Duke Nukem
Hail to the king baby
I wonder if zao ever got back to china?
Fallout The Eagle And The Bear [Fallout AU]
- Thread starter Navarro
- Start date
SuperHeavy
Well-known member
Well the Enclave did pick up a Chinese submarine transit way back in the first story so odds are good he made it. Assuming of course wasn't shot on sight for being a ghoul/his functioning submarine.
Navarro
Well-known member
To answer your question on the morality thing - if Fallout 2 is Star Wars, this fanfic is Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
Navarro
Well-known member
Some even try and say they were justified in flipping the table because America was going to turn them into a puppet state - i.e. the same treatment we gave to Japan and Germany after WW2.
Of course in some this attitude merges with the idea that the nuclear war was a good thing, an attitude I specifically marked out as downright psychopathic in Autumn Morning.
ForeverShogo
Well-known member
Honestly, with the way the world was going, I'd have been genuinely surprised if the United States had actually bothered to turn a defeated China into a puppet.
With the resource crunch and the technologies America had in the pipeline that would have allowed it to be truly self sufficient . . . I wouldn't even blink if they just razed China then pulled out and left the Chinese to wallow in their own misery.
Not like China would have been able to rebuild to be a threat again. Their invasion of Alaska was literally the only thing staving off their collapse.
The rest of the world would continue falling apart, becoming ever weaker and primitive, while America remained ascendant.
Globalism just wasn't a thing in Fallout, and America simply isn't invested in keeping the rest of the world going.
With the resource crunch and the technologies America had in the pipeline that would have allowed it to be truly self sufficient . . . I wouldn't even blink if they just razed China then pulled out and left the Chinese to wallow in their own misery.
Not like China would have been able to rebuild to be a threat again. Their invasion of Alaska was literally the only thing staving off their collapse.
The rest of the world would continue falling apart, becoming ever weaker and primitive, while America remained ascendant.
Globalism just wasn't a thing in Fallout, and America simply isn't invested in keeping the rest of the world going.
Navarro
Well-known member
Well ...
A. In the 200 years after the War not much was going on culturally for obvious reasons, and the groups that most diverged from the 50s stylings of pre-War America were the sort that no-one would want to be associated with.
B. (Especially in US reintegrated territories) the 1950s-styled pre-War era is seen as a golden age for obvious reasons.
But no, there hasn't been complete stasis in E-US territories. Large 80s style hairdos are currently in fashion, as are shoulder pads on suits and similar tendencies - but generally women's fashion just doesn't show as much skin as post 1960s IRL fashion.
Anyway, broke through the block on Chapter 7, it's coming soon.
Last edited:
Chapter Seven: One If By Land
Navarro
Well-known member
Chapter Seven
EST 17:30, October 23 2331
New York City, New York State, Atlantic Commonwealth, USA
John Ellis looked out across the city of New York from his apartment, the sprawling vista of newly-built skyscrapers in a mix of art deco and nouveau styles mixed with stone-and-concrete apartment buildings that were a lot less flashy. Ten years he’d started living here, amongst what was now the largest city on the continent – a million people, but even that was only a sixteenth of what the city’s population had been pre-War (ignoring its vast suburbs, now largely reclaimed by nature). He’d been inserted in as an NCR agent – under the pretense of being a Texan runaway immigrating to Enclave territory in search of a better life. It hadn’t been long before he’d met Alicia – the young woman who’d stolen his heart, captured his soul, and claimed his loyalty.
He looked at their wedding photo – her belly was starting to show. Their torrid affair had run its rapid course. one thing had led to another, and she had gotten pregnant by him. When she demanded he take responsibility he had been too honourable by half and conceded – only to learn shortly after the birth of their child that she had been an FBI counter-intelligence agent, sent to seduce him. A laser pistol just shy of being cocked at his head, he’d accepted their demands to turn double agent on the NCR.
And now he was living here, a reporter for a privately-owned newspaper – and head of a major spy ring operating on the East Coast. None of whose members worked for the NCR any more. He had helped the FBI turn every NCR agent sent to work under him. Some were bribed, others blackmailed, seduced, or outright threatened. Those who he’d identified as the most unlikely to turn coat were black-bagged and sent to the Panopticon Building in DC. They went out a few days later, zealousness for the NCR cause transformed into its counterpart for the (Enclave? American? He wasn’t sure) cause.
“You got the story finished up honey?” his wife asked, heading into their apartment. They had three kids and another on the way – he had been promised enough money to buy a proper house by her and his other handlers if he kept working in his unofficial role for just four more years. Otherwise … he would be found guilty of the next capital crime committed under Federal Law and hanged by the neck until dead from the public gallows at Times Square. It'll be a great tragedy how such a productive citizen carried out such a depraved act, he'd heard it said. The FBI liked to keep things above-the-board, after all. He had thought about flight many times, but he knew that he would never get far - and of the effects such an attempt would have on his wife and children.
She wasn’t asking about work either – at least not his official work. No, it was the reports he regularly sent to his NCR handlers back at Shady Sands.
“It’s good and polished, Alice,” he said, remembering the latest one. Tin cans covered roaring fish in batter, it went, 5 deathclaws went missing. Nonsense, but what it meant was simple: “Enclave soldiers deployed nerve gas against dockworkers speaking out against war. 5,000 dead.”
A fabrication, of the sort his handlers in DC regularly asked him to make. When it came to civilian life, they wanted grandiose atrocity stories to come back to the NCR. Massacres, over-the-top public executions, slave labour conditions on fields and in factories … all of it he’d talked about in his reports, and all of it was fake. The spy ring he led were given similar orders, he’d heard. But why? Why did the men in the Panopticon want the NCR to know this, and not the truth – that life was generally peaceful, even if opposition to the Enclave's propaganda meant professional ruin for those unfortunate enough to make it plain?
He’d seen it – those few individuals he’d met who’d spoken out against the "US Government's" claims of sole legitimacy or repeated the truth about Richardson tended to have their homes ransacked by FBI agents, and to be rendered unemployable – explicitly in the case of any local or higher government positions, including education, and unofficially by most companies.
It must be to try and intimidate … them, he mused. He was thinking of the NCR – where he’d spent his entire childhood – as them more and more often recently. It worried him. But then, the propaganda was so pervasive … he’d seen comic-book and pulp magazine stories where NCR mad scientists and special-forces infiltrators were invariably concocting diabolical plots, recruitment posters exhorting the viewer to “Remember the Fallen of Navarro!”, the summer fairs where children – even his own son – eagerly played shooting-gallery games urging them to “Put down the Californian Rebellion!”.
At any rate, he desperately reminded himself, I’ve betrayed the NCR. I’ve betrayed their agents. If they win, I’ll hang as a traitor.
He sighed. Without doing anything, FBI Counterintelligence had tied him even more tightly to the Enclave. It was harder and harder every day not to just give up and defect for real.
==*==
CST 03:00, October 23 2331
100 Kilometres Northeast of Dallas, Lone Star Republic
The interior of the M-125 Dornan IFV was cramped, but somehow it managed to suit 13 power-armoured US Army soldiers just fine. There were looks of nervousness on all of their faces as they ate their MREs, the last meal before they would enter battle for the first time – even on Sergeant Feldman’s, though he was making a good show of suppressing it. Nobody in this unit had really fought – not even the regimental commander, Colonel Constantine Autumn.
They had crossed the border and moved through Texarkana without encountering any resistance – there had been a five-minute skirmish at Mt. Pleasant an hour ago with some NCR armoured trucks, but the Custer MBTs had solved that problem without the infantry needing to leave their transports.
George M. Walker ate the MRE – pork sausage in gravy, with mashed potatoes and plain water. It was filling, and tasted good – definitely not the “scientifically-optimised meals” he’d heard horror stories of that had been used during the hard years, a tasteless protein-carbohydrate (with essential minerals and vitamins) paste of which all the attempts to give it flavour had just made it worse. He finished his meal, along with the others, and put his helmet back on. Their armour had been repainted from olive drab to desert-pattern camouflage, retaining the US Army star on their shoulderpads for easy identification.
And there was the new gun he’d been issued at Little Rock – an M-72 plasma rifle, its unique design allowing for far faster movement of the plasma projectiles than had previously been the case while minimising recoil. Efficient too – it could get 60 shots out of a standard microfusion cell. The pinnacle of weapons technology, but he’d had scarce time to train with it. Recoil’s especially tricky, he mused. Don’t know how anyone handled that in the days when we all shooting bullets at each other.
“ETA at Dallas is now two hours,” Sergeant Feldman’s voice came over the helmet radio. “Do our country proud, boys – I’ll make sure our part in the liberation of Texas won’t be forgotten.”
“Liberation of Texas doesn’t matter so much as when we get to liberate those Texas girls from their virginity,” Corporal Brennan, commander of Fireteam B, chuckled. Some of the soldiers laughed along with him, but most were silent. Despite his efforts, the tension inside the IFV kept on mounting.
Two hours, Walker mused, two hours before I learn what I really am capable of. Will the sims have been enough?
==*==
04:00 CST, October 23 2331
Camp Endurance, Dallas Region, LSR
Lancer-Sentinel Wilcox sat in the command bridge of the Osceola, five hundred feet over Camp Endurance, the shared Brotherhood-NCR base that served as main military command post for the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The Osceola, latest of the ten Maxson-class fortress airships, was a massive airship – one and a half times the size of the ill-fated Prydwen, covered in all directions by laser AA guns to protect against missiles and armour to defend against AA lasers, and using an inert lifting gas. Furthermore, instead of hosting vertibirds it represented a mobile artillery platform – howitzers, mortars, and rocket artillery systems were all part of its formidable arsenal. With assistance from the NCR’s own batteries, after its arrival a week ago it had wiped out the Enclave sympathizers’ laser defence system with ease, allowing the NCR and Brotherhood’s PA infantry, deployed via vertibird, to quash their forces in Dallas.
There had been no rising like in Houston, Austin, and Corpus Christi – the Enclave’s cat’s-paws in the city had been wiped out days before their attack. And now two of their armoured spearheads were headed for the city. He had no doubts that the Brotherhood and NCR combined would weather this storm and hold the city of Dallas – and the state of Texas – long enough for the northern campaign to end the war.
--*--
Below, General Blackburn looked over his options in his command room, looking over the map of the city laid out on a wooden table. Two Enclave forces were heading for Dallas – he estimated each had 30,000 men. To deal with that, he had 100,000 men – 20,000 in power armour – ensconced in the city and in Fort Worth – representing the whole of NCR 3rd Army. 2nd Army wouldn’t be unable to send assistance – they were stuck besieging the Enclave sympathisers in San Antonio, and guarding against an expected amphibious landing in Corpus Christi that was looking more to be a piece of bad intel with every passing minute.
He had 20,000 Brotherhood men with him, 10,000 in power armour, and 40,000 LSR Army men at Fort Worth– though the last of that were going to be useless.
He idly thought about sending his troops out to meet the Enclave force before it hit the city, but dismissed it just as soon. That would just be playing to their strengths. The Enclave had opened up their attack on Dallas, just 30 minutes ago, with a barrage – 30 cruise missiles, moving at three-quarters of Mach 1, with 21-ton plasma warheads, moving in from the east and south-east. Most of those targeted directly at the base had been taken out by the AA lasers – though a few had hit their mark. Those targeted at other NCR or BOS facilities had done damage, but fortunately with few casualties.
He was going to dig in within the city, hold them as long as he could or until help arrived. If he retreated, he would make it a fighting one.
If they want Dallas, he mused, they’re not taking it without a fight.
--*--
Just shy of 200 miles away, at the town of Longview, Lt. General Martin Laningdale, commander of 45th Corps, made his report to General Franklin H. Granite. The vidcall set up was relatively easy – HoloComm might have sealed President Washington’s victory last year by allowing him to address crowds at numerous rallies across the country simultaneously as if he were actually there, but the tech required bulky equipment, was finicky at the best of times, and used an exorbitant amount of bandwidth. Vidcalls, by contrast, had been used since before the War. These days you could even send one on your pip-boy. Which Laningdale was doing right now.
Laningdale sighed. He had 32,000 combat soldiers under him – four divisions worth of men – and yet even he was nervous. This was the first time men under his command would see real combat – not exercises, not simulations, actual war.
“How are your men doing, Laningdale?” Granite’s gravelly voice rang out over the connection.
“Everything is going as planned, sir. We’re moving on Dallas from the southeast as Curling moves her 81st Corps towards it from the northeast,” Laningdale replied. “An ideal pincer movement, sir.”
“All too often, ideals don’t match up to reality,” Granite replied. “Don’t be afraid to improvise. I fought in the wars against CIT and Ronto – even President Autumn’s plans had to adjust to reality and the changing situation. I’m sure you understand this?”
“Understood, sit.”
“Understood. Now, regardless of how you achieve them, I want results, as do my superiors and the Commander-in-Chief. If you don’t take Dallas within a fortnight, both of you are going to be court-martialled. If you’re lucky you’ll spend the rest of your careers serving your country in the Institute of Heraldry. If you’re unlucky ...”
He didn’t need to make his threat explicit. Laningdale nodded.
“I won’t fail you sir, and I won’t fail America.”
==*==
05:00 CST, 23 October 2331
Outskirts of Dallas, Lone Star Republic
Pvt. Walker ran down the ramp seconds after it descended, joining the rest of his squad as they fanned out of the Dornan IFV. Beside him, Tyler lifted up his M42 Enola and loaded a canister round before firing at an enemy gatling laser position. The unguided munition whistled through the air in an arcing motion, before breaking up at the pinnacle of its trajectory. 12 small spheres the size of a man’s fist were released and hit the area around the target – 12 micro-nuclear explosions rose up in flower-blossoms of blue-green fire, wrecking the materiel and cooking anybody unfortunate to be there alive.
The squad split into two teams under long-practiced protocol, the primary one following behind Sergeant Feldman while the second was under Corporal Brennan.
This means we’re gonna do the more difficult part, he mused. While Brennan’s men suppress the enemy, we’re gonna try and outflank ‘em. Fire and maneuver, my instructor called it. Fire and maneuver.
As they pressed on, Walker could see enemy missiles firing on the Custers as they approached – ineffective against their electro-reactive armour systems. The true wonder of the system, he’d heard one of the tankers say, was that unlike old-style explosive-reactive armour tiles, electro-reactive ones were reusable.
But not invincible. Several of the MBTs already had their armour tiles scarred from gatling laser fire – those wouldn’t be able to resist a shaped-charge missile. If they hit our tanks before they destroy the enemy. Fusion beams were already lancing out from their turrets, turning enemy firing positions into blown-out craters, blowing houses into blasted-out husks and turning whole rooms of larger buildings into charnel-houses, the scorch shadows that had been enemy troops open to the sky.
They pushed on, casually walking through the glass storefront of a hastily abandoned neighbourhood convenience store. Walker loaded his underbarrel grenade launcher and blew a hole through the back wall in a green flash of unstable plasma, before breaking through into an alleyway, behind an NCR firing position.
Time seemed to slow down as he aimed with a practiced motion and fired his rifle. A three-round burst of plasma fire hit one of the NCR soldiers in the back, piercing straight through his combat armour and sending his charred corpse to the ground. Followed by the rest of his fireteam, the enemy position was cleared.
It took Walker a few seconds to realise he’d just killed a man – and not face-to-face, shot him in the back. It just didn’t seem fair.
But then, he knew that they’d have no such qualms about killing him – and the rebels had shown no respect for non-combatants, not even for American diplomats. He had no doubts that they’d either kill him straight-up if he tried to surrender, or execute him on trumped-up charges after a kangaroo court. Just then, the enemy pushed on – from their right and from an alleyway in front of them.
Two squads, power-armoured, NCR and Brotherhood. The NCR men’s armour had helms shaped like a snarling bear – the Brotherhood men wore what was clearly a knock-off of T-72.
He squeezed off a couple of shots with his rifle, but only managed to graze his target’s shoulder pad. Slag and molten metal poured off it, but no real damage was done – and then both squads opened up with volleys of rapid-fire lasers, red and green.
The American fireteam fell back the way they’d came, under the cover of the heavy weapons trooper attached to them. Volleys of blue laser beams rang out from his position on the floor above, bringing down a couple of Brotherhood soldiers in the street.
After sprinting back through the ruin that was the former convenience store, Walker panted and noted the men around him. The five others were there – Ray, Rita, Sarge, Otto, and Mitchell.
An artillery shell swooped in from the northeast – one of ours, Walker noted – and hit the building as the NCR squad was moving through it. Its plasma-explosive warhead went off with a roar and a brilliant blue-white flash, blasting it to rubble and damaging the ones beside it severely. Through the smoke and the dust, the Brotherhood squad nevertheless moved – trampling over the charred corpses of their allies. Not that the cover was of any use against the US soldiers’ armour thermal vision and targetting systems. Following the electronic aid of his helmet’s heads-up-display, Walker kneeled for stability and squeezed off another three-round burst – right in the chest, it critically weakened the enemy soldier’s armour plating. Another three-round burst to the same spot, a split-second later, took him out. The enemy squad was falling back under the hail of fire, but it seemed there was a larger counter-attack massing behind them – Walker could make out something of the like amidst the comms chatter as he ran it through his helmet radio.
He switched back to squad frequency – better for right now – and heard Sarge talking.
==*==
17:00 CST, October 23, 2331
General Blackburn sat in his command post, located in the heart of Camp Endurance. The battle was going as well as he expected it to – not an overwhelming success given the circumstances. Dallas seemed to be the main Enclave target – they’d moved two-thirds of their invasion force to take it, while moving a mere 30,000 or so men across the south of Texas. That didn’t worry him particularly – he still outnumbered them, even if the Texans at Fort Worth weren’t even bothering to co-operate with him and had not involved themselves in the battle of all. Their offensive was starting to slow down, and their field engineers were setting up force-field barricades to keep hold of their already-captured territory.
What worried him was the reaction of the local Texans to the Enclave invasion. His attempts to evacuate the city – so much as was possible anyway – were being hindered not just by the reticence of many to move, but by the fact that large numbers were “evacuating” behind the Enclave lines. It spoke to the frightening efficacy of their propaganda to an un-inoculated populace.
Why won’t they see it?, he thought. We’re saving them from tyranny and second-class citizenship. We’re protecting their freedoms.
No matter what, he thought. One way or another they'll all get what they deserve for spurning us.
--*--
Meanwhile, Lt. General Christine Curling sat in her command vehicle 15 kilometres east of the city she was attacking, musing over her options. Her men had pushed two klicks deep into the city – impressive considering the ferocious resistance the NCR had put up against her and Laningdale. Many would have considered it foolhardy to venture so close to the front lines, but Christine knew that without the presence of their leaders the troops would have lower morale.
She mused pensively a moment – her own eldest son would soon be in the field, fighting for his life among with all the others. Once enemy AA was sufficiently damaged by the artillery, she would deploy the air-mobile elements of the unit under her – and he would be in them.
“Lord, please keep him safe,” she prayed simply, and moved on to the next item on the agenda.
Should she try and encircle the enemy force in the east-southeast area of the city – around the recently-restored football stadium – together with Laningdale, or push toward the city centre? Both options were attractive. One offered immediate tactical gains at the risk of possibly allowing her forces to be flanked from the west, and the other offered control of the city’s core and a route along the highways to directly strike at the NCR’s base here. At any rate, her men had 60 hours of fight left in them – they’d certainly be able to at least make good progress toward the objective whatever it was.
She made her decision.
--*--
Pvt. Walker leaned against the ruined wall of a blasted-out building, and fired in the general direction of the enemy. Behind him, the engineers set up their force-field projector, giving the fireteam a brief respite. He sat down, took off his helmet and opened an MRE on his knee. Spaghetti with meat sauce, he mused. Never liked that as a kid, but it’ll have to do.
He applied the flameless heater and tucked in once it had done its work.
“How long do you reckon they’ll last?” he asked idly.
“Until tomorrow,” Rita offered. “At least I hope so.”
“Don’t ever expect the enemy to play along with you,” Sergeant Feldman replied. “That’s what gets you killed. It’ll be over when it’s over – my goal right here and right now is to keep you alive until that happens.”
They nodded collectively.
“Good,” he replied simply. “After this meal, our field commander’s ordered us to keep on pressing them through the night. That’ll break them all the sooner.”
Above and around them artillery kept firing as lasers in blue and green and red shot forth, mixed with plasma bolts and beams of solar heat that destroyed all they touched. War had come to Dallas, and would not be quick in leaving it.
EST 17:30, October 23 2331
New York City, New York State, Atlantic Commonwealth, USA
John Ellis looked out across the city of New York from his apartment, the sprawling vista of newly-built skyscrapers in a mix of art deco and nouveau styles mixed with stone-and-concrete apartment buildings that were a lot less flashy. Ten years he’d started living here, amongst what was now the largest city on the continent – a million people, but even that was only a sixteenth of what the city’s population had been pre-War (ignoring its vast suburbs, now largely reclaimed by nature). He’d been inserted in as an NCR agent – under the pretense of being a Texan runaway immigrating to Enclave territory in search of a better life. It hadn’t been long before he’d met Alicia – the young woman who’d stolen his heart, captured his soul, and claimed his loyalty.
He looked at their wedding photo – her belly was starting to show. Their torrid affair had run its rapid course. one thing had led to another, and she had gotten pregnant by him. When she demanded he take responsibility he had been too honourable by half and conceded – only to learn shortly after the birth of their child that she had been an FBI counter-intelligence agent, sent to seduce him. A laser pistol just shy of being cocked at his head, he’d accepted their demands to turn double agent on the NCR.
And now he was living here, a reporter for a privately-owned newspaper – and head of a major spy ring operating on the East Coast. None of whose members worked for the NCR any more. He had helped the FBI turn every NCR agent sent to work under him. Some were bribed, others blackmailed, seduced, or outright threatened. Those who he’d identified as the most unlikely to turn coat were black-bagged and sent to the Panopticon Building in DC. They went out a few days later, zealousness for the NCR cause transformed into its counterpart for the (Enclave? American? He wasn’t sure) cause.
“You got the story finished up honey?” his wife asked, heading into their apartment. They had three kids and another on the way – he had been promised enough money to buy a proper house by her and his other handlers if he kept working in his unofficial role for just four more years. Otherwise … he would be found guilty of the next capital crime committed under Federal Law and hanged by the neck until dead from the public gallows at Times Square. It'll be a great tragedy how such a productive citizen carried out such a depraved act, he'd heard it said. The FBI liked to keep things above-the-board, after all. He had thought about flight many times, but he knew that he would never get far - and of the effects such an attempt would have on his wife and children.
She wasn’t asking about work either – at least not his official work. No, it was the reports he regularly sent to his NCR handlers back at Shady Sands.
“It’s good and polished, Alice,” he said, remembering the latest one. Tin cans covered roaring fish in batter, it went, 5 deathclaws went missing. Nonsense, but what it meant was simple: “Enclave soldiers deployed nerve gas against dockworkers speaking out against war. 5,000 dead.”
A fabrication, of the sort his handlers in DC regularly asked him to make. When it came to civilian life, they wanted grandiose atrocity stories to come back to the NCR. Massacres, over-the-top public executions, slave labour conditions on fields and in factories … all of it he’d talked about in his reports, and all of it was fake. The spy ring he led were given similar orders, he’d heard. But why? Why did the men in the Panopticon want the NCR to know this, and not the truth – that life was generally peaceful, even if opposition to the Enclave's propaganda meant professional ruin for those unfortunate enough to make it plain?
He’d seen it – those few individuals he’d met who’d spoken out against the "US Government's" claims of sole legitimacy or repeated the truth about Richardson tended to have their homes ransacked by FBI agents, and to be rendered unemployable – explicitly in the case of any local or higher government positions, including education, and unofficially by most companies.
It must be to try and intimidate … them, he mused. He was thinking of the NCR – where he’d spent his entire childhood – as them more and more often recently. It worried him. But then, the propaganda was so pervasive … he’d seen comic-book and pulp magazine stories where NCR mad scientists and special-forces infiltrators were invariably concocting diabolical plots, recruitment posters exhorting the viewer to “Remember the Fallen of Navarro!”, the summer fairs where children – even his own son – eagerly played shooting-gallery games urging them to “Put down the Californian Rebellion!”.
At any rate, he desperately reminded himself, I’ve betrayed the NCR. I’ve betrayed their agents. If they win, I’ll hang as a traitor.
He sighed. Without doing anything, FBI Counterintelligence had tied him even more tightly to the Enclave. It was harder and harder every day not to just give up and defect for real.
==*==
CST 03:00, October 23 2331
100 Kilometres Northeast of Dallas, Lone Star Republic
The interior of the M-125 Dornan IFV was cramped, but somehow it managed to suit 13 power-armoured US Army soldiers just fine. There were looks of nervousness on all of their faces as they ate their MREs, the last meal before they would enter battle for the first time – even on Sergeant Feldman’s, though he was making a good show of suppressing it. Nobody in this unit had really fought – not even the regimental commander, Colonel Constantine Autumn.
They had crossed the border and moved through Texarkana without encountering any resistance – there had been a five-minute skirmish at Mt. Pleasant an hour ago with some NCR armoured trucks, but the Custer MBTs had solved that problem without the infantry needing to leave their transports.
George M. Walker ate the MRE – pork sausage in gravy, with mashed potatoes and plain water. It was filling, and tasted good – definitely not the “scientifically-optimised meals” he’d heard horror stories of that had been used during the hard years, a tasteless protein-carbohydrate (with essential minerals and vitamins) paste of which all the attempts to give it flavour had just made it worse. He finished his meal, along with the others, and put his helmet back on. Their armour had been repainted from olive drab to desert-pattern camouflage, retaining the US Army star on their shoulderpads for easy identification.
And there was the new gun he’d been issued at Little Rock – an M-72 plasma rifle, its unique design allowing for far faster movement of the plasma projectiles than had previously been the case while minimising recoil. Efficient too – it could get 60 shots out of a standard microfusion cell. The pinnacle of weapons technology, but he’d had scarce time to train with it. Recoil’s especially tricky, he mused. Don’t know how anyone handled that in the days when we all shooting bullets at each other.
“ETA at Dallas is now two hours,” Sergeant Feldman’s voice came over the helmet radio. “Do our country proud, boys – I’ll make sure our part in the liberation of Texas won’t be forgotten.”
“Liberation of Texas doesn’t matter so much as when we get to liberate those Texas girls from their virginity,” Corporal Brennan, commander of Fireteam B, chuckled. Some of the soldiers laughed along with him, but most were silent. Despite his efforts, the tension inside the IFV kept on mounting.
Two hours, Walker mused, two hours before I learn what I really am capable of. Will the sims have been enough?
==*==
04:00 CST, October 23 2331
Camp Endurance, Dallas Region, LSR
Lancer-Sentinel Wilcox sat in the command bridge of the Osceola, five hundred feet over Camp Endurance, the shared Brotherhood-NCR base that served as main military command post for the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The Osceola, latest of the ten Maxson-class fortress airships, was a massive airship – one and a half times the size of the ill-fated Prydwen, covered in all directions by laser AA guns to protect against missiles and armour to defend against AA lasers, and using an inert lifting gas. Furthermore, instead of hosting vertibirds it represented a mobile artillery platform – howitzers, mortars, and rocket artillery systems were all part of its formidable arsenal. With assistance from the NCR’s own batteries, after its arrival a week ago it had wiped out the Enclave sympathizers’ laser defence system with ease, allowing the NCR and Brotherhood’s PA infantry, deployed via vertibird, to quash their forces in Dallas.
There had been no rising like in Houston, Austin, and Corpus Christi – the Enclave’s cat’s-paws in the city had been wiped out days before their attack. And now two of their armoured spearheads were headed for the city. He had no doubts that the Brotherhood and NCR combined would weather this storm and hold the city of Dallas – and the state of Texas – long enough for the northern campaign to end the war.
--*--
Below, General Blackburn looked over his options in his command room, looking over the map of the city laid out on a wooden table. Two Enclave forces were heading for Dallas – he estimated each had 30,000 men. To deal with that, he had 100,000 men – 20,000 in power armour – ensconced in the city and in Fort Worth – representing the whole of NCR 3rd Army. 2nd Army wouldn’t be unable to send assistance – they were stuck besieging the Enclave sympathisers in San Antonio, and guarding against an expected amphibious landing in Corpus Christi that was looking more to be a piece of bad intel with every passing minute.
He had 20,000 Brotherhood men with him, 10,000 in power armour, and 40,000 LSR Army men at Fort Worth– though the last of that were going to be useless.
He idly thought about sending his troops out to meet the Enclave force before it hit the city, but dismissed it just as soon. That would just be playing to their strengths. The Enclave had opened up their attack on Dallas, just 30 minutes ago, with a barrage – 30 cruise missiles, moving at three-quarters of Mach 1, with 21-ton plasma warheads, moving in from the east and south-east. Most of those targeted directly at the base had been taken out by the AA lasers – though a few had hit their mark. Those targeted at other NCR or BOS facilities had done damage, but fortunately with few casualties.
He was going to dig in within the city, hold them as long as he could or until help arrived. If he retreated, he would make it a fighting one.
If they want Dallas, he mused, they’re not taking it without a fight.
--*--
Just shy of 200 miles away, at the town of Longview, Lt. General Martin Laningdale, commander of 45th Corps, made his report to General Franklin H. Granite. The vidcall set up was relatively easy – HoloComm might have sealed President Washington’s victory last year by allowing him to address crowds at numerous rallies across the country simultaneously as if he were actually there, but the tech required bulky equipment, was finicky at the best of times, and used an exorbitant amount of bandwidth. Vidcalls, by contrast, had been used since before the War. These days you could even send one on your pip-boy. Which Laningdale was doing right now.
Laningdale sighed. He had 32,000 combat soldiers under him – four divisions worth of men – and yet even he was nervous. This was the first time men under his command would see real combat – not exercises, not simulations, actual war.
“How are your men doing, Laningdale?” Granite’s gravelly voice rang out over the connection.
“Everything is going as planned, sir. We’re moving on Dallas from the southeast as Curling moves her 81st Corps towards it from the northeast,” Laningdale replied. “An ideal pincer movement, sir.”
“All too often, ideals don’t match up to reality,” Granite replied. “Don’t be afraid to improvise. I fought in the wars against CIT and Ronto – even President Autumn’s plans had to adjust to reality and the changing situation. I’m sure you understand this?”
“Understood, sit.”
“Understood. Now, regardless of how you achieve them, I want results, as do my superiors and the Commander-in-Chief. If you don’t take Dallas within a fortnight, both of you are going to be court-martialled. If you’re lucky you’ll spend the rest of your careers serving your country in the Institute of Heraldry. If you’re unlucky ...”
He didn’t need to make his threat explicit. Laningdale nodded.
“I won’t fail you sir, and I won’t fail America.”
==*==
05:00 CST, 23 October 2331
Outskirts of Dallas, Lone Star Republic
Pvt. Walker ran down the ramp seconds after it descended, joining the rest of his squad as they fanned out of the Dornan IFV. Beside him, Tyler lifted up his M42 Enola and loaded a canister round before firing at an enemy gatling laser position. The unguided munition whistled through the air in an arcing motion, before breaking up at the pinnacle of its trajectory. 12 small spheres the size of a man’s fist were released and hit the area around the target – 12 micro-nuclear explosions rose up in flower-blossoms of blue-green fire, wrecking the materiel and cooking anybody unfortunate to be there alive.
The squad split into two teams under long-practiced protocol, the primary one following behind Sergeant Feldman while the second was under Corporal Brennan.
This means we’re gonna do the more difficult part, he mused. While Brennan’s men suppress the enemy, we’re gonna try and outflank ‘em. Fire and maneuver, my instructor called it. Fire and maneuver.
As they pressed on, Walker could see enemy missiles firing on the Custers as they approached – ineffective against their electro-reactive armour systems. The true wonder of the system, he’d heard one of the tankers say, was that unlike old-style explosive-reactive armour tiles, electro-reactive ones were reusable.
But not invincible. Several of the MBTs already had their armour tiles scarred from gatling laser fire – those wouldn’t be able to resist a shaped-charge missile. If they hit our tanks before they destroy the enemy. Fusion beams were already lancing out from their turrets, turning enemy firing positions into blown-out craters, blowing houses into blasted-out husks and turning whole rooms of larger buildings into charnel-houses, the scorch shadows that had been enemy troops open to the sky.
They pushed on, casually walking through the glass storefront of a hastily abandoned neighbourhood convenience store. Walker loaded his underbarrel grenade launcher and blew a hole through the back wall in a green flash of unstable plasma, before breaking through into an alleyway, behind an NCR firing position.
Time seemed to slow down as he aimed with a practiced motion and fired his rifle. A three-round burst of plasma fire hit one of the NCR soldiers in the back, piercing straight through his combat armour and sending his charred corpse to the ground. Followed by the rest of his fireteam, the enemy position was cleared.
It took Walker a few seconds to realise he’d just killed a man – and not face-to-face, shot him in the back. It just didn’t seem fair.
But then, he knew that they’d have no such qualms about killing him – and the rebels had shown no respect for non-combatants, not even for American diplomats. He had no doubts that they’d either kill him straight-up if he tried to surrender, or execute him on trumped-up charges after a kangaroo court. Just then, the enemy pushed on – from their right and from an alleyway in front of them.
Two squads, power-armoured, NCR and Brotherhood. The NCR men’s armour had helms shaped like a snarling bear – the Brotherhood men wore what was clearly a knock-off of T-72.
He squeezed off a couple of shots with his rifle, but only managed to graze his target’s shoulder pad. Slag and molten metal poured off it, but no real damage was done – and then both squads opened up with volleys of rapid-fire lasers, red and green.
The American fireteam fell back the way they’d came, under the cover of the heavy weapons trooper attached to them. Volleys of blue laser beams rang out from his position on the floor above, bringing down a couple of Brotherhood soldiers in the street.
After sprinting back through the ruin that was the former convenience store, Walker panted and noted the men around him. The five others were there – Ray, Rita, Sarge, Otto, and Mitchell.
An artillery shell swooped in from the northeast – one of ours, Walker noted – and hit the building as the NCR squad was moving through it. Its plasma-explosive warhead went off with a roar and a brilliant blue-white flash, blasting it to rubble and damaging the ones beside it severely. Through the smoke and the dust, the Brotherhood squad nevertheless moved – trampling over the charred corpses of their allies. Not that the cover was of any use against the US soldiers’ armour thermal vision and targetting systems. Following the electronic aid of his helmet’s heads-up-display, Walker kneeled for stability and squeezed off another three-round burst – right in the chest, it critically weakened the enemy soldier’s armour plating. Another three-round burst to the same spot, a split-second later, took him out. The enemy squad was falling back under the hail of fire, but it seemed there was a larger counter-attack massing behind them – Walker could make out something of the like amidst the comms chatter as he ran it through his helmet radio.
He switched back to squad frequency – better for right now – and heard Sarge talking.
==*==
17:00 CST, October 23, 2331
General Blackburn sat in his command post, located in the heart of Camp Endurance. The battle was going as well as he expected it to – not an overwhelming success given the circumstances. Dallas seemed to be the main Enclave target – they’d moved two-thirds of their invasion force to take it, while moving a mere 30,000 or so men across the south of Texas. That didn’t worry him particularly – he still outnumbered them, even if the Texans at Fort Worth weren’t even bothering to co-operate with him and had not involved themselves in the battle of all. Their offensive was starting to slow down, and their field engineers were setting up force-field barricades to keep hold of their already-captured territory.
What worried him was the reaction of the local Texans to the Enclave invasion. His attempts to evacuate the city – so much as was possible anyway – were being hindered not just by the reticence of many to move, but by the fact that large numbers were “evacuating” behind the Enclave lines. It spoke to the frightening efficacy of their propaganda to an un-inoculated populace.
Why won’t they see it?, he thought. We’re saving them from tyranny and second-class citizenship. We’re protecting their freedoms.
No matter what, he thought. One way or another they'll all get what they deserve for spurning us.
--*--
Meanwhile, Lt. General Christine Curling sat in her command vehicle 15 kilometres east of the city she was attacking, musing over her options. Her men had pushed two klicks deep into the city – impressive considering the ferocious resistance the NCR had put up against her and Laningdale. Many would have considered it foolhardy to venture so close to the front lines, but Christine knew that without the presence of their leaders the troops would have lower morale.
She mused pensively a moment – her own eldest son would soon be in the field, fighting for his life among with all the others. Once enemy AA was sufficiently damaged by the artillery, she would deploy the air-mobile elements of the unit under her – and he would be in them.
“Lord, please keep him safe,” she prayed simply, and moved on to the next item on the agenda.
Should she try and encircle the enemy force in the east-southeast area of the city – around the recently-restored football stadium – together with Laningdale, or push toward the city centre? Both options were attractive. One offered immediate tactical gains at the risk of possibly allowing her forces to be flanked from the west, and the other offered control of the city’s core and a route along the highways to directly strike at the NCR’s base here. At any rate, her men had 60 hours of fight left in them – they’d certainly be able to at least make good progress toward the objective whatever it was.
She made her decision.
--*--
Pvt. Walker leaned against the ruined wall of a blasted-out building, and fired in the general direction of the enemy. Behind him, the engineers set up their force-field projector, giving the fireteam a brief respite. He sat down, took off his helmet and opened an MRE on his knee. Spaghetti with meat sauce, he mused. Never liked that as a kid, but it’ll have to do.
He applied the flameless heater and tucked in once it had done its work.
“How long do you reckon they’ll last?” he asked idly.
“Until tomorrow,” Rita offered. “At least I hope so.”
“Don’t ever expect the enemy to play along with you,” Sergeant Feldman replied. “That’s what gets you killed. It’ll be over when it’s over – my goal right here and right now is to keep you alive until that happens.”
They nodded collectively.
“Good,” he replied simply. “After this meal, our field commander’s ordered us to keep on pressing them through the night. That’ll break them all the sooner.”
Above and around them artillery kept firing as lasers in blue and green and red shot forth, mixed with plasma bolts and beams of solar heat that destroyed all they touched. War had come to Dallas, and would not be quick in leaving it.
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CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
You know, I wonder just how much things would change if the Enclave’s FBI didn’t decide to go with the over-the-top stories, what would the NCR have to complain and fear?
SuperHeavy
Well-known member
With those stories the NCR is fooled into thinking masses of oppressed poor are just waiting to rise up to help them, and are planning accordingly. It keeps the NCR propaganda ineffective and them vastly overconfident.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
And very confused the moment they actually get into Enclave territory and find that there’s so much more food and technology going around, more than their shitty cities and provinces
Wonder how Enclave will do their occupation of NCR territory, given how much more resistance they know they would expect
Floridaman
Well-known member
I would guess, a mixture of reconstruction, and the occupation of Germany and Japan.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
What about the Brahmin Barons and Crime Families?
Floridaman
Well-known member
It depends, if they cooperate the Brahmin barons will probably be permitted to keep their business, like many of the wealthy in the south. But if they resist, they will probably lose everything. For the crime families, the feds can’t tolerate their existence. But I wouldn’t worry too much about the Brahmin barons in reconstructed California. The return of real cow, and modern technology. will shatter their power.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
I hope Bighorners stay at the very least
ForeverShogo
Well-known member
Those plasma guns must have some serious kick if recoil is a concern for a guy wearing power armor.
And good to see the Brotherhood has so heavily invested in airships. Those things might be nice against insurgents, but against an actual military force? It's always nice when your enemy wastes time on boondoggles.
And good to see the Brotherhood has so heavily invested in airships. Those things might be nice against insurgents, but against an actual military force? It's always nice when your enemy wastes time on boondoggles.
AspblastUSA
Well-known member
I like to imagine the Brotherhood fixation on airships happened because one day when he was a relatively old man Maxson got drunk in the bunker and went on a rant to his friends about how it was a damn shame that military airships never took off, and it ended up as a Brotherhood Hadith on the appropriate air vehicle for the Brotherhood.
SuperHeavy
Well-known member
Something tells me the NCR is not planning on evacuating the city without leaving a few parting gifts. They are not getting any better at the whole hearts and minds part of occupation.
Their cities are probably not as good as the US's true but I doubt they are that bad, probably approaching Pre-War standards in many respects. At least in the core territories.
Eh, I'd expect New Vegas and Shady Sands offer an equivalent civilian standard of living to E-USA cities at the very least. The difference would be in the NCR also having Ronto level dens of corruption, exploitation and misery masquerading as 'civilization' that Shady Sands can't deal with since they are still 'doing their part'.
SuperHeavy
Well-known member
I say lesser because the lack of Enclave level terraforming tech, Panacea, and greater industrial muscle is going to have effects on the average citizen's standard of living. So less available food worsened by the NCR not having many breadbasket states, less effective medical care, and domestic robots are probably out of the hands of many.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
How good are long-ranged communications in the NCR? I’m not sure if guys in Fallout have the tech to make their terminals or those are just ones that are salvaged and maintained for decades to centuries