crew below to see, and one of the things the Captain had asked her to look out for. She had other plans though, so she let it come close enough, then called out to the men below.

"Call your captain!"

None moved.

One bravely stood up and shouted back. She remembered Luke calling him Kai.
"He's your captain too as long as you're on-

Vivian dropped down to the deck, her eyes glowing.
"I won't ask a second time."

They all scampered off to call the captain, none wishing to stay behind. The captain rushed out of his cabin, bellowing orders.

"Fire up the engines! Full steam ahead!"

"Let them come," Vivian told him.

He came to Vivian's side. She stood at the edge, watching the approaching ship.

"You don't happen to have a trick up your sleeve that can make us invisible?"

Vivian huffed. "Luke, I am a F.O.X soldier, not a party clown."

"You can make your eyes glow in the dark. I saw a clown do that once on my thirteenth birthday." He replied.

"Well Luke, today is your other birthday. Not only do you get to see my eyes glow, but you get a new ship as a gift."

Vivian stepped up onto the railing and stood there with unbelievable balance. She wasn't fond of getting into the water again, but she needed something on the ship.

"V169. I've heard great things about you, but that there is a  warship. They probably have torpedoes locked on us already, and then all our goods will sink to the ocean floor."

Vivian let her eyes fade back to normal and hopped back down beside him.
"Wait. I offer you, a W7 warship which together with its cargo amounts to almost half a billion, and you are worried about half a million worth of dilute hallucination-inducing powder?"

The captain realised his mistake. "I didn't really mean that. Bad joke?" He tilted his head and raised his shoulders innocently.

Vivian was focused on something else though, something only she could hear.

"Luke, get down!"

The attack came without warning for the rest of the crew. Low out of the southwest sky above the ship, the lethal silhouette of a gunship helicopter bore down like a giant wasp. Vivian had no doubt what it was, or why it was here.

Through the darkness, a staccato burst from the nose of the chopper sent a torrent of bullets chewing across the ship's fibreglass deck, slashing a line across the stern. Vivian dove for cover a bit late and felt the searing slash of a bullet graze her arm. She hit the ground hard and then rolled, scrambling to get behind a steel plate on the railing.

A thundering of rotors exploded overhead as the chopper swooped past the ship. The noise evaporated with an eerie hiss as the chopper rocketed out over the ocean and began a wide bank for a second pass.  

Vivian was on her feet already and she climbed up the mast with inhuman agility, reaching the top in three quick leaps. She grabbed a hold of the chain that she had wrapped around the mast and waited.

Luke watched from below, completely astounded. He had a suspicion of what she wanted to do, but no...

She couldn't.