Floridaman
Well-known member
Yep, Black Isle did their research.
Fallout The Eagle And The Bear [Fallout AU]
- Thread starter Navarro
- Start date
f1onagher
Well-known member
The NCR had some clever tricks up their sleeve but underestimated their opponent's will. The bad intelligence is starting to cost the Californians victories, so it's good to see someone finally trying to find the missing pieces of the puzzle. Hopefully, he'll live long enough to use it.
McDowell is probably lucky that he died with his failure. The US isn't the kind of society to punish failure like Darth Vader, but running dick first into an enemy trap under the assumption that your forces will win because they are better is a career-ending move and one that could see him sacrificed to appease public outrage. He's lucky the NG forces were able to break through to him or he'd have lost entire armored units rather than just half of them.
Elsewhere the NCR is going to need some heavier dakka for their infantry. Laser rifles are dangerously close to obsolete in a power-armored world and at the rate the US craps out equipment that's going to become a significant attrition factor.
McDowell is probably lucky that he died with his failure. The US isn't the kind of society to punish failure like Darth Vader, but running dick first into an enemy trap under the assumption that your forces will win because they are better is a career-ending move and one that could see him sacrificed to appease public outrage. He's lucky the NG forces were able to break through to him or he'd have lost entire armored units rather than just half of them.
Elsewhere the NCR is going to need some heavier dakka for their infantry. Laser rifles are dangerously close to obsolete in a power-armored world and at the rate the US craps out equipment that's going to become a significant attrition factor.
Navarro
Well-known member
That and they didn't understand how E-USA really works.
Cost them a total victory, for sure.
Heh. Lance's trajectory is one of the most planned-out long-term elements of the story.
Of course, we have to take into consideration that both sides haven't fought a war against people they couldn't casually beat up for their lunch money in generations. Of course, the NCR has improved vastly since NV times - put the NCR Army of 2331 in the Mojave of 2281 and they'd be at the gates of Flagstaff before the Courier reached the Lucky 38. But they both sides still lack that degree of experience in fighting a peer or near-peer opponent.
Single-shot laser rifles like the AER9 or Wattz-2000 are obsolete for military purposes much like single-shot rifles are today. Automatic laser rifles like the M-55 or the laser RCW ... not so much.
SuperHeavy
Well-known member
Honestly I was surprised the NCR power armor was holding up so well against US PA troopers considering the latter should be about three generations ahead. Then again number disparity probably is an advantage all its own I suppose.
Jarow
Well-known member
160k vs 24k power armor and ~60k non-power armor; a total of ~84k. Roughly 2 to 1 odds, which was noted to be odds previously resulting in complete victory for the E-US. Main cause of NCR victory here was the new technology (the fog machines ensuring surprise and preventing long range engagement, and the mini-tanks which were to fast to hit properly, removing the US armored unit). It's possible E-US commander overconfidence and inexperience made things worse too.
Navarro
Well-known member
Tank destroyers converted from SP AA guns.
Let's also look at the previous three engagements:
Houston I - NCR military forces largely not present due to faulty intel fed to them, insufficient to block E-US aerial and amphibious attack. Had they managed to end the siege at San Antonio before E-US forces arrived, they would have had enough men to have a decent guard on both Corpus Christi and Houston, Texas' two main ports.
Houston II - NCR Army had won some tactical victories and battle was indecisive until fresh Corps-sized USMC formation outflanked them and almost managed to pull off a full encirclement.
Dallas - NCR army slowly being pushed out of Dallas, position increasingly untenable, but fighting hard against E-US - until Texan betrayal caught them by surprise (E-US stealth bombers would have taken out their base anyways, tho, but Texan actions cut off their line of retreat to the south, where conceivably with the survivors of Houston they could have mounted an actual defense of Austin and San Antonio).
EDIT: It's also silly considering I had the NCR literally just cross the border and there were folks going "why are E-US so weak?")
Let's also look at the previous three engagements:
Houston I - NCR military forces largely not present due to faulty intel fed to them, insufficient to block E-US aerial and amphibious attack. Had they managed to end the siege at San Antonio before E-US forces arrived, they would have had enough men to have a decent guard on both Corpus Christi and Houston, Texas' two main ports.
Houston II - NCR Army had won some tactical victories and battle was indecisive until fresh Corps-sized USMC formation outflanked them and almost managed to pull off a full encirclement.
Dallas - NCR army slowly being pushed out of Dallas, position increasingly untenable, but fighting hard against E-US - until Texan betrayal caught them by surprise (E-US stealth bombers would have taken out their base anyways, tho, but Texan actions cut off their line of retreat to the south, where conceivably with the survivors of Houston they could have mounted an actual defense of Austin and San Antonio).
EDIT: It's also silly considering I had the NCR literally just cross the border and there were folks going "why are E-US so weak?")
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CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Say, are Rippers and Super Sledges still a thing?
ForeverShogo
Well-known member
McDowell's biggest fuck up seems to be that he noticed there was an unusually thick and persistent mist, where recon was spotty at best and even their bird drones had trouble seeing anything . . . And it seems like he just kind of ignored it and committed to an all-out attack without even considering the possibility that the NCR might take advantage of the mist for a surprise attack on his flank.
Like, yeah, he couldn't have known it was an artificial mist but it was still pretty stupid of him.
Like, yeah, he couldn't have known it was an artificial mist but it was still pretty stupid of him.
Crow gotta eat
That peckish, patriotic, Protestant passerine.
Hmmm, I am wondering if the E-USA can counter the mist the NCR is seemingly in control of with that fog condenser technology from Mount Desert Island, from the Far Harbor DLC.
I would imagine they would probably start to reverse engineer/rediscover between Autumn Morning and now, since they would probably want to ensure the islanders can stay living there, plus maybe open other nearby islands who also almost certainly get covered in radioactive fog to be opened for future re-colonization as well.
The fog condensers only worked so much back then, but I would imagine the E-USA would probably be able to improve off of what DiMA maintained. Maybe, maybe not, who knows.
I would imagine they would probably start to reverse engineer/rediscover between Autumn Morning and now, since they would probably want to ensure the islanders can stay living there, plus maybe open other nearby islands who also almost certainly get covered in radioactive fog to be opened for future re-colonization as well.
The fog condensers only worked so much back then, but I would imagine the E-USA would probably be able to improve off of what DiMA maintained. Maybe, maybe not, who knows.
Navarro
Well-known member
Republic of Nueva Maya, largely agrarian nation, most of its exports are cacao, sugar, and coffee beans. They are one of the NCR's main sources of chocolate, coffee and sugar along with Gran Colombia (America gets a slight majority of theirs from the Caribbean Commonwealth).
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CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Gonna keep asking himself "Where are the slums? The crime lords? The prostitutes? The drug addicts? The local human trafficking ring? The local mega evil businessmen? and so on"
Navarro
Well-known member
I mean, most NCR places don't have that either.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Now @Navarro, you've got me going back to Fallout fanfiction and writing my crazy version of Fallout 4 where both Nora and Nate survive, House won NV, and the Lone Wanderer is a go-between between the Lyons Chapter of the Brotherhood and the Phoenix faction of the Enclave while starting his own organization in the form of the Terran Starship Command... /semi-sarcasm
Still, given the 'expand or die' attitude of the NCR, I wouldn't be surprised that the nastiness in the underbelly of the NCR has been trying to catch up with the expansion...
Still, given the 'expand or die' attitude of the NCR, I wouldn't be surprised that the nastiness in the underbelly of the NCR has been trying to catch up with the expansion...
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
The Brahmin Barons and the crime lords of New Reno had to expand with the NCR, otherwise their support wouldn't be worth much
Though, I can see the first feeling it's in-danger of being rendered unnecessary economically speaking
Chapter Fifteen
Navarro
Well-known member
Chicago campaign should be done by Ch. 20 or 21, the next year isn't going to have nearly so much detail put into its events since frankly not much happens.
==*==
Chapter Fifteen
CST 10:00 AM, December 9 2331
Rockford, Illinois, United States of America
As the truck drove through the streets of Rockford, Lance Robertson looked over everything with a careful eye. They passed houses of red brick or white wood, bedecked with holly or multi-coloured lights now turned off in the bright glare of the eggshell-blue midwinter sky. Some had Christmas trees already in their living rooms, and small mass-produced statues of Santa Claus or Nativity scenes standing in their snow-covered yards. There were many cars and other vehicles, and multiple times they were blocked by traffic. The civilians they passed shot the vehicle and the NCR soldiers hostile glares, but did little further – they knew better than to argue with several laser RCWs and a LAER multibarrel. So clearly they aren’t brainwashed to act as partisans, part of him mused, they’re making the decision whether or not to attack us themselves, not following orders burnt into their minds.
At any rate, at the slightest sign of any attempt to harm him the NCR troops to the south would immediately invade the town – he had made that clear.
It was when they hit Main Street that the true sight hit him. The place was a bustle of business – he could see stores selling toys, furniture, kitchenware, food and general products, medical supplies, et al. Not only that, there were stalls selling the produce special to the holiday season. He could smell pumpkin pie, fresh-baked cookies, skewers of roast turkey, and treats uncommon in the NCR – coffee and hot chocolate, and the scent of cinammon.
“...Now the ground is white,
Go it while you’re young,
Take your girl tonight,
And sing this sleighing song
Just take a bob-tailed bay,
Two-forty as his speed,
Hitch him to an open sleigh,
And snap!, just take the lead!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Oh what joy it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh!”
Though the lyrics weren’t the usual, they were delivered in a genuinely spirited manner, and Robertson was somewhat disappointed when the song ended. At the end of Main Street was the town square – a space of greenery (now covered in snow of course) with a small pond – iced over – and an obelisk with a flattened top of grey stone, in front of which was a slab of black stone with this engraved in it in bas-reliefed letters of gold:
Lance looked around – the police station and fire department were deserted, but apart from that, the monument, and the flag that stood before City Hall, this was nothing less than Stockton or Riverside or even Two-Sun. A moderately-sized town in the region, prosperous and peaceful, at ease with its place in the grander scheme of things. He suddenly felt like an interloper.
Then he remembered his mission here, and had his truck parked by the City Hall, running over the kerb. He exited along with most of his bodyguards, and burst in the centre of Enclave governance for this locality. It was empty of citizens or subjects, and there was only a single tired receptionist at the desk – a dumpy woman with dishwater-blonde hair piled high atop her head (almost obscuring its black roots), wearing a white skirt, yellow blouse, and bulky blue-grey sweater that obscured much of the latter.
“What’re you here for?” she said in a voice that resembled a Chicago accent from an old pre-War film noir. “Haven’t you bastards gone enough places where you aren’t welcome?”
“I’d very much like to meet with whoever’s in charge here. Your commandant, or chief political director, or sub-provincial governor, or lieutenant-colonel or what have you."
“You mean, you want to meet the mayor?”
“You have a mayor?”
“We had one since this town was just a buncha villages, back in the late 70s, early 80s or so. It was only 3,000 back then – ten percent of what we have now. In the 90s it was about half that much, but still when my ma had me she had to take the bus all the way to Chicago ‘cause...”
“Get to the point. Where’s the Enclave official in charge of this town?”
“Mayor’s office is second floor, third room to the right. We don’t have any ‘Enclave officials’ round here – not that there really can be any these days, since the Enclave station was blown up by terrorists back in ‘42.”
Robertson chose not to respond to that, and climbed up the stairs. They found the room easily enough – yet again, Robertson was disconcerted by its resemblance to the Mayor’s offices of any moderate-sized NCR town. The Mayor himself was a heavyset man with a short beard, mustache and mullet that was fading from black to grey in places - he wore a pinstripe suit of alternating black and white stripes.
“Hello,” he said. “It isn’t too often I meet a rebel invader seeking to destroy all we hold dear. It was very brave of you to come here.”
“I’m not trying to destroy anything,” Lance sighed. “I’m here to liberate the people suffering under the Enclave’s oppression.”
“There’s no ‘oppression’ in America other than that which any society needs to work. The enforcement of laws, the punishment of criminals, the collection of taxes, so on and so forth. And there’s never been an ‘Enclave’ to oppress the people anyway – only ever the US Government.”
“There’s never been an Enclave?! They murdered hundreds and sort to massacre the entire world, that was their-”
Lance stopped himself. Listing the Enclave’s crimes in detail would do nothing to somebody taught that nothing of the sort had happened. Instead he asked another question.
“Who appointed you?”
“Appointed? Not by anybody except the people of this town – and that’s not an appointment so much as an election. Was a hard campaign, only barely won against the Federalists – they’ve held power for decades in this town. Got a strong political machine going, but we beat it.”
“You’re saying that you’re democratically elected? That the Enclave is too?”
“By ‘Enclave’ you mean all the State and Commonwealth Governors, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency?”
The mayor sent a message on his phone. “Sheila, bring the electoral records.”
Lance held himself firm.
“Yes. Are you a pure-blood?”
“Pureblood? What’s that, some kind of fantasy novel talk?”
“The ‘genetically superior’ Enclave personnel who avoided being exposed to radiation-”
“Well, I’m not. We were racially integrated long before the War, what makes you think we care about any of that crap? I mean, the Government and military folks looked down on us way back in the beginning when they had first come over from the west – didn’t want anything to do with us for decades – but that was because we were living in squalor and filth. As our lives improved and we showed our worth, they started respecting us more. I guess my father was a US Army soldier, but my ma’s family dates back 500 years in this place, never left.”
He seemed genuine, and Lance felt no reason to believe he was lying.
He felt a quiver of unease. So that explains it, he mused. Why the power-armoured men fought to protect the others yesterday. They genuinely viewed them as equals. And they … they likely were ‘wastelanders’ themselves. That explains the numbers. It’s not androids or cloning … it’s that the Enclave has been recruiting wastelanders into its military for decades. Treating them just like everyone else. They don’t see any kind of difference any more.
The receptionist he had met earlier walked in, carrying a heavy stack of files covered in manila paper. Lance ruffled his greying brown hair and looked through them as his bodyguards stood firmly by the entrance to the room.
It was nothing interesting – a mix of polling numbers, endless names of registered voters, donations made by various interest groups or other, and so on for several hundred pages. Lance read through it shallowly, skimming between bits of information that caught his attention, but it was at any rate too much to have been fabricated at short notice. Which meant …
Lance’s head swam as implication after implication hit, one after the other.
The people aren’t fighting us as brainwashed drones … they’re genuinely loyal to the Enclave. Because the Enclave has improved their way of life, and lets them choose their leaders, and doesn’t behave as a tyrannical regime.
They view us as foreign invaders, murderous rebels who want to depose their government and destroy their way of life. Of course they’re going to fight against us.
The Enclave and the NCR … they’re not so different these days. The Enclave has gone a full 180 from how it was in the 40s …
There would never be a great mutiny or rebellion in favour of the NCR’s forces. At best, he might get sullen acquiescence from regions already under occupation. High Command’s strategy was so breathtakingly naive – and yet it was not born out of naivete, but the opposite. Enclave radio and TV frequencies were jammed in most of the NCR, and only really viewed by analysts who mercilessly scrutinised every broadcast or publication for the slightest germ of sinister implication on what was really going on beneath the surface.
How much of the claims dismissed as propaganda or effortlessly ‘debunked’ by men like Dr. Walt Irving was real? How much was genuine Enclave propaganda? And of course, the implication was that Military Intelligence’s spy rings in Enclave territory were hopelessly compromised. He would have to make every detail clear to High Command and the NCR cabinet after he won at Chicago – but I’ve got no damn evidence. If Weston and McLean hadn’t died ...
Lance gritted his teeth.
“So, why do you want to conquer and annex us, if you really just want to live in peace?"
“Don’t you know what this war is about already, when you’re one of the top commanders in it? The Federal Government is the same one from before the War – that means it holds sovereignty over the same territory by default – part of which is the territory your ‘NCR’ claims. Now, they could theoretically say that they didn’t, but if they did that … that’s tantamount to saying they’re no longer the US Federal Government. What reason does Louisiana, or Michigan, or Ontario have to listen to them then? And why shouldn’t we try and restore legitimate governance to our own damn territory?”
“You’re saying that the Enclave can never lose the right to the land it claims?"
“Look, we talked about this a fair deal in Civics class, but it was summed up in one Supreme Court case just after the first Civil War,” the mayor said, sighing. “It was found out that the State of Texas had never really left the United States, and that it was in a legal sense impossible unless either the Federal Government was destroyed, or all the other States consented to such. The US Government never ceased to exist – even after you blew up Control Station ENCLAVE and sacked Navarro – so the State of South California – among others – still exists, but under an illegal government that has declared its hostility in both word and deed to the US.”
Lance thought there was a hole in the man’s logic somewhere, but such wasn’t important right now. Ultimately there was one final question.
“So that’s why you … why not explain all this to us in the first place? Why not let us know that the Enclave has changed, that it doesn’t want to commit genocide or enslave us any more?!”
“Why should we try and peacefully deal with those who refuse to peacefully deal with us? People who try and murder our President and our diplomats like cowards, who sabotage the storm defences of our cities, who treat even the children of our soldiers and officials as war criminals and butchers, who invade our country expressly to tear down our governmental institutions?!”
Lance had no answer for that. The actions of the NCR after Navarro had their context in the actions of the Enclave under Richardson – and without such context they looked like a bizarre attempt at utterly destroying a defeated enemy for no clear reason, of showing no distinction between combatant and civilian. And the Enclave had revised their history to proclaim that Richardson’s most serious crimes had never happened, so to their inhabitants he was more a martyr than a tyrant. And of course they would name one of their capital ships after such a figure, and of course to the NCR’s analysts that would be the honouring of a genocidal maniac, and of course they would continue to believe that nothing had ever really changed.
And they would make statements based on those beliefs of relentless war to the utter extirpation of the Enclave, and the neo-Enclave would view those as the threats to its national survival that they were … and on and on the cycle of war and vengeance would go.
He sighed. The neo-Enclave might well be a fine place to live … but it and the NCR were playing for winner-take-all now. He would not abandon his men, or the millions who were banking on him for victory. He would not have Maggie, his children, or his parents see him for a coward or a traitor. He would not have them use their brutal techniques of ‘pacification’ – that he had no reason to doubt, since they admitted to them – in the NCR. He had sworn an oath when he had joined the military, and he would keep it. Lance left the mayor’s office, the city hall, and the town of Rockford without a glance turned back.
He had a city to take.
==*==
CST 6:00 AM, December 10 2331
Rural Illinois
It was still not light yet as Sergeant Draper worked diligently to get the truck working again. The rest of the convoy was already far ahead – but on this one the front tires had been flattened by the cold of these bitter northern winters, unlike anything California knew. Another soldier came over to him, carrying a spare, which Draper examined. It too was burst.
He swore. While great care had been taken to ensure the front-line soldiers had received appropriately winterised equipment, there had not been such time to expend such meticulous effort on the entirety of the logistics train, as the number of trucks needed to support some hundreds of thousands in the field was greater by far than the number of combat vehicles they possessed. Which meant the 5,000 Salient Green packets carried by the truck, each sufficient for a full-sized meal, would be several hours late at the-
A gauss round hit the soldier next to him, punching through his combat armour like tissue paper, and spraying his viscera over the truck. It continued straight through him and the truck’s own chassis, smashing through several crates before making a dent on the opposite side. Draper turned and fired a burst of laser fire, but didn’t hit any of what seemed to be fifteen dark shapes in the woods around them.
The enemy replied with lasers of their own, as from the ground arose a roboscorp on underground patrol, tearing up the snow and dirt as it fired its stinger-mounted LAER at the unknown enemies. Draper thought he saw three of them fall before a pulse grenade froze up the scorpion-robot, followed swiftly by another gauss round which smashed into it from the front and took it out for good. The three remaining NCR soldiers by the truck kept firing, but they were sitting ducks. Draper frantically ran into the truck – and, keeping his head low to try and avoid the sustained laser fire that was melting holes in its windows - sent a frantic call for help. It was little use, he knew – the nearest vertibird was ten minutes away – but at least it was something.
“This is Sergeant Steve Draper, 103rd Logistics Regiment – under sustained attack by partisans, unable to move. Help if you-”
A frag grenade went through the open window – Draper barely noticed its passing before it detonated and smeared him all over the driver’s cab. The others went down easily. The vertibird found no enemies but the burnt-out skeleton of a truck and the bodies of several soldiers, one only identifiable by dental records.
==*==
CST 9:00 CST, December 11 2331
Main NCR Army Camp, Rural Illinois
General Lance Robertson mused over the situation. The war was a matter of mere politics, not a noble crusade against tyranny. The fantasy that the Enclave was glass-jawed was just that – a fantasy. Disabused of that notion, he had started to move on a broad front. The two armies he had previously kept in reserve were crossing the river to take Indianopolis via Peoria, Bloomington and Champaign – a hundred thousand of the Colombian ‘volunteers’ had also been sent to the south, and were moving into Arkansas to take Little Rock as well as Memphis via Jonesboro.
Of course, everything depended on two factors – whether he could take Chicago and the logistical nexus point of O’Hare, and if the Enclave forces at St. Louis remained under siege. If Chicago held, he would not be able to re-supply the armies aimed at Indianopolis in the coming months, and if St. Louis broke free his whole southern flank would be wide open. The ulcer of Davenport also exposed him to attack on his rear, though that pocket was slowly being reduced and was of no consequence for right now.
The aerial conflict was also troubling – he could not afford to lose any of his laser AA vehicles – the Army Air Corps’ own planes still had to fly from airbases in Brotherhood territory and the parts of Texas not yet under the Enclave’s thumb, and response times were higher than he would like. Aerial warfare also inevitably favoured the defender – a pilot who ejected over hostile territory was inevitably going to be captured, while one over friendly territory would be able to regroup and fly again.
And the morale issue, again. He had sworn his bodyguard to secrecy regarding what they had seen and heard in Rockford, but he had no illusions they were immune to the temptations of idle talk. He realised he was in a situation where the NCR’s leaders needed to know the truth, but the rank-and-file needed to be kept ignorant for as long as possible.
Sentinel Brandt entered his tent, looking grim as he always did.
“General,” he said plainly. “We'll be moving on the Enclave’s main industrial cities already, by air.”
“Which ones?”
“Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland.”
“Via aerial deployment? That’s madness.”
“Our vertibird transports will be flying low to avoid Enclave radars and to more effectively evade laser AA systems. The Argo class airships will serve as mobile fallback points and sources of resupply. I’ll be using 5,000 of my best men – they are unlikely to be present at Chicago.”
“Your ‘Brotherhood militia’ - they’re nigh-useless without support from your actual members. I can’t-”
“The Brotherhood’s Knights aren’t the dogs of the NCR, to be loosed on your country’s foes when and where you deem fit. We are not under your chain of command, and you’ll do well to remember that.”
“You will be fighting in person?”
“At Detroit, yes. The Brotherhood’s leaders don’t cower in bunkers and mobile command posts, they’re on the front line with their men to the very end. Ad victoriam.”
“I suppose I can’t dissuade you.”
“No.”
“As you wish.”
==*==
11:00 AM CST, 12 December 2331
Fort Davy Crockett, Near Dallas, Texas
It was shortly after church had ended and Sergeant Walker was tired. He had certainly learned to appreciate it a lot more than he had in the past – though he had never really not believed, he had found religion to be boring, if necessary. Endless dull church sessions singing half-remembered hymns, followed by equally endless dull Sunday School activities. Now, this was different. The company chaplain was really on fire for God, and he always had a comforting word for the troops. Still, of his squad Ray found it unfamiliar – not like the UAC services of his own locality, so informal, with the traditional hymns replaced with “worship songs” which were seemingly all chorus, that chorus being two or three lines each - and Rita did not worship with the others, instead going to those services held by the Catholic chaplain.
He looked up at the flag of the UAC by the church entrance, the St. George’s cross defaced with a dark blue diamond – that in itself having in its centre a gold Chi-Rho surrounded by a circle of twelve white stars. As the throng of dedicants continued moving out of the house of worship, Walker caught a glimpse of a man in a colonel’s field uniform.
He saluted automatically, before realising it was his own regimental commander, Constantine Autumn. He was silent, keeping his gaze on Walker (who felt transfixed by it) until there was no-one within earshot.
“Sergeant Walker?” the man said.
“Yes, sir?”
“I wouldn’t tell you this normally, but since you’ve always conducted yourself honourably while dating my niece I’ll let you in on this.”
Walker felt sheepish at that.
“We’ll be moving soon. Both 45th Corps and 81st Corps, along with the Marine Task Force that saved the day at Second Houston. I don’t know where, but it’s certainly to the north.”
Walker didn’t know whether to feel glad that the weeks of boredom and worry over the situation in the mid-west were soon to be over, or concerned that he would face serious combat so soon after the Battle of Dallas, still untried as an NCO. I’ll try and do my duty as best as I’m able. Nothing more or less.
==*==
03:00 AM CST, 13 December 2331
Western Illinois
“We found the Enclave oil rig
was makin’ such a fuss,
We have to stop the Enclave
‘cause the world depends on us,
We got deep in its iron guts
and we turned our guns around,
Yeah we found that blasted oil rig
and then we took it down.”
Sergeant Thomas Watkins listened to the song in the armoured truck, from a pre-War medley whose lyrics were lost but whose tune had not been forgotten. It did not help his mood. The winter was terrible, the Brotherhood men insufferable, and he was starting to despise the Enclave subjects. Any freedom-loving man or woman would have greeted the NCR’s armies of liberation with flowers and warm welcome – instead they were shown the cold shoulder at best.
The quartermasters had to come in to the farms and hamlets armed to the teeth and backed up by a platoon at the least – even then the store-owners rarely had any goods, or insisted at length that NCR money wasn’t valid until forced to concede the issue by a number of laser rifles. The coolant stations built by the Enclave … their managers often burned the places down rather than have them service NCR vehicles.
And then there were the minority of the population that took up arms against the NCR’s soldiers, ambushing convoys and patrols like this one whenever they got the-
A plasma bolt hit Watkins’ driver, frying his face to reveal the bare bone of his skull as his brain boiled within it. |The smell of burnt meat filled the truck’s cab as Watkins and his squad jumped out of the vehicle. Their gunner opened up with his gatling laser, lighting up a number of trees, but even in the firelight and the dim glare of the sickle moon not much could be seen of the attackers.
Rapid-fire plasma bolts and laser-beams danced in the chill night air, but the attacking figures seemed elusive.
Watkins swore under his breath in the middle of reloading a laser-round when he saw a figure clear against the firelight. It was a man in power armour, but larger than any normal human in such a suit had the right to be, and carrying a gatling laser. The rest of the dark shapes seemed to be normal human-sized, but that …
For a moment Watkins thought it was Frank Horrigan, but reminded himself that that monster had died almost a century ago.
He reached for a grenade, but in his fumbling panic he dropped it. Seconds later a plasma bolt grazed his left leg. Flesh and muscle seared away before his nerves could register the heat – he fell ham-stringed, a good chunk of his thigh reduced to ash and a decent portion of the rest seared to uselessness. He fell face-first into the snowy soil, the sounds of dead and wounded soldiers all around him. Slowly, one-by-one, the groans of the wounded ceased, cut off by the unmistakeable sound of flesh meeting steel. Then he felt a hand pulling him up by the hair. It was a figure covered all over in black combat armour, who held him up and drew a wickedly sharp combat knife from his belt.
Watkins tried to struggle, but his limbs were too weak and the black-armoured man too fast. Titanium carbide against flesh was a contest with only one result – the knife slashed through his throat with brutal ease, cutting all the way to the spine. The figure dropped him on his back, looking at the cold stars through a veil of smoke and cloud. It was almost beautiful.
As he uselessly wheezed through a sundered trachea, his hot blood ebbing away with every beat of his heart, Watkins’ last thought was of his home town of the Hub, the wife he would never see again, and the unborn child he would never see.
-*-
Agent Samuel Pierce took his helmet off to spit on the snowy ground, then took it back on and moved again into the forest at a good pace. There were reinforcements coming to investigate, already on their way – they had no ability to take prisoners, never mind treat them decently – and letting them off the hook to tell that there were US Secret Service and Army Rangers operating behind enemy lines was unworkable as well. It was butchery and not civilised warfare – but it was what it was. Behind his helmet, his face continued to wrinkle in a picture of disgust. They were certainly getting hanged as war criminals if the enemy won … but then, they’d declared to do that after victory regardless of whatever war crimes they did or didn’t commit, so in that respect it made no difference.
What made a difference was his certainty that he would face judgement for these actions, if not in this life then the next.
“That felt wrong,” the team’s ‘special advisor’ said in his deep and guttural tones. “That patrol made a mistake in running across us, but to kill the wounded like that? It reminds me of what the super mutants used to do. When I tried to tell them of a way to live peaceably, and warned them they would be destroyed if they continued to make war on the people of the Capital Wasteland they cursed me and shot at me.”
“It’s war, big guy,” Pierce replied. “Blame our CO for not avoiding that enemy patrol well enough. As it is, you know well we’ve got more important stuff to do than taking out enemy soldiers. We’ve got a bridge to blow, and by God we’ll see it done no matter the cost."
For his part, Special Agent Fawkes continued ruminating on the past as they continued to march.
==*==
Chapter Fifteen
CST 10:00 AM, December 9 2331
Rockford, Illinois, United States of America
As the truck drove through the streets of Rockford, Lance Robertson looked over everything with a careful eye. They passed houses of red brick or white wood, bedecked with holly or multi-coloured lights now turned off in the bright glare of the eggshell-blue midwinter sky. Some had Christmas trees already in their living rooms, and small mass-produced statues of Santa Claus or Nativity scenes standing in their snow-covered yards. There were many cars and other vehicles, and multiple times they were blocked by traffic. The civilians they passed shot the vehicle and the NCR soldiers hostile glares, but did little further – they knew better than to argue with several laser RCWs and a LAER multibarrel. So clearly they aren’t brainwashed to act as partisans, part of him mused, they’re making the decision whether or not to attack us themselves, not following orders burnt into their minds.
At any rate, at the slightest sign of any attempt to harm him the NCR troops to the south would immediately invade the town – he had made that clear.
It was when they hit Main Street that the true sight hit him. The place was a bustle of business – he could see stores selling toys, furniture, kitchenware, food and general products, medical supplies, et al. Not only that, there were stalls selling the produce special to the holiday season. He could smell pumpkin pie, fresh-baked cookies, skewers of roast turkey, and treats uncommon in the NCR – coffee and hot chocolate, and the scent of cinammon.
“...Now the ground is white,
Go it while you’re young,
Take your girl tonight,
And sing this sleighing song
Just take a bob-tailed bay,
Two-forty as his speed,
Hitch him to an open sleigh,
And snap!, just take the lead!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Oh what joy it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh!”
Though the lyrics weren’t the usual, they were delivered in a genuinely spirited manner, and Robertson was somewhat disappointed when the song ended. At the end of Main Street was the town square – a space of greenery (now covered in snow of course) with a small pond – iced over – and an obelisk with a flattened top of grey stone, in front of which was a slab of black stone with this engraved in it in bas-reliefed letters of gold:
TO THE UNCOUNTABLE VICTIMS OF CHINESE COMMUNIST NUCLEAR ATTACK AND THE GREAT ANARCHY THAT FOLLOWED
NEVER AGAIN
NEVER AGAIN
Lance looked around – the police station and fire department were deserted, but apart from that, the monument, and the flag that stood before City Hall, this was nothing less than Stockton or Riverside or even Two-Sun. A moderately-sized town in the region, prosperous and peaceful, at ease with its place in the grander scheme of things. He suddenly felt like an interloper.
Then he remembered his mission here, and had his truck parked by the City Hall, running over the kerb. He exited along with most of his bodyguards, and burst in the centre of Enclave governance for this locality. It was empty of citizens or subjects, and there was only a single tired receptionist at the desk – a dumpy woman with dishwater-blonde hair piled high atop her head (almost obscuring its black roots), wearing a white skirt, yellow blouse, and bulky blue-grey sweater that obscured much of the latter.
“What’re you here for?” she said in a voice that resembled a Chicago accent from an old pre-War film noir. “Haven’t you bastards gone enough places where you aren’t welcome?”
“I’d very much like to meet with whoever’s in charge here. Your commandant, or chief political director, or sub-provincial governor, or lieutenant-colonel or what have you."
“You mean, you want to meet the mayor?”
“You have a mayor?”
“We had one since this town was just a buncha villages, back in the late 70s, early 80s or so. It was only 3,000 back then – ten percent of what we have now. In the 90s it was about half that much, but still when my ma had me she had to take the bus all the way to Chicago ‘cause...”
“Get to the point. Where’s the Enclave official in charge of this town?”
“Mayor’s office is second floor, third room to the right. We don’t have any ‘Enclave officials’ round here – not that there really can be any these days, since the Enclave station was blown up by terrorists back in ‘42.”
Robertson chose not to respond to that, and climbed up the stairs. They found the room easily enough – yet again, Robertson was disconcerted by its resemblance to the Mayor’s offices of any moderate-sized NCR town. The Mayor himself was a heavyset man with a short beard, mustache and mullet that was fading from black to grey in places - he wore a pinstripe suit of alternating black and white stripes.
“Hello,” he said. “It isn’t too often I meet a rebel invader seeking to destroy all we hold dear. It was very brave of you to come here.”
“I’m not trying to destroy anything,” Lance sighed. “I’m here to liberate the people suffering under the Enclave’s oppression.”
“There’s no ‘oppression’ in America other than that which any society needs to work. The enforcement of laws, the punishment of criminals, the collection of taxes, so on and so forth. And there’s never been an ‘Enclave’ to oppress the people anyway – only ever the US Government.”
“There’s never been an Enclave?! They murdered hundreds and sort to massacre the entire world, that was their-”
Lance stopped himself. Listing the Enclave’s crimes in detail would do nothing to somebody taught that nothing of the sort had happened. Instead he asked another question.
“Who appointed you?”
“Appointed? Not by anybody except the people of this town – and that’s not an appointment so much as an election. Was a hard campaign, only barely won against the Federalists – they’ve held power for decades in this town. Got a strong political machine going, but we beat it.”
“You’re saying that you’re democratically elected? That the Enclave is too?”
“By ‘Enclave’ you mean all the State and Commonwealth Governors, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency?”
The mayor sent a message on his phone. “Sheila, bring the electoral records.”
Lance held himself firm.
“Yes. Are you a pure-blood?”
“Pureblood? What’s that, some kind of fantasy novel talk?”
“The ‘genetically superior’ Enclave personnel who avoided being exposed to radiation-”
“Well, I’m not. We were racially integrated long before the War, what makes you think we care about any of that crap? I mean, the Government and military folks looked down on us way back in the beginning when they had first come over from the west – didn’t want anything to do with us for decades – but that was because we were living in squalor and filth. As our lives improved and we showed our worth, they started respecting us more. I guess my father was a US Army soldier, but my ma’s family dates back 500 years in this place, never left.”
He seemed genuine, and Lance felt no reason to believe he was lying.
He felt a quiver of unease. So that explains it, he mused. Why the power-armoured men fought to protect the others yesterday. They genuinely viewed them as equals. And they … they likely were ‘wastelanders’ themselves. That explains the numbers. It’s not androids or cloning … it’s that the Enclave has been recruiting wastelanders into its military for decades. Treating them just like everyone else. They don’t see any kind of difference any more.
The receptionist he had met earlier walked in, carrying a heavy stack of files covered in manila paper. Lance ruffled his greying brown hair and looked through them as his bodyguards stood firmly by the entrance to the room.
It was nothing interesting – a mix of polling numbers, endless names of registered voters, donations made by various interest groups or other, and so on for several hundred pages. Lance read through it shallowly, skimming between bits of information that caught his attention, but it was at any rate too much to have been fabricated at short notice. Which meant …
Lance’s head swam as implication after implication hit, one after the other.
The people aren’t fighting us as brainwashed drones … they’re genuinely loyal to the Enclave. Because the Enclave has improved their way of life, and lets them choose their leaders, and doesn’t behave as a tyrannical regime.
They view us as foreign invaders, murderous rebels who want to depose their government and destroy their way of life. Of course they’re going to fight against us.
The Enclave and the NCR … they’re not so different these days. The Enclave has gone a full 180 from how it was in the 40s …
There would never be a great mutiny or rebellion in favour of the NCR’s forces. At best, he might get sullen acquiescence from regions already under occupation. High Command’s strategy was so breathtakingly naive – and yet it was not born out of naivete, but the opposite. Enclave radio and TV frequencies were jammed in most of the NCR, and only really viewed by analysts who mercilessly scrutinised every broadcast or publication for the slightest germ of sinister implication on what was really going on beneath the surface.
How much of the claims dismissed as propaganda or effortlessly ‘debunked’ by men like Dr. Walt Irving was real? How much was genuine Enclave propaganda? And of course, the implication was that Military Intelligence’s spy rings in Enclave territory were hopelessly compromised. He would have to make every detail clear to High Command and the NCR cabinet after he won at Chicago – but I’ve got no damn evidence. If Weston and McLean hadn’t died ...
Lance gritted his teeth.
“So, why do you want to conquer and annex us, if you really just want to live in peace?"
“Don’t you know what this war is about already, when you’re one of the top commanders in it? The Federal Government is the same one from before the War – that means it holds sovereignty over the same territory by default – part of which is the territory your ‘NCR’ claims. Now, they could theoretically say that they didn’t, but if they did that … that’s tantamount to saying they’re no longer the US Federal Government. What reason does Louisiana, or Michigan, or Ontario have to listen to them then? And why shouldn’t we try and restore legitimate governance to our own damn territory?”
“You’re saying that the Enclave can never lose the right to the land it claims?"
“Look, we talked about this a fair deal in Civics class, but it was summed up in one Supreme Court case just after the first Civil War,” the mayor said, sighing. “It was found out that the State of Texas had never really left the United States, and that it was in a legal sense impossible unless either the Federal Government was destroyed, or all the other States consented to such. The US Government never ceased to exist – even after you blew up Control Station ENCLAVE and sacked Navarro – so the State of South California – among others – still exists, but under an illegal government that has declared its hostility in both word and deed to the US.”
Lance thought there was a hole in the man’s logic somewhere, but such wasn’t important right now. Ultimately there was one final question.
“So that’s why you … why not explain all this to us in the first place? Why not let us know that the Enclave has changed, that it doesn’t want to commit genocide or enslave us any more?!”
“Why should we try and peacefully deal with those who refuse to peacefully deal with us? People who try and murder our President and our diplomats like cowards, who sabotage the storm defences of our cities, who treat even the children of our soldiers and officials as war criminals and butchers, who invade our country expressly to tear down our governmental institutions?!”
Lance had no answer for that. The actions of the NCR after Navarro had their context in the actions of the Enclave under Richardson – and without such context they looked like a bizarre attempt at utterly destroying a defeated enemy for no clear reason, of showing no distinction between combatant and civilian. And the Enclave had revised their history to proclaim that Richardson’s most serious crimes had never happened, so to their inhabitants he was more a martyr than a tyrant. And of course they would name one of their capital ships after such a figure, and of course to the NCR’s analysts that would be the honouring of a genocidal maniac, and of course they would continue to believe that nothing had ever really changed.
And they would make statements based on those beliefs of relentless war to the utter extirpation of the Enclave, and the neo-Enclave would view those as the threats to its national survival that they were … and on and on the cycle of war and vengeance would go.
He sighed. The neo-Enclave might well be a fine place to live … but it and the NCR were playing for winner-take-all now. He would not abandon his men, or the millions who were banking on him for victory. He would not have Maggie, his children, or his parents see him for a coward or a traitor. He would not have them use their brutal techniques of ‘pacification’ – that he had no reason to doubt, since they admitted to them – in the NCR. He had sworn an oath when he had joined the military, and he would keep it. Lance left the mayor’s office, the city hall, and the town of Rockford without a glance turned back.
He had a city to take.
==*==
CST 6:00 AM, December 10 2331
Rural Illinois
It was still not light yet as Sergeant Draper worked diligently to get the truck working again. The rest of the convoy was already far ahead – but on this one the front tires had been flattened by the cold of these bitter northern winters, unlike anything California knew. Another soldier came over to him, carrying a spare, which Draper examined. It too was burst.
He swore. While great care had been taken to ensure the front-line soldiers had received appropriately winterised equipment, there had not been such time to expend such meticulous effort on the entirety of the logistics train, as the number of trucks needed to support some hundreds of thousands in the field was greater by far than the number of combat vehicles they possessed. Which meant the 5,000 Salient Green packets carried by the truck, each sufficient for a full-sized meal, would be several hours late at the-
A gauss round hit the soldier next to him, punching through his combat armour like tissue paper, and spraying his viscera over the truck. It continued straight through him and the truck’s own chassis, smashing through several crates before making a dent on the opposite side. Draper turned and fired a burst of laser fire, but didn’t hit any of what seemed to be fifteen dark shapes in the woods around them.
The enemy replied with lasers of their own, as from the ground arose a roboscorp on underground patrol, tearing up the snow and dirt as it fired its stinger-mounted LAER at the unknown enemies. Draper thought he saw three of them fall before a pulse grenade froze up the scorpion-robot, followed swiftly by another gauss round which smashed into it from the front and took it out for good. The three remaining NCR soldiers by the truck kept firing, but they were sitting ducks. Draper frantically ran into the truck – and, keeping his head low to try and avoid the sustained laser fire that was melting holes in its windows - sent a frantic call for help. It was little use, he knew – the nearest vertibird was ten minutes away – but at least it was something.
“This is Sergeant Steve Draper, 103rd Logistics Regiment – under sustained attack by partisans, unable to move. Help if you-”
A frag grenade went through the open window – Draper barely noticed its passing before it detonated and smeared him all over the driver’s cab. The others went down easily. The vertibird found no enemies but the burnt-out skeleton of a truck and the bodies of several soldiers, one only identifiable by dental records.
==*==
CST 9:00 CST, December 11 2331
Main NCR Army Camp, Rural Illinois
General Lance Robertson mused over the situation. The war was a matter of mere politics, not a noble crusade against tyranny. The fantasy that the Enclave was glass-jawed was just that – a fantasy. Disabused of that notion, he had started to move on a broad front. The two armies he had previously kept in reserve were crossing the river to take Indianopolis via Peoria, Bloomington and Champaign – a hundred thousand of the Colombian ‘volunteers’ had also been sent to the south, and were moving into Arkansas to take Little Rock as well as Memphis via Jonesboro.
Of course, everything depended on two factors – whether he could take Chicago and the logistical nexus point of O’Hare, and if the Enclave forces at St. Louis remained under siege. If Chicago held, he would not be able to re-supply the armies aimed at Indianopolis in the coming months, and if St. Louis broke free his whole southern flank would be wide open. The ulcer of Davenport also exposed him to attack on his rear, though that pocket was slowly being reduced and was of no consequence for right now.
The aerial conflict was also troubling – he could not afford to lose any of his laser AA vehicles – the Army Air Corps’ own planes still had to fly from airbases in Brotherhood territory and the parts of Texas not yet under the Enclave’s thumb, and response times were higher than he would like. Aerial warfare also inevitably favoured the defender – a pilot who ejected over hostile territory was inevitably going to be captured, while one over friendly territory would be able to regroup and fly again.
And the morale issue, again. He had sworn his bodyguard to secrecy regarding what they had seen and heard in Rockford, but he had no illusions they were immune to the temptations of idle talk. He realised he was in a situation where the NCR’s leaders needed to know the truth, but the rank-and-file needed to be kept ignorant for as long as possible.
Sentinel Brandt entered his tent, looking grim as he always did.
“General,” he said plainly. “We'll be moving on the Enclave’s main industrial cities already, by air.”
“Which ones?”
“Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland.”
“Via aerial deployment? That’s madness.”
“Our vertibird transports will be flying low to avoid Enclave radars and to more effectively evade laser AA systems. The Argo class airships will serve as mobile fallback points and sources of resupply. I’ll be using 5,000 of my best men – they are unlikely to be present at Chicago.”
“Your ‘Brotherhood militia’ - they’re nigh-useless without support from your actual members. I can’t-”
“The Brotherhood’s Knights aren’t the dogs of the NCR, to be loosed on your country’s foes when and where you deem fit. We are not under your chain of command, and you’ll do well to remember that.”
“You will be fighting in person?”
“At Detroit, yes. The Brotherhood’s leaders don’t cower in bunkers and mobile command posts, they’re on the front line with their men to the very end. Ad victoriam.”
“I suppose I can’t dissuade you.”
“No.”
“As you wish.”
==*==
11:00 AM CST, 12 December 2331
Fort Davy Crockett, Near Dallas, Texas
It was shortly after church had ended and Sergeant Walker was tired. He had certainly learned to appreciate it a lot more than he had in the past – though he had never really not believed, he had found religion to be boring, if necessary. Endless dull church sessions singing half-remembered hymns, followed by equally endless dull Sunday School activities. Now, this was different. The company chaplain was really on fire for God, and he always had a comforting word for the troops. Still, of his squad Ray found it unfamiliar – not like the UAC services of his own locality, so informal, with the traditional hymns replaced with “worship songs” which were seemingly all chorus, that chorus being two or three lines each - and Rita did not worship with the others, instead going to those services held by the Catholic chaplain.
He looked up at the flag of the UAC by the church entrance, the St. George’s cross defaced with a dark blue diamond – that in itself having in its centre a gold Chi-Rho surrounded by a circle of twelve white stars. As the throng of dedicants continued moving out of the house of worship, Walker caught a glimpse of a man in a colonel’s field uniform.
He saluted automatically, before realising it was his own regimental commander, Constantine Autumn. He was silent, keeping his gaze on Walker (who felt transfixed by it) until there was no-one within earshot.
“Sergeant Walker?” the man said.
“Yes, sir?”
“I wouldn’t tell you this normally, but since you’ve always conducted yourself honourably while dating my niece I’ll let you in on this.”
Walker felt sheepish at that.
“We’ll be moving soon. Both 45th Corps and 81st Corps, along with the Marine Task Force that saved the day at Second Houston. I don’t know where, but it’s certainly to the north.”
Walker didn’t know whether to feel glad that the weeks of boredom and worry over the situation in the mid-west were soon to be over, or concerned that he would face serious combat so soon after the Battle of Dallas, still untried as an NCO. I’ll try and do my duty as best as I’m able. Nothing more or less.
==*==
03:00 AM CST, 13 December 2331
Western Illinois
“We found the Enclave oil rig
was makin’ such a fuss,
We have to stop the Enclave
‘cause the world depends on us,
We got deep in its iron guts
and we turned our guns around,
Yeah we found that blasted oil rig
and then we took it down.”
Sergeant Thomas Watkins listened to the song in the armoured truck, from a pre-War medley whose lyrics were lost but whose tune had not been forgotten. It did not help his mood. The winter was terrible, the Brotherhood men insufferable, and he was starting to despise the Enclave subjects. Any freedom-loving man or woman would have greeted the NCR’s armies of liberation with flowers and warm welcome – instead they were shown the cold shoulder at best.
The quartermasters had to come in to the farms and hamlets armed to the teeth and backed up by a platoon at the least – even then the store-owners rarely had any goods, or insisted at length that NCR money wasn’t valid until forced to concede the issue by a number of laser rifles. The coolant stations built by the Enclave … their managers often burned the places down rather than have them service NCR vehicles.
And then there were the minority of the population that took up arms against the NCR’s soldiers, ambushing convoys and patrols like this one whenever they got the-
A plasma bolt hit Watkins’ driver, frying his face to reveal the bare bone of his skull as his brain boiled within it. |The smell of burnt meat filled the truck’s cab as Watkins and his squad jumped out of the vehicle. Their gunner opened up with his gatling laser, lighting up a number of trees, but even in the firelight and the dim glare of the sickle moon not much could be seen of the attackers.
Rapid-fire plasma bolts and laser-beams danced in the chill night air, but the attacking figures seemed elusive.
Watkins swore under his breath in the middle of reloading a laser-round when he saw a figure clear against the firelight. It was a man in power armour, but larger than any normal human in such a suit had the right to be, and carrying a gatling laser. The rest of the dark shapes seemed to be normal human-sized, but that …
For a moment Watkins thought it was Frank Horrigan, but reminded himself that that monster had died almost a century ago.
He reached for a grenade, but in his fumbling panic he dropped it. Seconds later a plasma bolt grazed his left leg. Flesh and muscle seared away before his nerves could register the heat – he fell ham-stringed, a good chunk of his thigh reduced to ash and a decent portion of the rest seared to uselessness. He fell face-first into the snowy soil, the sounds of dead and wounded soldiers all around him. Slowly, one-by-one, the groans of the wounded ceased, cut off by the unmistakeable sound of flesh meeting steel. Then he felt a hand pulling him up by the hair. It was a figure covered all over in black combat armour, who held him up and drew a wickedly sharp combat knife from his belt.
Watkins tried to struggle, but his limbs were too weak and the black-armoured man too fast. Titanium carbide against flesh was a contest with only one result – the knife slashed through his throat with brutal ease, cutting all the way to the spine. The figure dropped him on his back, looking at the cold stars through a veil of smoke and cloud. It was almost beautiful.
As he uselessly wheezed through a sundered trachea, his hot blood ebbing away with every beat of his heart, Watkins’ last thought was of his home town of the Hub, the wife he would never see again, and the unborn child he would never see.
-*-
Agent Samuel Pierce took his helmet off to spit on the snowy ground, then took it back on and moved again into the forest at a good pace. There were reinforcements coming to investigate, already on their way – they had no ability to take prisoners, never mind treat them decently – and letting them off the hook to tell that there were US Secret Service and Army Rangers operating behind enemy lines was unworkable as well. It was butchery and not civilised warfare – but it was what it was. Behind his helmet, his face continued to wrinkle in a picture of disgust. They were certainly getting hanged as war criminals if the enemy won … but then, they’d declared to do that after victory regardless of whatever war crimes they did or didn’t commit, so in that respect it made no difference.
What made a difference was his certainty that he would face judgement for these actions, if not in this life then the next.
“That felt wrong,” the team’s ‘special advisor’ said in his deep and guttural tones. “That patrol made a mistake in running across us, but to kill the wounded like that? It reminds me of what the super mutants used to do. When I tried to tell them of a way to live peaceably, and warned them they would be destroyed if they continued to make war on the people of the Capital Wasteland they cursed me and shot at me.”
“It’s war, big guy,” Pierce replied. “Blame our CO for not avoiding that enemy patrol well enough. As it is, you know well we’ve got more important stuff to do than taking out enemy soldiers. We’ve got a bridge to blow, and by God we’ll see it done no matter the cost."
For his part, Special Agent Fawkes continued ruminating on the past as they continued to march.
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CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Just knew it was gonna be Fawkes
Though, I’m guessing the guy’s existence was secret because even the reformed Enclave didn’t like Ghouls
Also, seems that the other guys are sort of just “not caring” whether or not the propaganda regarding the Enclave’s true or not in the future
Hell, I think the Brotherhood will want to disarm and devolve the rest of the world anyway
Though, I’m guessing the guy’s existence was secret because even the reformed Enclave didn’t like Ghouls
Also, seems that the other guys are sort of just “not caring” whether or not the propaganda regarding the Enclave’s true or not in the future
Hell, I think the Brotherhood will want to disarm and devolve the rest of the world anyway
Floridaman
Well-known member
Thanks Navarro, my day hasn’t been very good, this was just the pick me up I needed.
TyrantTriumphant
Well-known member
When the NCR high command accept the information on how the Neo-Enclave actually works, they're going to have to change up their strategy quite a bit. Not just for the war, but for their planned post war.
Without the expected compliance on behalf of the population, setting up their planned network of puppet states would require a large amount of manpower and brutality to keep the locals in line.
They could also use the threat of WMDs and atrocities to keep the former US territories in line, but I'm not sure they're willing to go quite that far.
Still, these are the kind of questions the NCR is going to have start asking itself now that new information is coming to light.
Without the expected compliance on behalf of the population, setting up their planned network of puppet states would require a large amount of manpower and brutality to keep the locals in line.
They could also use the threat of WMDs and atrocities to keep the former US territories in line, but I'm not sure they're willing to go quite that far.
Still, these are the kind of questions the NCR is going to have start asking itself now that new information is coming to light.