Commander Adrian sat aboard the helicopter, repeatedly drumming his fingers against his thigh as he waited for Colonel Turana. He had a strong urge to call Vivian which he was trying hard to resist since he knew they were probably keeping an eye on all his moves. Her watch was untraceable, a result of the i-tech that still baffled Vanguard programmers. Adrian knew that she would not call him of her own accord at this time, but he still wished she would. He had to know how she was, and perhaps to warn her of-

"Sorry, I took so long."

Think of the devil.

The Colonel was wrapping a band around her auburn hair to finish the ponytail. Out of the dull inconspicuous presidential guard colours, and now in the black Special Forces T-shirt and army green trousers, even Adrian had to admit that she was beautiful. Of course, there was that one highly decorated Admiral General Nora who led the underrated Vanguard Navy, who turned both men's and women's eyes wherever she walked, but Colonel Turana had that dangerous kind of beauty, just like Vivian. Only that for Vivian it was a natural fierceness, for even when she laughed you could still feel the danger beneath, whereas Turana switched moods and emotions drastically.

 She could be a sweet angel in one second, and the next a raging demon. He had seen her lose her temper before, and things were never pretty when she did. Which was one of the reasons why he preferred Vivian over her. The former never lost her cool, however dire the situation was. At least, he had never seen it happen. Not on any of the thirty-seven covert missions he had overseen, not when she was surrounded by enemies on all sides, and not when she got irritated by something. Vivian always made threats, but in that calm confident way, to make the person aware that she could do what she was saying she could. Turana focused more on inducing fear in her opponents.

One feared lioness and one cunning vixen.

And he was caught in between. Both expected him to help them against the other and even now, he wasn't sure what he would do if the decision came to that.

"Adrian, strap in," Turana said as she went over to the cockpit.

"What for?"

"Well, we can't have you fall out on takeoff, again!" She laughed as she said that, and Commander Adrian turned red.

"It was one time! And also my first time in a Hawk!" He defended himself.

"It was still funny though." She laughed again. "You were hanging down that rail and screaming for help for a whole minute!"

He looked away from her, and onto a convoy of tanks being loaded onto a massive plane.

"Colonel, what are those for?" He pointed to the war machines.

"The M7A7 tanks? They are off to the dark route. General Eric's jets were completely wiped out, and we decided to send in heavier firepower." She replied as she strapped a safety belt around her chest.

"When did that happen? I completely missed it!" Adrian exclaimed.

"I'll tell you on the way. She did exactly what I would do. It'll be like you were there."

As much as he looked forward to how the F360's had been taken down, he was genuinely worried. The advanced aircraft would have done massive damage, but the tanks were a whole other matter. Sixty tonnes of steel able to move at over thirty miles an hour, with the ability to lock onto a target two miles away and strike it with superb accuracy, they were quite despicable. They were covered in tough armour made of layers of steel, Kevlar, ceramic, titanium and depleted uranium. They could drive through a minefield without the soldiers inside ever feeling a bump.

The M7A7 could go up an incline as steep as sixty degrees without tipping and could wade through up to four feet of water, which allowed it to go pretty much everywhere and anywhere. An air combustion turbine engine that received fuel from a five hundred-gallon gas tank meant it could cover over three hundred miles before needing to refuel. The weapons it carried, both cannons and machine guns carried one thousand rounds and twelve hundred rounds respectively. I-tech allowed for maximum target success, depending on the shooter.

"So the plan is to clear out the dark route permanently?" He questioned, watching more tanks roll into the back of the plane.

"That's the plan, presidential order. She said that since General Eric had started it, they might as well finish it."