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The Victoria Chronicles

**Chapter 14

A Relic of Times Past**

Vix popped out of the portal and it vanished just moments before her paws hit the ground. Frank was waiting for her and gave a small sigh when he saw the vulpine reappear.

"I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to come back." He said as he approached her. Vix however carried on past him and headed right towards the man who had shot at them who was still tied to the tree. She picked up his hunting knife from the small pile of kit they had liberated from him and advanced towards him with a single minded intent. The man saw her coming and did not like the look on her face one bit. But before he had a chance to utter a word Vix swung the knife up and he closed his eyes in preparation for the worst.

Instead of the knife blow he was expecting that would end his life instead he felt his bonds fall away as she cut the ropes holding him to the tree. He opened his eyes to find that aside from his hands he was more or less free, though he doubted he'd make it far if he tried to run at this point.

Vix tossed the knife at a nearby tree point first seemingly without looking where it stuck before her hand shot out towards him at a speed that would make a rattle snake blink and grabbed him by the shirt before dragging him towards the campsite. When they were close to the fire pit she tossed him to the ground.

"Take a good look." Vix said flatly. The man glanced up at her briefly and she just pointed to the fire pit. He looked down only to see the metal ring on the close portal slowly disintegrating into nothing. Once there was nothing left Vix kicked at the edge of the ash covered pit with a foot, scuffing the dirt where the ring had once been to show that indeed nothing remained of the portal before speaking again. "Tell Smith what you saw here today. Tell him that he'll never find whatever he's looking for here in these woods ever again." Vix said with a look of a displeased governess scolding a misbehaving child. "Now get the fuck out of here before I truly get mad."

Vix reached down and picked up his pack and tossing it to him. He caught it awkwardly and noticed that it was significantly lighter than it should be. "What about the rest of my gear?"

"You'll get by with what I've left you and without any weapons." Vix said.

"What if I get attacked by a wild animal?" he asked.

"Then you'll provide at least one good meal to a poor animal that needs the protein." Vix said flatly. It was just then that there was the howl of a lone wolf off in the distance. "There's one now." She said with very little humor.

The man hesitated. He'd never gone into the wild before without so little as a knife having grown up in the city. Despite his training and years in the field he'd never been anywhere without a weapon of some sort, and now he was expected to make his way back with nothing, and he felt naked and vulnerable for the first time in his life. Vix had on the other hand camped for weeks at a time with little more than simple cutlery for eating. She had little sympathy for him.

"Go!" Vix snarled. Her voice had a distinct bark to it, and unlike a friendly dog her voice had plenty of teeth in it, with promise of lots of sharp teeth. The man took the hint and scampered away tripping over his own feet.

Vix watched him go as Frank walked up besides her. "Do you think it is wise just letting him go?"

"Probably not, but let me ask you, have you ever interrogated a man before?" Vix asked without taking her eyes off the disappearing figure.

Frank was silent for awhile before responding grimly and simply, "Yes."

"Then you already know that he's more afraid of Smith then us." Vix said turning away and walking over to the small pile of gear sitting on the ground. She knelt down and started putting the collection of stuff into a small bag much smaller than the pile itself, yet after only a short while everything was in the bag that by sight along suggested that it had room to spare.

"I hate to admit it, but you're not wrong." Frank begrudgingly said. "But shouldn't we at least follow him?"

"Do you have time to follow a man who knows he's likely to be followed and will likely go to great lengths to lose pursuers and spend a great amount of time to waste our time?" Vix said as she policed the area for any and all items left behind.

"No." Frank again admitted.

"Neither do I." Vix said as she stood up and brushed her paws, finally satisfied with returning the area back to its pristine natural condition and leaving little sign that anyone had been there. "Instead I'm going to find out what's been happening at that airfield. Once we return to your scrapyard that is."

Why don't we head straight there?" Frank asked.

"Because I'm going alone." Vix said simply as she headed back to the truck.

"What makes you think I'm going to allow you to go off on your own?" Frank said.

"What makes you think you can stop me?" Vix said giving him a sharp look of defiance.

"Look girly," Frank started to say, "You may be stronger than me, you may be faster than me, but I don't give up! Besides, Pops would never forgive me if I knowingly let you go off and get hurt." He added.

Vix turn and walked off a few paces growling under her breath. Owing in part to her new body she sounded like a pissed off vixen. Which she was. She argued with herself for a few minutes while her tail twitched back and forth in agitation before finally coming to a decision and walking back over.

"OK, I know you and Pops have military experience, he said as much when he said the two of you served together. But I get the feeling it goes further than that." Vix said, she noticed Frank's face shift just a little bit in the direction of denying any further info before she cut him, off by saying, "I don't need to know any more than that. And at the moment I don't care."

Vix rested her muzzle in her paw with two fingers along the side of her muzzle. She started pacing again while taping the side of her muzzle with her finger in thought while her tail lightly grazed the ground behind her as she paced one way then back the other. She argued with herself as she paced, occasionally an ear would flick and she occasionally looked back at Frank as if appraising him before going back to pacing.

Finally she came to a decision.

"Fine. It's not like you would be likely to stay back anyway, and besides, you know the place better than I do." Vix finally said when she spoke.

"However," she started and paused for just a moment to stress the point, "However, I do not want anyone getting hurt. I'd very much like to not get into anymore altercations today. I've already had two, and those were two too many. Plus they weren't very productive anyway. So let's try and keep things low key. We'll scope the place and see what we find, but I want to go into this very cautious."

"Fine by me." Frank said. "Like you said, we'll recon the place first and move in when it's clear. Fair?"

"Fair." Vix replied.

Vix looked off towards the horizon and took a deep breath to steel herself.

"Ok. Let's go."

They stashed the truck about a half a mile away from the perimeter fence hidden behind some overgrowth, then bushwhacked their way to the airfield. The perimeter fence was long past its glory days as a deterrent and Vix made short work of opening a small hole for the tow of them to pass through. Once they made it to the far end of the single runway they found a hiding spot behind some bushes and sat and observed for a while. After twenty minutes it looked like no one was about the place so the carefully and silently crept their way closer, moving from bush to bush, then from bush to dilapidated sheds. Each time the approached a building they moved in carefully one at a time from cover to cover and would waive the other forward once the coast was clear.

It soon became apparent that the place was deserted. But still they treated the place as if someone could be left hiding out somewhere.

Vix especially was being very cautious. Her ears kept swiveling back and forth, trying to pick up any scrap of noise that didn't belong. And her nose kept sniffing the air, looking for any scents that might be in the air that might indicate trouble. In essence while her intelligent side looked for trouble her feral side was also looking for trouble. Something didn't seem right. She hoped that it was just the creepiness of an abandoned site that was making her feel nervous, but somehow she knew that something was out of place. Something she was missing.

"You keep sniffing around. What are you smelling?" Frank asked.

Vix was silent as she concentrated on the smells in the air. "Old oil, diesel recently burned in exhaust, there was a gas powered vehicle of some kind too. Some grease paint, hint of soap...and something else. Something I can't place a finger on." She said wrinkling her brow.

"You can smell all that from here?" Frank said amazed, "We must be nearly a hundred feet from the nearest building!"

"The exhaust fumes are coming from that open door and across the tarmac. Everything else is coming from that building." Vix said paying attention more to her senses than what Frank was saying. "I think that large building over there should be our first place to look."

"Then let's head that way then." Frank said as he got up. But he had only gone a few paces before Vix grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back quickly.

"What was that for?" he said as he regained his balance.

Vix knelt down and pointed at something. Getting down on one knee Frank looked and saw what she was pointing at. There, crossing the path was a piece of monofilament fishing line. Vix followed the along the line until she reached the other end. But before she could look into the bush the line was leading to Frank stopped her.

"Hang on, let me take a look. I have some experience with this kinda thing." He said as he gently, but firmly nudged her to the side. He looked closer without touching anything while looking at it from all angles before carefully moving a few branches out of his way without disturbing the line.

"A-ha! Just as I suspected." He said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He reached out and carefully cut the line before reaching into the bush and spent a minute removing a fragmentation grenade that had been attached to the truck of the bush. A piece of ling still dangled from the ring of the pull pin.

"Seen more than a few of these before. But never around here." Frank said before adding with a bit of anger in his voice. "I don't like that these have shown up in my town."

"Seen a lot have you?" Vix asked without looking at him.

"Not in town, but I've seen a fair few overseas." Frank said glancing at the vixen.

Vix wasn't really waiting for an answer. She had one ear cocked towards Frank and the other facing forward as she listened both to him and for any additional threats. She still wasn't comfortable about this. Not so much being there, she felt she could probably handle most things this place might have hidden waiting for the unsuspecting. No, she was more concern with having Frank here. Not that she doubted that he could handle himself, he clearly had some training, but how long had it been since he had to rely on his military training to survive? For that matter, how far did his training go? She trusted Pops, and he trusted Frank, so she felt she could probably trust him too. But could she trust his reflexes if things got hot? How much time would she be spending watching both their backs?

they made it the rest of the way to the old control tower, and after a brief survey to look for any other traps they found it clear. They briefly went to the top and looked out over the grounds for any obvious threats. The place was a minefield of old broken-down equipment and overgrown with grass and bushes, making their job of looking for threats or trap that much harder. Vix felt that she could probably survey the area fairly quickly for more traps if Frank wasn't there, but she doubted that he'd stay put if she asked him to while she scoured the grounds. So the process was going to be a slow and painful one. She asked Percii if he detected any surveillance or unusual radio signals but the AI didn't find anything out of the usual background radio waves.

Finally they made their way to the main building complex that housed some offices backing onto two large hangers. They found a few more tripwire traps set up. A few of them seemed to be sound traps made from old cans with junk metal inside set to either lure someone into a false sense that most were the same, or to scare away potential intruders. Or more likely alert someone of an intruder's presence.

They disarmed trap they came across. The ones containing explosive Vix made safe by putting them into her dimensional storage, which Percii assured would make them inert until removed. Frank said he could properly dispose of them later, Vix decided to ask him later what that would entail.

Peering inside the large indoor space of the hangar revealed a mostly open area with yet more derelict equipment littered about the place. Vix took a long look around from cover of the large partially open hanger doors that were open just enough to allow a truck to pass through. This was verified by the fresh tire tracks made by a large military vehicle.

Vix's eyes were much better in low darkness so before Frank had a chance to adjust to the low light levels of the hanger the vixen had already darted inside the structure. She silently, yet quickly surveyed the interior of the large open room and behind every nook and cranny offered by the left behind equipment from a bygone era. She also took note of some slightly newer items such as discarded wrappers from food consumption and forgotten items such as a coffee maker on a repurposed stack of old pallets and some chairs that were likely found from somewhere else on the premises.

By the time Frank's eyes had adjusted to the gloom Vix had already secured the main room and was waiting for him near the back were some double doors that lead to some offices off the back of the main structure. Vix motioned for him to join her there.

""Find anything interesting?" Frank asked when he joined the vixen near the back of the hanger.

"Not much really." Vix replied as she contemplated the closed double doors at the back. "Just leftovers from when this place was still used and some discarded and forgotten minor stuff left from the more recent occupation. I don't think they have any plans on coming back, but considering the presents left outside I'm curious what they may have left back behind these doors."

"How do you suppose we go about finding out? I don't know about you but I don't have the right gear to go doing careful exploratories for explosives, and I don't think we have the time to go back to the yard to get some." Frank said.

Vix pulled out her multi tool and was just starting to scan around the door when suddenly her ears perked up and she stopped what she was doing and listened intently.

"What do you hear girl?" Frank asked suddenly realizing what he had just said. "Sorry." He added when he caught her slightly annoyed look before she said anything.

"Someone's driving up the access road." Vix said quietly while she continued to listen to the sound Frank couldn't hear yet.

"Do you think they're coming back?"

"I don't think so...sounds more like a car or SUV than a big truck." Vix replied. "It's a gas engine, not a diesel. Sounds more like a civilian car than military."

Vix crept over to the large main doors and carefully peeked around the edge for just a brief second before pulling her head back suddenly.

"Who is it? Are those bastards coming back?" Frank asked observing Vix's reaction.

"Worse." Vix said. "It's the sheriff."

Frank followed Vix as she quickly found a place to hide. "Why are we hiding?" he asked from behind a stack of old crates.

"Do you want to explain why you are with a tall talking fox?" Vises asked. "How would you propose we explain that?"

"Well..." Frank said before trailing off while he tried to think of a good argument. But before he could utter another word a figure peeked around the doorway before entering into the gloom of the hanger. The figure had a pistol drawn and was holding it and a flashlight in the typical manor of anyone trained by law enforcement personnel.

Vix tapped Frank's shoulder and pointed in the sheriff's direction as if to convey, "that's why."

The Sheriff panned her light around the room looking for anything out of place. When she swung her light towards Frank and Vix they quickly and quietly ducked down out of sight until the beam swung away again.

She seemed to be looking for something. Frank pantomimed why the sheriff would be here to Vix who motioned back by shrugging her shoulders that she had no clue.

Not finding what she was looking for in the main hanger the sheriff made her way towards the double doors in the back. Just as she was getting close Vix heard Percii's voice in her head in an urgent tone.

"Mistress, the scans you made indicate that there is a substantial amount of explosives behind that door!"

"What! Why didn't you say something sooner?" Vix yelled back at the AI across the mental link. For the moment ignoring the use of the title again.

Before Percii could make a response and before Frank relieved what was happening Vix was already up and over the crate and heading at a dead run towards the sheriff and yelling a warning.

"Stop! Don't open those doors!" Vix yelled.

But it was too late as the sheriff had just trusted the handle and had pulled the door open a fraction of an inch. There was a dull click heard just before Vix knocked into the sheriff, pushing her to the floor and shielding her with her own body just fractions of a second before there was a loud boom and a wall of flame, bricks and other debris exploded outwards including a large amount of cinderblock wall.

After the flash and noise faded away Frank cautiously peered over the crate again. The sheriff and Vix were nowhere to be seen. All there was where they had stood was a large pile of what was left of the wall.

"Oh shit!" Was the only thing he could think to say as the ringing in his ears slowly dissipated.