Chapter Twenty-Three
State of California Speech, Given January 4th 2332 from Shady Sands
“Thank you, Mr. Vice President and Mr. Speaker. The New California Republic today stands resolute and defiant as a true beacon of liberty and civilisation in the wasteland that once was Old America. Despite some reverses, we have struck a blow against the hate, greed and fascism of the Enclave for the very first time since the Battle of Navarro. This in itself is an achievement. The NCR Army has never lost a conflict before and we don’t intend to start. The Enclave’s days, like those of Caesar and the Master, are numbered.”
“That aside, I intend to push new legislation in the coming year primarily focussed on the war effort. The NCR Army and Navy will be going through a total re-organisation and re-armament process. In particular, we expect to increase the percentage of power-armoured troops from 20% of NCR combat troops to 50%, and equip our light infantry troops with new small arms and other equipment capable of handling Enclave power armour. New tactical and strategic concepts are also under development.”
“The NCR Army Air Corps will receive new dedicated long-range fighters and bombers. The NCR navy will see an expansion. Our work with our allies against Enclave aggression also continues unabated – President Garner of the LSR, who is here tonight, has denounced the collaboration government’s ‘reintegration’ of the vast majority of his country to direct Enclave administration, and has signed a treaty ceding Texan territory west of I-25 to the NCR, in the hope that we may make better use of certain unexplored Old World facilities in the region than his own government has been able to. This area has already been provisionally organised under two NCR territorial governments, Las Cruces and Santa Fe.”
“In addition to all this, we will also be focusing on new efforts to support our economy and the civilian side of affairs in these trying times. We will be improving infrastructure throughout California and working to reorganise and expand the Office of Science and Industry. I will be pushing forth new anti-corruption and other measures to further weaken the influence of local actors in government.”
“We look not only to the war that we have been forced to fight, but to after the war, not only to the establishment of domestic tranquility but to a new peaceful order throughout the former United States, unmarred by totalitarianism or warlordism, which will be maintained primarily by the NCR.”
“This grand proposition is still not completely detailed, but the Secretary of State informs me that his aim is to have all of the former United States ‘look like California’. I am asking Congress to put its full strength and effort behind enacting any legislation that may be part of this agenda as it develops. The lesson of Old World history is that a failed peace only leads to further war and dissension.”
“A word of thanks, finally, to all those who stand on the front line against the Enclave. We owe our prosperity and freedom to you.”
==*==
14:30 PST, January 6th 2332
NCR Presidential Palace, Shady Sands
President Matthew Kimball sat back in his chair as Thaddeus Romanowski, Five-Star General and NCR Army Chief of Staff, entered the room. He looked grim as he prepared to speak.
“General,” Kimball said. “You have the post-mortem on the failure to take the Enclave air base at Chicago?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Romanowski summarised, laying down a thick manila folder on the desk. “And what it suggests is dire. To summarise, our logistics lines were too long and inefficient to deal with both the winter conditions and the partisan phenomenon. In addition, air cover and support for our troops was less than what it should have been as a result of the long distance from our main airbases. Both factors are a direct result of Brotherhood failure to rebuild pre-War infrastructure – or build new – to the capacity we have here in the NCR.”
“They’ve also not allowed us to build bases in their territory – forcing us to make limited use of theirs – and have refused to create a unified military command. The Great Plains being wide open, I can’t see any kind of mobile defence of them by the NCR Army working.”
“What do you recommend?” Kimball asked. If he’s thinking what I think he is …
“We flip the script, turn it upside down. Withdraw the Second Army Group under General Robertson back to the Rockies. If the Enclave takes the Brotherhood’s fortress cities by storm, they’ll bleed themselves – if they try and besiege them they’ll be forced to divide their armies. Either way, they’ll be overextended and we’ll be working with short supply lines. Second Army Group can then launch a counter-offensive when the time is right, then we can destroy their army in the field and quickly move on to the Great Lakes and East Coast.”
Kimball thought the situation over – it made sense, but the thought of betraying an ally rang ill with him. But from another perspective – Bishop’s for sure – the Midwestern Brotherhood were allies of the NCR only by necessity. Them shielding the NCR Army as it re-organised and re-armed in preparation for another offensive might … well, it might make them manageable in future. Not in a strictly military way, of course – the Elders of Lost Hills and the Mojave branch were tolerable in that same respect.
“And for Texas?”
“General Maguire is preparing a counter-offensive to be launched in early March. The ambassador we’ve sent to Mexico City has confirmed the Mexican Empire is ready to be involved, though they want land in exchange.”
“What territory, precisely?”
“Texas south of I-10, including the cities of San Antonio and Corpus Christi, was the Mexican demand.”
“That’s not territory we can actually give to them, though I will affirm that they can occupy that area as it is restabilised.”
Kimball sighed. The Mexican demand may severely weaken the NCR’s popularity among the LSR populace if openly acknowledged, but Bishop had said already that he saw no harm in such an agreement if done secretly. Let them occupy that border strip of southern Texas if they wanted it so much – it would only overextend them that much more than they already were, leaving them easy pickings for the NCR Army once the Enclave were dealt with. NCR suzerainty would end being extended straight to the Gulf of Mexico via the RRG after a short victorious war on behalf of the LSR to liberate its territory. Such a campaign would repair the relations between the NCR and the LSR populace as well – he could see it taking on a sort of genuine partnership, perhaps. And if the Mexicans took heavy casualties against the Enclave’s forces, as they probably would, well, that would just deny them even the pretense to be a major power, and allow the NCR to smoothly take control of the RRG.
Some of the people at State had raised the issue of reviving the four-hundred-years-dead Confederate States after the war in the south-east of the continent, as another nail in the coffin to the concept of a united America of which the Enclave had made such hay in their propaganda. If so, the LSR was the logical starting point for such a project. But still, taking control of that much territory may make it a genuine rival to the NCR … weaker than the Enclave, but still … He had seen another proposed map (highly classified) which had a Gulf Coast Republic, Appalachian Republic, Great Lakes Republic, Atlantic Republic and New England Republic. One more split the Enclave’s territory back into pre-War States (not Commonwealths!) and yet another had dozens of micro-states over former Enclave-held lands, to most directly minimise the chances of them hiding out like the cockroaches they were and reappearing, using one of the nations their territory would be divided into as a vehicle to launch their dark ambitions a third time.
The future was still malleable, yet.
His train of thought was disrupted by a last comment by Romanowski.
“General Lance Robertson contacted me yesterday,” he said. “He says that he has discovered critical intel of vital importance to the war effort and that he must present it in person to a select group of the Cabinet with all due haste.”
“Can’t he talk by radio?”
“He said not, that it has to be in person, because he intends to bring the intelligence materials he’s uncovered to you, Mr. President.”
“What in – what could be so important?”
“I haven’t talked to him directly in several years, but when Lance says something, he means it.”
Romanowski slid a document over to the desk. Kimball read it with surprise.
“Bishop and Hayden, Menendez, the Vice President, the Special Advisor?”
“Well, if one of your top field commanders says he feels the need to do this, I’d be obliged to take him at his word.”
“As he wishes,” Kimball sighed. “Inform him about my decision regarding Army Group North and state that he has my permission to entreat me at the Presidential Palace at whatever time he finds most convenient.”
==*==
9:00 CST, January 12th 2332
NCR Temporary Airstrip, Rural Illinois
Lance Robertson stepped on to the military transport plane, a leaden feeling in his heart. He’d spent the past two weeks taking every document that he could find of value as proof for what he intended to say to the President. Enclave high school history and civics textbooks; census records and exit polls; all that he had to convince Kimball that the situation was not what the NCR believed it to be was in a briefcase he held in his right hand. It would have to do – it was his only chance to give him a real sense of perspective as to what this war was really about. Needles of worry pierced his heart like daggers of ice. But nevertheless, he remembered what his father had taught him. You did the right thing because it needed to be done, not because it was easy to do.
As it took off and climbed into the heavens, he thought of the consequences should he fail. He might be cashiered or court-martialled – potentially put on trial for treason or espionage. These dark thoughts ran through his mind as he eventually fell into a fitful sleep.
The military transport plane set down at Shady Sands Airport at 13:00 PST, and General Lance Robertson went off, his feet seeming to strike the scorching metal steps with a more weighty ponderance than he’d thought usual, the briefcase of documents in his right hand seeming to drag him down with a leaden intensity. He found the shade of the palm trees welcome and the cooling system of his staff car even more so as it raced down the streets to the Presidential Palace. He went out, looking at the mix of Spanish revival and neoclassical with a somewhat jaundiced eye. The building, a replacement for the NCR President’s quarters in the Hall of Congress on Council Hill some distance away, had never been completed to its architect’s specifications.
He was waved on through security and went on through the lobby and the inner gardens to the centre of the complex, before taking the corridors into the north wing and finally, the Redwood Office – the NCR’s answer to the Old World Oval Office, which the Enclave had recreated twice; first on that damned oil rig and then on its old location once more. Facing him were President Kimball, Vice President Cole, General Menendez, Secretary of State Thomas Bishop, Dr. Walter Irving and Attorney General Carla Hayden.
“Mr. President,” he said, leading as respectfully as possible, setting the briefcase on the desk. “As I previously said, I have a report of the utmost urgency to make concerning the true nature of the enemy we are fighting right now.”
He paused for effect.
“The Enclave government is a democratic republic on the Old US model, just like the NCR. They aren’t oppressing or enslaving the wasteland population – on the contrary said population see it as what they claim to be, that is, the government of the United States of America. They don’t even have a concept of ‘genetic purity’ any more.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for enemy propaganda, General Robertson,” Cole said.
“Lance is solid gold, Mr. Vice President!” Menendez replied. “When we were in the Academy – no offence, my friend – he sure wasn’t the type to be easily taken in, or to tell anything but the plain-spoken truth.”
“I saw it with my own eyes,” Lance continued. “People living in decent towns just like NCR towns, living decent lives. And the soldiers … there’re no slave-soldiers either. The vast majority of the Enclave armies are wastelanders like us, fighting for what they believe in.”
“Which is?!” Cole angrily said, almost spitting.
“The protection and restoration of the United States of America. They believe that the Enclave is the legitimate government from back in the Old World era, and we’re a gang of rebels, insurrectionaries and secessionists seeking to destroy them based on a lie. They don’t know what Richardson tried to do, or even the reasons behind it. From their point of view we’re traitors, terrorists, and hypocrites who deliberately refuse to obey the rules of war and the practices of civilised nations.”
“Even if this is true, does it matter?”
“It matters, Cole, because it means we can’t just give the Enclave a push and they’ll fall over. There’ll be no great rebellion or mutiny of slaves against us. All we’ll do is draw more and more lives into a meatgrinder in the occupied territories, trying to hunt down everybody involved even remotely in their government and military.”
“How could they, when Richardson ...” Hayden trailed off.
“They haven’t been taught about that. From elementary school on in history they’re taught that Dick Richardson intended no such thing, and that he was simply trying to reestablish control over the mainland. They view our treatment of Enclave members as a gargantuan campaign of persecution out of spite that they’re the legitimate government and we’re not.”
“But – my analysis of the Enclave conditions ...” Irving commented.
“You may be smart, Doctor, but you’ve been working with bad and misinterpreted data for the entirety of your career. You’ve been looking through a totally distorted lens. So has everybody in the NCR.”
“Is there any evidence at all for these claims?” Cole asked. “Military intelligence has consistently given us the opposite.”
“Military intelligence, we now know, is at least in part Enclave misinformation!” Menendez interjected. “Do you think they would want us to make decisions informed by actual facts?! In fact, I can note that we have received some more sanguine reports of Enclave territory since the program began. We presumed of course that this was misinformation and evidence that said agents had been compromised ...”
“Look through my briefcase,” Robertson replied. “It has everything I was able to gather while I was on the retreat.”
Kimball opened it and began to sigh-read over the documents contained within.
“Regardless,” Cole said. “If all you’ve said is true, it changes nothing. Richardson’s crimes still call out for vengeance, the Enclave is still seeking to brutally conquer us, and the war is still going on come rain or shine.”
“It changes one important thing,” Robertson noted. “Since the Enclave is run on a democratic model – the Old-World US one – it’s receptive to public opinion. From our perspective, we can look at this as a weakness. To ensure the safety of our Republic, all we have to do is become too tough of a nut to crack and force them to acknowledge our independence in a treaty. A ceasefire at least will give us time and breathing space, if nothing else.”
“Presuming they treat it with respect,” Cole continued. “Given their past behaviour, I don’t expect that. Are they even willing to negotiate with us, Lance, by your reasoning?”
“No,” he replied. “They hate us and view us with contempt – as a bad joke of an attempt to recapture the Old World’s splendour, and as murderous rebels who seek to tear down their society and kill them all, who’re looking out to execute their newborn children; who murdered one of their Presidents and tried to kill their most beloved leader. They won’t even consider negotiating with the NCR unless they feel they have absolutely no choice.”
“So this does changes nothing in practice,” Cole commented. “Even if every bit of it is true, the destruction of the Enclave is a prerequisite for the NCR’s future security. As you said, this isn’t just about land or resources to them, they want revenge for the justice we enacted on them in the past. Even if we hold our ground, they’ll be able to launch another war in ten years, maybe twenty, with more resources and manpower at their disposal. It’s impossible for us to defend the Great Plains and the Brotherhood is dying – what do you think they’ll do with all that corn, sell it to us?”
“In three, maybe four generations they’ll be a hundred million, or a hundred and fifty million, against forty or fifty million at most – California is a narrow strip of farmland surrounded by worthless desert. A long-term alliance with the Mexican Empire or Colombia is little more than shackling the NCR to a corpse, as with the Brotherhood. We have no viable option but winning this war and dismantling the Enclave, even if everything you say is true.”
“They themselves boast in their propaganda of their ruthless approach to war. I’d die a thousand times over before I saw President Tandi’s statue trampled into the dust, or the bald-faced lie that Richardson committed no crime immortalised as an historical fact. That last point is most important. If anything could be worse than trying to kill the world, trying to do it and then calling the perpetrator a hero would be! That fact alone – the glorification of one of history’s greatest monsters – gives us a moral obligation to fight to the finish.”
“If I would recommend one thing, Mr. President,” Lance finished. “It’s to tell the people the truth.”
“We can’t do that,” Kimball replied. “For one thing, we don’t have a Department of Propaganda like the Enclave have. For another, it might not be true. From what I can see, these may well still be fraudulent materials and we have nothing other than your word – which, truth be told, is relatively trustworthy – apart from that. To go out on a limb and base our strategy on what may yet be complete wishful thinking is pure insanity. And even if we’d be ‘telling the truth’ by doing this, the NCR government publicly going back on a message that’s lasted almost a century … Lance, you don’t understand politics. I would be impeached, and the whole North would feel absolutely betrayed.”
He sighed.
“The Republic itself might even dissolve. And at this juncture, with the war that’s going on … that would make the Enclave’s victory certain.”
He seemed to want to speak further to bring something else up but suddenly stopped.
“So you’ve decided to do nothing?!”
It was the first time Lance had raised his voice.
“Yes, General Robertson. Until I have ironclad proof that what you’re talking about is the truth then we can’t take any action on the intelligence you’ve given us. And even if it is true – if the Enclave just want to conventionally conquer us – if it’s either them or us, we’re all for the NCR.”
“Yes, Mr. President. Absolutely.”
==*==
10:00 EST, January 14th 2332
Arlington, District of Columbia, United States
General Alexander Autumn would have liked to have had a bigger triumphal procession. But still, the majority of the forces under him were still needed to push the Californians back to the river. So the National Guard units who had fought at O’Hare had provided most of the troops – a decent proportion from the 1st Massachusetts Division, known as “the Minutemen” from before their formal incorporation into the US military. He was dressed to the nines for this – in full dress with peaked cap, epaulettes, gold belt and eagle-pommeled sabre. Standing out of the command hatch of a Custer MBT painted in dark blue with gold trim, a red-and-white-striped turret, and a white-painted barrel, he felt half-cold and half-warm.
The Pentagon stood behind him, its pre-War brutalist exterior concealed behind a colonnade. In front of him were the assembled troops who would parade behind him in full military dress, parting ways for the tank as it slowly drove towards the Rochambeau Memorial Bridge, which had been closed for traffic for the day. He let his nerves die down as it moved onward and out of the bridge, the sound of thousands of marching feet behind him. Three-quarters of the way down to the far end, they crossed a red line and two brazen statues of soldiers in T-72 power armour. Autumn took a deep breath – this was where his father had stopped the Brotherhood cold so many years ago. As they approached the very end of the bridge, they stopped a dozen or so metres in front of the Jefferson Gate.
It was a free-standing propylaeum with carvings of American soldiers, its entrances sized so as to allow vehicle traffic onto the highway before it, and above its central gateway was an engraving:
ERECTED IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD MMCCCXVI, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE VICTORY OVER REBEL FORCES WHICH SOUGHT TO TAKE CONTROL OF THE CAPITAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DURING THE YEAR MMCCLXXVIII ANNO DOMINI.
Standing in the gate was the Mayor of DC, and some aides of his. Their presence was wholly ceremonial, yet also vitally important. An American triumph, unlike the Roman ones, was not meant as a mere display of military power but also of that power’s subordination to the civilian government. The tank’s fusion gun and gatling laser had been disabled, and the soldiers’ laser rifles were unloaded.
“This is general Alexander Autumn,” he said, as if talking over the radio to a commanding officer. “Requesting permission to enter the city of Washington.”
“Permission granted,” the Mayor said, and went out to joined the procession, walking just behind Autumn’s tank, as it entered the city.
They headed north at the Jefferson Memorial, which had once held Project Purity and onward across the parkland that had been reclaimed from the Tidal Basin, now forming a southern wing of the National Mall. They turned to look with respect at the Augustus Autumn Memorial; a column 360 feet high, made of melted-down armour pieces captured from the Brotherhood of Steel, crowned with a brass statue of the former President, and engraved with reliefs depicting the successes, both military and civilian, of his Presidency. It stood on a north-south axis with the White House, the Jefferson Memorial, and the realigned Washington Monument.
They went past the World War Two Memorial, heading east again to go past 1776 Pennsylvania Avenue (known as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in pre-War times, and in both eras as the White House) in the distance, beyond the National Christmas Tree, which still stood past Epiphany and would until the 25th of January. They turned south and moved on to the National Parade Ground. Despite the small size of the parade and the cold weather, a large number of civilians had turned out. They were definitely entranced by the VH-01s swooping overhead – this was the first time the public had seen the aircraft, for sure.
The troops went past the skeletal cherry trees that lined the outer parts of the National Mall and under the Columbia Arch, which lay at the intersection of the Parade Ground and 71st Street; and on to the Capitol Reflecting Pool, where Autumn got out of the tank. The soldiers would go no further than the Ulysses Grant Memorial; he had his own place to be. He climbed the steps up to the Inaugural Platform – permanently incorporated into the design of the west side when the Capitol was rebuilt - and up to where President Nathan Washington was already ready to greet him, along with the Vice President and the assembled Congress. He saluted the Commander in Chief and restated the oath he had taken when he had enrolled at West Point.
“I do solemnly swear and affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed above me according to regulations and the code of military justice; that I will fight with the courage deserving a soldier of the United States of America; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
That was the end of the formal ceremony.
The President gestured to an aide, who brought out a dark wooden box. In it, laid out on red velvet, were unusual rank markings. They were reminiscent of a five-star general’s stars, but with one additional star between the five pentagonally-arranged golden stars.
“I had one of these myself under your father,” Nate sighingly commented. “Back when you were still a teenager. My Lord, time really does fly.”
Autumn couldn’t begrudge him for bringing up Augustus, despite the recency of the pain. He was more irritated about having to stand in the cold. At least the President would be getting to head to the Presidential Resort and unofficial “winter White House” at Palm Beach in a few days, for the next month or two.
He’d been promoted to the six-star rank some days earlier, actually; this was more of a formal statement of that promotion and the immense trust that had been placed him to command the US Army. Back when he’d first led men into combat, against the Diamondbacks of Arkansas, he couldn’t have imagined he would reach this particular height. But still, this ceremony meant little in the grand scheme of things. There was a war out there, beyond the borders of the city, being fought every hour of every day. The tranquillity of the capital meant nothing so long as true peace didn’t exist in the rest of the United States.
==*==
14:00 CST, January 16th 2332
Rural Illinois
James Russell trudged through the snow, which after having melted during a warm spell two weeks ago had now returned, but not as bad as it had been previously. Nevertheless, it covered the highway he was walking beside and everything else, a great big carpet of white that seemed to enshroud the world. He sighed. House had given him his instructions in late November – go to Enclave territory and return. The man was convinced that peace between the Enclave and NCR was both possible and necessary, and that he personally was the best man to negotiate it.
But, he’d said, the NCR needed firm evidence that their opinions of the Enclave were not based in fact. So the man had replaced his eyes with cybernetics which also functioned as audiovisual recorders. His instructions were to get to a large enough settlement under Enclave control, turn them on, download the footage he received into a holotape currently stored in his pip-boy, and return to the NCR with the evidence.
Wouldn’t have gone on this if the old man hadn’t saved my life way back, he mused. That and the money. He wasn’t sure if House was right, or if he was if he could even do what he planned. Sure don’t want to die fulfilling some crazy scheme. He wasn’t sure too if he could make the return journey. He’d piggy-backed on the NCR Army going in, and he’d have to cross the front line and make his own way across the Great Plains and the Rockies once he had what Mr. House wanted, or failed to get it. It’d be tough, but he’d survived the Sierra Madre, Big MT and the Divide. He felt that gave him good odds.
There was a loud noise to his left, and a truck drove up to his left, stopping. It was no military vehicle, but a company one.
The driver was in his late 20s, but still rugged from a life on the road. He opened the door and held out his hand.
“What’s your name, son?” the man asked.
“James Russell,” the Courier replied, not seeing a reason to lie. The name was common enough.
“And you were out on your own because ...”
“NCR bastards wrecked the farm. Family ran out before they got there, I’m looking for them.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. Them Calis don’t know what’s what. They’ve been forty years lookin’ for a scrap, now they have one at last. Say what, Decatur’s on my route. I’ll drop you off there in a couple of hours, give you some cash, and you can go round searchin’ for your folks.”
The drive to Decatur took some four hours, and the sun had already dipped below the horizon. He was let out on the north outskirts of town, an area that obviously attracted a certain element. There were women leaning against various bus stops and walls who were evidently not wearing much under their woollen coats; one of the larger buildings’ main features was a rotating red-neon outline of a nude girl under its porch, and the only sign of any authority at all was an eyebot labelled MACON COUNTY POLICE that idly hovered past his field of vision.
He found a cheap motel nearby and paid for two nights’ sleep – about forty Enclave dollars. The receptionist (a bored-looking young woman with too much eyeshadow and an ugly haircut) took his explanation as to the lack of documentation in stride, expressing sympathy. So, settled in his room, he checked the channels on the TV guide – most were local ones, though there were what seemed to be a few national entertainment and news services, one of which was designated “Federal News Network”. He turned it on, and was blasted by what seemed to be a military advertisement.
As the camera panned over a crowd of dark-blue-uniformed soldiers to stirring music, a narrator announced that “Young people from all over America are fighting to secure the future. Do you have what it takes to join them?”
“The courage?” asked one of the men, as the camera closed up on him.
“The honour?” asked a female soldier.
“The strength?” asked another.
“Join the US Army and help save the United States of America.”
After the commercial a fancy graphic then showed up on screen, the title designated TOUGH TALK WITH SIRIUS MORENO. Too tired to really care what they had to say at this point, Russell turned off the program and swiftly fell asleep, despite the cold and the hardness of his bed.
The next day, he headed into the centre of town. It wasn’t big – Decatur was barely worth calling a city, having a population of some 20,000 as he discovered at the local civic office. The biggest employer was a tractor factory, followed closely by a number of corporate offices and warehouses. But nevertheless most of it was very clean and orderly. Police cars regularly drove past, and almost every square inch of the city centre was under surveillance not only by eyebots but static cameras.
Propaganda posters were everywhere spouting warlike slogans: “THE WAR EFFORT NEEDS YOUR EFFORT”; “FREEDOM’S ON OUR SHOULDERS”; “FARM YOUR FOOD – DIG FOR VICTORY!”; “RESTORE THE HOMELAND – END THE REBELLION!”.
He made sure to have his cyber-eyes record every second of his time there, even his lunch at a fast-food chain restaurant called “Freedom Fries” with an obnoxiously garish red-white-and-blue colour palette.
The whole place was eerily … normal. This was not what he’d expected the Enclave to be in the interest of building. Obviously there was a military tinge, but … this town could be dropped in the middle of Boneyard State and no-one would notice for some time. That worried him. He wandered around the centre and the town hall for the rest of the afternoon, then went back and slept again.
The following day he got up and walked round the residential area of town, eyes recording every move. Again, it was disconcerting in how normal it was. He could have been in the Shady Sands suburbs. Churches, convenience stores, schools and the like stood out as points of interest, but nothing untoward. One thing that he noticed was odd was that a lot of the houses’ backyards were set up as small farms. But otherwise, it seemed like a normal place to live. Nothing as grim as he’d been told existed in the Enclave’s territory.
It was near the end of this walk that his time in Decatur suddenly ended.
He almost didn’t notice a police car drop by him – a Corvega-style vehicle, like most of the cars he’d seen and idle as two officers – one male, one female – came out, laser carbines strapped to their backs and pairs of cuffs that seemed to be magnetically linked together somehow in holsters at their belts. He’d seen those things during the Enclave’s conquest of Boston.
“Mr. Russell,” the leading officer commented. “We’re interested in an interview at the police station.”
“Why?!” he asked, not entirely faking his outrage. “This is a free country!”
“Yeah, but there’s a war on, you know. And it’s mighty strange for a man – even a homesteader – to come in here out of nowhere, have no ID, and pay only in cash. All that despite owning a Pip-Boy and multiple high-quality cybernetics. Now, all we want to do is to clear up this issue, Mr. ...”
Russell moved faster than the officer could anticipate, diving into the car’s open front door and knocking the driver out of his vehicle before taking off. Luckily he’d left the key in the ignition. Single laser shots hit the rear of the vehicle, but didn’t penetrate the glass. Sirens blared as more police cars came up behind him, hot on his heels, but he outran them. They moved up from seemingly every street, trying to cut off his escape, but he managed to weave past them.
As he frantically pushed the pedal to the metal and madly drove west down a road the car’s computerised voice designated as “Highway I-72”, he wondered how they’d come to suspect him. Musta been that receptionist lady, he guessed. Shoulda known she’d find me suspicious … who wouldn’t call local authorities about a possible spy? And my implants must have shown up on kind of scan, got them interest-
He swerved off the road and drove cross-country, north-west. That was the general direction he’d heard Ortez’s troops were falling back in. As night fell, it got harder to see and he turned on the headlights-
Sweet Mother of Jesus, is that a vertibird ahead of me? And in that blue-and-white police scheme …
He pushed the acceleration harder, temporarily getting ahead of the aircraft-
“Warning,” the car uttered in a computerised, slightly feminine, tone. “Acceleration and speed are above normal parameters. Coolant level rapidly decreasing. Recommend deceleration.”
He drove on at the car’s maximum speed, but could only get to the point where he was neck-and-neck with the aircraft. They must be keeping an eye on me, waiting for my coolant to run out and force me to stop. I’m screwed, unless …
It was a crazy idea, but he’d made those work before. Russell kept on driving the vehicle until the coolant was all out, then kept driving. “Warning, fusion engine crit-” the car’s voice denoted.
Russell dove out of the rapidly moving car and ran like hell. The vehicle’s inertia kept it onward, until its onboard reactor went up in a great ball of fusion fire, sending chunks of superheated metal flying in all directions. Thanking his lucky stars and his bionic spine, he crawled into a snowdrift, burying all but his mouth.
He heard several cars go to a stop around him, the whirr of eyebot thrusters, a soft thud as the vertibird landed, booted footsteps.
“Geezer must’ve had a death wish,” one of the voices said. “Think forensics will find any trace of him?”
“Not a chance,” a female voice said in reply. “He was at ground zero of a small-scale nuclear blast. Ain’t nothing bigger than a finger bone making it out of that.”
And so he lay for several hours, until the Enclave police left. Wet, tired and cold, he pushed himself out of the snow. Well, Mr. House has what he asked me to find, he mused. Provided I make it back to him. He still had his backpack with its survival equipment – that should help him at least get out of Enclave territory. If his luck held, of course.
He uttered a brief prayer of thanks for getting out of this alive, and set his face to the west.
==*==
14:00 CST, January 26th 2332
Nicaragua Lagoon, Strait of Nicaragua
Admiral Fletcher of the NCR Navy Southern Fleet despised the humid jungle air, and the mist that seemed to make it impossible to see ahead. The NCR naval base situated on this volcanic island – the furthest flung of its outposts other than Hawaii – was generally considered a punishment posting. But right now, it was being used by him (and would be by the three submarine squadrons following in his lake) to take on a final load of additional supplies for the battle ahead. The final leg of the journey was all but complete – now all that remained was the confrontation to come with the Enclave’s Caribbean Fleet.
Naval warfare was largely a theoretical subject post-War, at best. It would remain to be seen whose theories ended up triumphing.
