The Juggernaut (Juggernaut #1)

Two

Deep inside the Juggernaut a young woman raced along a dark corridor. The few light panels which still worked down here cast their weak glow along the tunnel ahead of her. Darkness crouched in the recesses untouched by the light, and ahead of her the shadows pooled together like black mercury.

It was warm here in the depths of the city, warm and dank, so the woman was dressed lightly in loose clothing and she carried only a small bag, strapped close to her body to prevent it leaping about as she ran.

Tucked securely into the straps on her back was what appeared to be a short pipe, about less than half a metre in length. Her dark hair, secured in a tight braid, whipped around her head and shoulders as she pounded the deep and dangerous corridors of the Juggernaut.

Tila was twenty now, but she had stopped counting the years since the colony disaster twelve years ago.

She was one of the few to have survived that awful day, and she had survived every day since. Now she was older, leaner, harder.

The little girl who ran through the corridors of the Rising Star was gone. Tila had left her behind along with everything else she had lost. But she had kept the quickness. Quick was how she had survived. Quick temper, quick feet. Quick to leave things behind that slowed her down.

At least, she used to be. It had been eight years since she had landed in this city, when she had stowed away in her final flight from the civilised world. Curiously, while she had always before found reasons to leave a place, especially to leave this place, somehow, among the ruins and the wrecks, she had found a reason to stay.

Tila dodged pipes and ducked low ceilings without slowing her pace or breaking her stride. She stopped at a junction and breathed easy despite her run. A sheen of sweat on her olive skin sparkled as it reflected what little light there was in the tunnels. She was good at running. This was not the first time she had run, and not the first time she had been hunted.

She made her decision and turned left into a new corridor. Yet another monotonous passageway lined with endless doors. She kept running, and under her breath she began to count.

Seconds later, two men burst into the same junction, following the same path, chasing their quarry. They looked right, then left, and saw Tila, already far along the passageway. They renewed their chase, calling threats and warnings, but they panted with the effort of the pursuit. They overcame the same obstacles as Tila, but with far less grace. One ducked too low under a crossbeam and lost his balance. He stumbled into his companion, bringing them both to the ground.

Where Tila was a gazelle, these men were merely bulls.

Glancing over her shoulder, Tila watched them clamber to their feet before she rounded another corner and, so confident was she that they were no threat as long as she kept her lead, her lips twitched into a rare smile.

She found an open doorway and hopped through, and then she stopped.

Wrong door.

Dead end.

She poked her head back out into the corridor, silently counting off the doorways she had passed. She heard the footsteps of her pursuers pounding along the corridor, and she moved back to hide among the deeper shadows.

The men ran past Tila, and she shook her head as they charged by. Then she sprang through the doorway and sprinted back the way she had come.

They heard her, tried to turn too quickly, and crashed against a wall. They exchanged angry glances, quick to blame each other. One of them shoved himself away from the wall and gave chase. The other narrowed his eyes, swore at his companion, and followed, ignoring the bright new pain in his knee.