Chapter Fourteen
“Special forces actions will only be critical to future conflicts for another decade at most. The US Army has for the last two hundred years, on account of low numbers, fought almost entirely as SOF units. This practice can’t be carried on. Instead, an attitude similar to that of special forces must be inculcated through the whole army. Initiative and flexibility to seek out the best path to fulfilling an objective, cohesion with enlisted ranks, and bravery to lead from the front are the qualities that must be inculcated in our next generation of officers and NCOs.”
Colonel Daniel Bradley, Report on US Army Future Doctrinal Development, 2278
NCR Presidential Palace,
15 December 2287
The Presidential Palace of the New California Republic was quite larger than the old White House, and more ostentatious – at least on the outside, where its sandstone stood out from the adobe that still made up most of Shady Sands; building. On the inside it was plain stucco. Back in those times they had been strapped for resources, and the incumbent favoured a Spartan aesthetic at any rate. But still, that did not mean the Presidential Office was not well-designed. A desk and chair of Oregon redwood formed President Aaron Kimball’s furniture, and a portrait of President Tandi (taken in her youth) was tastefully set behind him. A green, white and red carpet covered the floor in the colours of New California and a window opened onto the front lawn and the busy streets beyond. On that lawn was the Old Well, dug by the refugees from Vault 15’s civil war who’d founded the town, and a small obelisk which served as the official centre of the city.
What was happening just outside was not Kimball’s concern right now. What worried him were events thousands of miles away, on the East Coast. The rumours had started to hit the NCR two years ago, but Ranger Intel had paid them little mind. A warlord claiming to be President of the United States? That sounded like every other warlord, clinging to scraps of Old World prestige to bolster their rule. The NCR had overcome dozens of petty rulers claiming to be Presidents, Senators, Governors, Generals and Colonels and had never found a definitive link to the Enclave. Hundreds, thousands of men in power armour? Probably an exaggeration, more like a few dozen, a hundred at most. Flying machines? That had rang an alarm, but the stories were vague and airbases and hangars could be looted. Now, though, everything was up in the air.
A. Ron Meyers had testified to Congress back in the ‘40s that the oil rig was the Enclave’s only major base, leaving only Navarro once that had been destroyed – as it turned out, it now seemed the former vagrant (who’d been amply rewarded for his role in saving humanity and later actions, then made more money writing a book about his defection) had been either lying or mistaken.
But Congress would never be able to ask any more questions of him. The defector, the only Enclave man ever to have been granted amnesty by the NCR on account of his actions in helping Arroyo’s Chosen One, and his later giving details to the NCR Army about Navarro’s defences, had been killed shortly after the news had hit. Enclave Remnants laying low in San Fran had gunned him down in the street with laser pistols, crying “TRAITOR!”, then gone on the run.
“Show me the files again,” Kimball asked, looking round the room. “This new Enclave will be a tougher nut to crack than the Legion, that’s for sure, and I need to know if there’s anything I missed.”
“Mr. President,” General Cassandra Moore said. “We need a decisive push against them. We need to nip this threat in the bud before they can do anything to harm our people. We know how much they could threaten California – or the whole world – if left unchecked.”
“And I suppose you’ll want to name this march into nowhere after yourself too?” Oliver replied. “Send the Army off to disappear in the wasteland while the Legion wolves are still circling round our campfire?”
With a glance, Kimball silenced the brewing argument and looked to Hanlon – the old man was a Navarro veteran, one of the few people in the NCR military remaining who had experience fighting the Enclave. The crisis had dragged him unhappily out of retirement to advise the President, though he would take no further part in operations. If only General Drummond was still here, Kimball mused bitterly.
“Can we send in Rangers? Scouting, sabotage, assassination?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Hanlon said. “That is an option. We can insert a First Recon squad via vertibird in about a week. Then we can determine the level of the threat and use the intel to decide on our level of response.”
“Anything we know for sure about the Enclave?”
“First, we know the name of their President – Augustus Autumn. I checked it against the names on the war criminal registry and he seems to be the son of an Enclave scientist we never found at Navarro. Second, we know they have a substantial amount of territory under their authority, centred round the old capital. Third, we know they’re not using their FEV plan from 2241.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because if they were, we’d have drowned in our own blood already. Back in the 2240s, they could could manufacture enough FEV to wipe out planet Earth in a matter of months, and they’ve had a whole decade to build up. They’re claiming – this is propaganda, mind you – to have even restored an Old World aircraft carrier.”
“Do you know where they are, the bulk of their forces?”
“Before he left Richmond, that caravan owner heard there was a major deployment planned to Boston, up in old New England. If that’s their current focus of activity, it’ll be the best place available to gather intel on their plans and gain access to certain technologies that the Republic needs.”
“I’ll put the Senate into an emergency session. We should be able to decide fairly quickly.”
=*=
PROGRESS REPORT ON RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF CORRECTIONS SYSTEM
FROM: Julius J. Grant, US Attorney General
TO: President Augustus Autumn
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Sometimes, negotiation is impossible. Then, use of force becomes a necessity.
The facility established on the site of the Maryland internment camp has been completed on schedule. We expect to be able to contain the entire criminal class of the Columbia Commonwealth at current population levels, with room for expansion as necessary. As to our operations in Boston, I believe a perfect site already exists – Spectacle Island. Isolated, undeveloped and in a key position, we can easily have a penitentiary facility built there within the coming month, especially without the squeamishness of our forebears that led them to house the two genders in segregated facilities (naturally, any infants produced as a result of these policies will be raised as wards of the State).
In light of this, I recommend that we decrease the intensity of our policy against organised bandit and hostile mercenary groups. If we, for instance, take them as prisoners instead of refusing to accept surrenders we can put them on trial then imprison them, re-educating and rehabilitating them so they can spend the rest of their lives as loyal American citizens while also using them as a work-force for particularly hazardous roles (for instance, clearing radioactive areas and the like). I trust you will make the right decision on this important matter.
God Bless America.
==*==
Frank Granite woke with a splitting headache to the sound of a bugler marching down the hall, calling all the men to reveille. The forcefield glimmered in his vision, cutting the hallway in half as it divided the men’s and women’s side of the barracks hall. That party had been really something – the President himself had been there, dressed in the all-white suit he wore to social events, the image of an old-fashioned Southern gentleman. And that girl … that Heidi. He’d had to remind himself he’d just been married, about his Mary in Norfolk … and that Colonel Curling would surely bring down Hell itself on anybody trying to put the moves on his fiancée. The battle had been the biggest single fight the Enclave’s forces had been in here, and a solid win for the good guys, though still … They’d killed hundreds of those raiders down south, but far more had gotten away, and there were still thousands of them in the city and scattered across the countryside.
Still, they’d won. After the blow that’d been the word about Navarro, a good honest victory was just what Granite and the others needed.
==*==
The NCR Senate was usually crowded and raucous, and it was especially so today. Delegates from all the states of the NCR had met under emergency session to determine what to do about the new power that seemed rising in the east. Normally, Congress would be in recess, but today that had been put aside; the situation was beginning to look like a rapidly-developing crisis, one that the NCR government had to be seen responding to.
The four walls of the debate were depicted with many paintings . On the west side, most apposite to the situation, was showed in three paintings the downfall of the Enclave. On the right, the Enclave oil rig was exploding, a brilliant mushroom cloud lighting the darkness of the night. Then the middle painting showed the fall of Navarro. Valiant NCR troopers were shown fighting and winning against faceless, power-armoured Enclave soldiers. And finally, portrayed in the painting on the left, a war crimes tribunal sentenced many captives to justly-deserved death or life imprisonment. Brotherhood soldiers had once been shown fighting alongside the NCR in the central painting, but after circumstances had conspired to render that distasteful they had been painted out.
The north side had a painting showing President Tandi addressing the people, a great swelling mass of all creeds, colours, and livelihoods. In a sop to diversity the painter had even added in ghouls and super mutants, though none had actually been at that specific speech.
The east side’s painting had a less political theme. Farmers, lumberjacks, miners and industrial workers toiled honestly guarded by NCR soldiers off in the distance. Great redwoods and high mountains rose in the distance, as between them and the Arcadian scene in the foreground rose a vast city which seemed to include every last NCR landmark and then some.
The south side’s painting was more recent, and another scene of war. In the Second Battle of Hoover Dam bold NCR troopers stood on the front line of civilisation against the barbarity of Caesar’s Legion. A bomber flew high above dropping down explosive death on the savages, while below amidst the confusing melee Caesar and General Lee Oliver fought an actual duel (Caesar had been killed on the eve of the battle).
Below the paintings, the Senators bickered and debated.
“On my life and my honour,” Senator Mingan from New Arroyo said, raising his hand, the light reflecting off his pip-boy. “I call for strong, swift and decisive military action against the Enclave.”
“I was on their oil rig when I stopped them – I saw with my own eyes the evil they did, and worse, I heard from their own leader of the evil they planned to do. We cannot allow this threat to grow unchecked. If we do, our children and our children’s children will pay a bitter price in blood. As for me, though I may be old and weak of limb and eye, I will not join my ancestors until the blood of my kin slaughtered in the vile FEV experiments on the oil rig is avenged once and for all!”
“The Delegate from New Arroyo is in error,” said the Senator from the Boneyard. “Lest you forget the cost of what he calls for, know this. Fifteen hundred young men and women from the Boneyard died in the Battle of Navarro. Two thousand died against the Brotherhood of Steel and five thousand against Caesar. Eleven thousand men and women whose bodies were so devastated we could not even identify their remains for proper burial. Eleven thousand men and women who will never laugh, get angry, cry tears, live and love ever again. And now, after such a grievous cost already, he wants to shove more meat into the grinder?”
“It’s time to stop sending our sons and daughters to fight senseless wars in foreign lands. Let the Enclave come – we’ll be ready!”
“Perhaps the Senator from the Boneyard could come to New Arroyo and see the memorial to those murdered in the oil rig experiments. Perhaps he could hear of the agonising way they died, bleeding internally from the FEV toxins. Perhaps he could learn that the Enclave was hours away from deploying their poison on a global scale! Never again.”
“I am all for a deployment of NCR Rangers against the Enclave, but no more than that,” spoke one of the Senators from the newly-admitted state of New Reno – who was known to have substantial ties to the alliance of the Bishops and Van Graffs that currently held sway. “We must not rush blindly into a war a whole continent away – a war we cannot even march an army off to fight in, because our logistic capability does not stretch that far! The Delegate from New Arroyo might as well call for a military strike against the moon!”
“Your cowardice and lack of will is plain to see!”
“As are your low morals. The Corsican brothers can surely attest to that.”
The Senator from New Arroyo merely glared at that, though there was no doubt that only a thin veneer of decorum kept him from running across the chamber to wring the New Reno Senator’s neck.
After the final round of voting and several more heated debates, it was agreed to budget for an expansion of the Ranger units in light of the recent discoveries.
==*==
When John Paul Jones was a little boy he pointed to the sea
Said when I get to be a man a fightin' man I'll be
I'll leave my mark on the ocean and my name in history
When John Paul was a member of the British Admiralty
He killed a sailor on his ship which was a crime you see
He changed his name to JP Jones and came to Amerik-ee...
The US Government station played its song as Nate checked up on his provisions for the expedition he’d planned. Forty rad-X tablets, ten syringes of the new US military rad serum just in case, thirty rad-aways, about twenty stim-paks, and a couple doses of Fixer and Addictol to try and keep him from getting addicted. And that was just what he’d need to get through without dying of radiation poisoning. The load of food and water he’d need on his trek through that nightmare hellscape of radiation would be heavier by far, not to mention the weaponry and ammunition he’d need to carry. It was almost as heavy as all the gear he’d carried back in boot when they gave him a weighted backpack to get him used to the stresses of military life and made him walk ten klicks to and from the base bearing it on his shoulders. He smiled slightly, thinking of the night he’d danced away with Rhonda.
Part of him had wanted to walk her back to her quarters as he saw her off, but it hadn’t felt right. Should I seriously be chasing after her, when I’m heading now into what may well be my death? And, he thought again of what might happen if he went too far with her too soon, got her pregnant and died in the Glowing Sea or some other den of horror, leaving her an unwed mother. No, it’s best that I don’t take her too seriously right now. But still! Her body, her face, the way she smiles, the way she looks at me, her attitude …
He pushed his mind back again to boot and thinking of the friends he’d made there – Roger (he couldn’t remember the last name right now. Maybe it started with an “M”?) had been one of the closest. It’d been such a pity that he’d ended up assigned to some science base down in Socal, and Nate’d been hoping to get back in touch once the Chicoms had surrendered and things’d calmed down. I guess that’ll never happen now, he mused. Poor guy probably got vaporised when the first bombs dropped.
But enough reminiscences of the past. Right now he had to get to Virgil. That man was the only lead Nate had, and he was going to rescue his son come hell or high water. What do the Institute even want my son for anyway? Nate thought. Every possibility he and Piper had been able to come up with only made his skin crawl all the more. He was going to get in there, and he was going to save his son. Nothing else mattered anymore.
Just as he had finished packing, Danse – he thought of the man by his last name so much he sometimes forgot his first name was Saul - appeared.
“Sir,” he said, a clear affectation despite the fact Nate didn’t have any official military rank anymore. He was in charge of Sanctuary, de facto Mayor of the town, and General of the Minutemen – his troops slightly outnumbered the official US forces in Boston.
“The President is requesting your presence.”
-*-
President Autumn wore clothes for every occasion. As a politician, he had his power suit – a shoulder-padded blue suit jacket over white shirt with a red tire, a US flag lapel pin on the collar. That was for talking to Congress and the Cabinet, making public speeches and announcements. On the front line, he wore a suit of Mk. 9 T-72 Powered Combat Armour, painted black with gold trim, a red-white-blue tricolour on both pauldrons, with the Presidential Seal embossed on the chestplate. For social and more informal occasions, he wore a white suit and fedora, the image of an old-style Virginia gentleman. But most of the time here, in the field, he wore an olive-drab LAS-009 overcoat, the same mark as his old Colonel’s uniform. Even during the ENCLAVE period, the US military’s high-ranked officers had never stopped wearing that old design, a heavy duty field coat suited for all environments. There were no rank insignia save a variant of the Presidential Seal threaded into the chest, the eagle’s head turned away from the olive branch of peace towards the arrows and lightning bolts of war.
As Commander-in-Chief, he could have had an even more elaborate version of the dress uniforms worn by his generals made; but he’d desisted from that. His men needed to see somebody like them, somebody who was willing to get down into the mud and blood and lead them to victory. Plus, he knew in his bones that all the tailors in the world couldn’t make something that fit him like the Colonel’s longcoat he’d worn for years.
One of the intelligence men was reporting about the pattern of Institute raids in recent years – it indicated, Whitley had confirmed, that they were working on a cold fusion project. That was important – Wilzig had been stalled on that for years, even after Autumn had removed him from the Army K9 breeding program at Chicago he’d been assigned to, a punishment for certain sympathies that’d been unwise to voice publicly at that time. Autumn had engaged in such practices himself – he’d given the hardliners, those who refused to stop making noises about “genetic pollution” and “wasteland miscegenation” the honour of being the first into the toxic hell that Pittsburgh had been, and the glory of recon missions into the deadliest rad-zones. Those that remained had been scattered among the furthest-flung outposts. But Wilzig’s talents in nuclear physics had been wasted, and even though the man was now in a place where his squeamish attitude wouldn’t bring him trouble Autumn still couldn’t help but feel …
Anyway. Maybe the Institute had found a missing link, or they at least had some different pieces of the puzzle. Cold fusion had been a theoretical reality since the 2040s, but considered impractical even after the room-temperature-superconductor revolution of the 2050s had made energy weapons and fusion power, among many other things, a practical reality.
Be that as it may, his wife was visiting soon for Christmas. Caroline was of old New England stock, eager to go back to where her roots were, and he couldn’t wait to see her again – neither could she him. He was to have other visitors soon as well - Secretary Richardson and his top subordinates at the DPI among others, but she, his Caroline, her face was the one he most wanted to see right now. God, it's been too long.
But at this moment, he was definitely hoping Nathan would arrive soon. The man was in an important position, led a militia that was taking up much of the slack for US military forces, had ties to local print and radio media … and was a genuine pre-War veteran soldier, a war hero who’d helped break the line at Anchorage. It was with Walker, that Vault 101 boy, all over again, but moreso – the kid had been essential in winning the war in DC, scouting Pittsburgh, recovering alien tech. He had a feeling Nate was meant for higher things than even Walker.
-*-
Nate knocked on the door to Autumn’s office, looking round it. The room was immaculately cleaned, to military precision – there was a neat stack of books on the President’s desk; Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, biographies of Chiang kai-Shek and Bismarck, among others. He’d seen two men leave just earlier – Whitley and an intelligence officer in a leather trenchcoat. There was a Secret Service man armed with a plasma rifle, in a black gold-trimmed dress uniform, guarding the door – another stood inside, never taking his eye off the President for a second.
“Mr. President,” he said. “I’d respectfully like to ask what the nature of this request is.”
“Staff Sergeant Saul J. Danse has informed me of your intent to enter the Glowing Sea,” Autumn said. “I’d like to know why you’d want to risk everything like that?”
“Mr. President,” Nate replied. “I’ve good reason to believe that there’s an Institute scientist in hiding there – a Dr. Brian Virgil, the only man we have access to who might have a chance of knowing precisely how their teleportation works. This isn’t just about my son that they’re holding hostage – the US also has a solid interest in ensuring we can either convince this man to defect or failing that, capture him.”
“To secure him as an asset,” Autumn said, musing as if he was recalling something or was deep in thought. “Yes, but the United States has other objectives that I would be interested in you fulfilling.”
“Such as?”
“Intelligence believes that there’s an intact Sentinel Site with a full atomic arsenal located in the Glowing Sea. Our recon units are stretched thin as it is – not to mention the lack of radio capacity in the area. We need people we can trust to do things without backup. US assets will provide vertibird support on entering the Glowing Sea, and I’ve also assigned you Danse as backup on this mission. However, I expect you to also, while looking for ‘Virgil’, do a recon mission on that site and give us a status update on it so we can later launch a mission to secure it and retrieve the atomic weapons. Don’t disappoint me.”
“I’ll do it, Mr. President.”
This complicated things. While a vertibird would be helpful, and Danse would be essential backup … he didn’t want to spend too long in that radioactive hellscape. Technically, he wasn’t obligated to do what Autumn asked – he was a civilian leading a militia working with official US forces, not a man in uniform. But his ‘request’ certainly had the feel of an order. He didn’t want the President to have reason to doubt his loyalty.
“Good luck, and Godspeed,” the President said as he left.
==*==
James Russell did not live in a mansion by choice. Were it his choice, he’d be staying in a myriad of motels, inns, taverns and bars as he went back and forth carrying goods and messages between California and the eastern NCR frontier. But the NCR had seen fit to reward him for his many public services, and as a result he lived in Whitney Heights, the , amidst Senators, Brahmin barons, disc jockeys and media magnates. It was almost as bad as the Sierra Madre!
Stirring awake at the repeated tones of the doorbell, he moved away from Sarah Russell nee Weintraub (pregnant again, and this time with twins. Was he ever going to be good at this fatherhood thing?), got dressed, rubbed the old bullet wound on his forehead and went to the door.
Two NCR Rangers greeted him, dressed casual in their tan-shirt duty uniforms and with their Sequoias holstered on their belts.
“Look,” he said. “I’m not going after Arcade for you. We’ve been over this before, I don’t know or care what he or his parents may have done, he was a friend and I’m not going to betray him like-“
“This isn’t about Arcade or any other war criminals,” the agent said. “Get into the Corvega and we’ll take you straight you to President Kimball for your briefing.”
He was driven down the winding roads and across Shady Sands – the sight of a moving car still making a stir even here – to the Presidential Palace on Council Hill, next to the Hall of Congress. The President spoke authoritatively, informing him of the mission.
“So you want me to lead this expedition, so deep into the wasteland the NCR has no clue what it’s like out there?”
“Why not you? You’re the NCR’s best agent, you’ve saved the Republic countless times. You killed the Legion’s top three men. You killed those madmen Elijah and Ulysses, both in terrain even First Recon would struggle in. You negotiated Mr. House’s surrender. Only the Chosen One himself ever did more than you, and he saved all humanity from genocide.”
“Half of all that was just trying to survive, Mr. President,” Russell replied, feeling nervous. He didn’t want to look too modest, but …
“If you were just trying to survive, you wouldn’t have gone out of your way to support the NCR’s cause. There’s no reason you can’t be our hero once again.”
“I’ll do this, on one condition.”
He paused.
“I want a pardon for Arcade Gannon. Before all of this, before I learned anything about his parentage, he was most of all, my friend. He’s never done a thing to hurt the NCR, and he hates his Enclave ancestry. If you have any decency, Mr. –“
“That can be considered, potentially … if you’re able to find him out in the wasteland.”
He knew what that meant. Kimball needed him more than he was letting on – both as the propaganda icon for the NCR the radio networks and papers had made him into and an expert at surviving far-flung dangerous places to get the job done. He had some leverage. But even then, the NCR President was most likely considering it not a serious offer. He’d offered it “potentially” … on the supposition that the man was actually found. A tall order for somebody who’d eluded NCR Rangers, Circle of Steel agents, and bounty hunters all sent after him. But still, it was a chance. A chance was always better than nothing.
"I'll go."
==*==
The sun was barely above the horizon when morning muster began at Lexington Elementary School, the bell ringing to mark the beginning of the school hours. The kids arrived soon, most being from the town, though a fair few were from the colonist families in Concord and a decent amount from the families of the married troopers, who were in the process of being settled at the nearby base. Jenny Dubois could easily tell the wasteland natives and the military brats apart, the latter being an inch or so taller than the former. Still, with the improved nutrition they were going to get, the difference should be made up fairly quickly.
At least these wasteland dwellers were already semi-civilised, and there wouldn’t have to be anything like the residential schools for tribal children here. “Kill the tribal, save the man” was the watchword there, and teachers were alleged to be ex-drill instructors who were perhaps a bit overly fond of military discipline.
Dubois checked her watch, and saw the time - 07:05 - noting that the kids were all here. Now she could move on to the most important part of morning muster – the Pledge of Allegiance.
“I pledge allegiance ...” she began, the children repeating after her, little fists held over their hearts.
“ ... To the President of the United States of America, to the Flag, and to our great Republic ...”
“ ... One Nation indivisible under God, with liberty and justice for all.”
They saluted then; and sang the National Anthem followed by a number of other patriotic songs, with varying degrees of skill. After that was done, she had them do push-ups the next fifteen minutes - they’d be doing a lot more of those in physical education later today, but a little extra never hurt.
School officially began at 07:30, and Dubois headed to the Principal’s office. Eight hours a day was bad enough on the teachers here – she guessed it must be maddening on the students. But still, they’d be receiving education here this place hadn’t had for two hundred years. When they were old enough to appreciate it, they’d be thanking God Almighty – and the US Government, of course – for those eight hours every day of their lives.
==*==
SCOUT REPORT 1124-ALPHA
TO: US Army Intelligence, Lexington AFB
FROM: Flight Lieutenant Camilla Carter
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Victory without determination, courage and most of all sacrifice is an oxymoron.
Took off at 0800 hours from Boston Airfield Military Base. Flew over central Boston, eliminated super mutants in the open near Faneuil Hall at 0830 hours. The USS Constitution has been outfitted with rocket boosters and is on top of a skyscraper – robotic crew is present, did not make contact with me hostile or friendly. Saw group of robots attacking raider gang at 0915 hours – not pre-2077 tech or C.I.T. androids, seem to be jury-rigged and built from scratch. Don’t know who’s constructing them, possible ally in region?
Turned south and flew over Quincy ruins at 1200 hours, no hostiles in area. The town is ripe for reconstruction and resettlement. Recommend immediate establishment of presence and fortification. Returned to base at 1230 hours with no further incident.
==*==
NCR Mojave Outpost, Mojave Territory
18 December 2287
James Russell, the “Courier” of NCR folklore, spent a lot of time out here these days, waiting for the day to come. Supplies were still being loaded, personnel taken on, operational plans being laid, for the longest-range expedition the NCR Rangers had undertaken. But anticipation was in the air at McCarran and Nellis as the time was soon. He’d been to the Lucky 38 several times, checking out his stash – that old talking stealth suit, the rebreather mask that madman Ulyssses had worn, Joshua Graham’s .45, and the world’s only holorifle. He’d be taking them all along with ED-E.
Occasionally he’d seen Cass round here, but she didn’t want to relive their fling or talk much about the night they’d spent together. She had her successful caravan business to run, and didn’t want to be tied down to any guy, even if he was him – and he was married now, at any rate. Last time he’d been through here, some months ago, it’d been about inheriting property – Doc Mitchell, the man who’d saved his life, had died and left him his house in the will. He’d been round, and he mused that it might be a better place than Whitney Heights for him and Sarah. He couldn’t bear the big shot politicians and fat cats that made that place home. It’d need refurbishing though.
Right now though, he was looking at the latest recruit – a man some would say was the best marksman in the whole NCR. Craig Boone, renowned as the best shot in First Recon, carrying on his back the anti-materiel rifle that’d been the bane of Brotherhood Paladins during the war back in the ‘70s and Legion centurions during the Mojave Campaign.
“So,” Russell said, “Just like old times, Boone?”
“Not like old times,” Boone replied. “We’ll be going further than the Rangers have ever gone. Even further than the Moore Offensive.”
Russell remembered that. The Rangers had led the way, as they always did, in the NCR’s great push eastward from 2282 to 2284. Operation Sierra, as it had been officially called, was a full-on invasion of Arizona, fifty thousand troopers advancing on two lines of movement down the remnants of I-10 and I-40, aiming at Flagstaff and Phoenix to put the Bull down for good, spearing it in both its head and its heart. At first, it’d gone well, the NCR pushing to the gates of Phoenix and more than halfway to Flagstaff in a few months. But then Oliver’s heavy troopers had struggled with exhaustion, many dying of heat stroke after months spent nonstop in the burning desert sun. Supplies had been carried more by brahmin-drawn wagons than motorized vehicles, as there were too few trucks coming out of the factories and too little biofuel to supply them. The vertibirds captured at Navarro were too precious, too irreplaceable, to use – even with the schematics taken in 2242, the microfusion that powered them was beyond the NCR’s ability to crack.
Badlands ambushes had mounted up, the NCR’s thin supply lines put in increasing jeopardy. There wasn’t enough food, enough water, enough ammunition, enough shells to keep moving forward. Every soldier who deserted or fragged an officer, every platoon or company wiped out because it ran out of ammo against Legion ambushes or wave assaults, had bled the NCR. And the Legion warlords started working together, like an immune reaction against an infection. Outpost after far-flung outpost went dark, and eventually the brass had figured they couldn’t even hold the line, never mind push on further into the badlands. So they’d ordered a retreat, pulled back to the east bank of the Colorado and enacted the NCR Navy Colorado River Patrol for good measure, then declared a policy of “pro-active defence”, whatever that meant.
General Cassandra Moore had branded the offensive with her own name, hoping to boost her prestige to unseat Kimball in the 2285 election. That had been sheer hubris – as it was, the failure of the NCR to achieve victory had damaged her political brand. Hitching her flag to any specific thing was a mistake she wouldn’t repeat, Russell knew that for certain.
“You scared?”
“Not really,” Boone replied. “I took out hundreds of Legion slavers in Moore’s great expedition, and I’ve killed men in power armour before. It’s about aiming for the joints. Don’t have anything back west to tie me down too – not like you. Tried making a life for myself there, after we threw those bastards back at Hoover Dam again, but never found a woman like my Carla.”
He spoke bitterly.
"If this is my last mission, I'm okay with that."
"You can't be-"
"Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to die. But if this is the end ... it's the end."
==*==
TRANSCRIPT OF PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
NEW CALIFORNIA RADIO
12/20/2287
[0:00]… And that was “California Dreaming” by The Mamas and the Papas. We interrupt the music to bring you breaking news live from Shady Sands. President Aaron Kimball has just made a speech addressed to the whole NCR.
[0:15] Citizens of the NCR, this is your President speaking. In the past weeks we have all heard shocking and distressing news, but however I urge calm. New California is majestic as the redwoods of Klamath, eternal as the Sierra Nevada Mountains, strong as the mighty waves of the Pacific. In the fullness of time, the threat of the Enclave will be dealt with once and for all by the full might of our armed forces. In the interim however, elements of First Recon will head east and discern the level of danger they pose. They are preparing to leave, to be the vanguard of the NCR military in the farthest east, right now. We honour them today.
They will make sure we will not be taken unawares again. The long march of history is on our side, just as it was against the Legion. I want to remind you all that we beat the Enclave twice before, and we can certainly beat them again!”
[00:40] In other news, Army operations against Tunneler nests in the western Mojave continue with mixed results …
==*==
20 December 2287,
Nellis Air Force Base, NCR State of Mojave
Russell looked at the vertibird, sitting on the tarmac at Nellis, and the First Recon squad that was to go with him. He knew their names – Carol-Anne Meyers, Craig Boone, and several others. They were dressed in standard-issue patrol armour, the NCR’s equivalent to pre-War combat suits. He himself though? He was dressed to the nines for this job.
He was wearing a white-and-black advanced stealth suit with incorporated artificial intelligence systems, a prototype he’d personally recovered from Big Mountain in California. On his back was a holorifle – the only holorifle in existence – he’d taken back from the Sierra Madre. His sidearm was Joshua Graham’s very own .45 pistol and on his face was an advanced rebreather mask rifled from the corpse of the mad Courier Ulysses. He’d taken a backup sidearm too, Benny’s 9mm pistol Maria. That little rat had tried to ambush him in the desert scant days after he’d saved the bastard from being crucified at Caesar’s Fort, and paid the price for it. It felt good to be back in action, away from the boredom of an upper-class lifestyle and the mad whirl of politics and business. The only thing bad about this was leaving Sarah behind.
This felt just like when he’d showed up at Fortification Hill, just as the Legion was making its final preparations to attack Hoover Dam. Boone was giving fire support with his anti-materiel rifle on one of the Legion’s own watch-towers, ED-E giving them all targeting data, he and Veronica in T-51 while Arcade was in his father’s APA … it had been a bloodbath, three power-armoured wrecking balls hitting to Caesar’s tent and out over a few hours. That had been thrilling beyond belief!
What will she think if I never come home?, he mused, then pushed the thought aside. He’d lived in plenty of places – the Presidential Suite of the Lucky 38, the town of Hopeville for a time, the new mansion in Shady Sands – but they’d never been his home. The road was his home. But still, Sarah …
It was risky, but he’d faced worse. The Sierra Madre. Legate Lanius. The Divide, the lonesome road he’d walked to the showdown with Ulysses. How bad could the Enclave be?
He looked around at the Boomers and the NCR troopers around him as he got on the plane. He saw Janet, that Crimson Caravan girl he’d help elope to Nellis, holding the hand of her four-year old son. She flashed a smile of gratitude at him; he couldn’t help but smile back. The little things were just as important, in the end, as the big.
In the cargo bay of the transport was the NCR’d provided for him six years ago, a T-51 suit with gold trim and the bear heads replacing the pauldrons, the sort of thing a high-ranking officer would wear. He’d never used it, but then he’d never had to. Every suit of power armour in NCR possession was rare and irreplaceable, just like the vertibird that was going to take him to the opposite corner of America. Hell, he’d heard of NCR troops requisitioning civilian supplies of old world medical drugs and chems that they’d lost the formulas to make. Hopefully this mission would change all that.
The v-bird’s engines roared as it began to take off, all cargo and personnel loaded, all pre-flight checks clear, and so on the morning of December 21 2287, they left the NCR.
==*==
Nate finished filling his backpack, noting the heft of it. Hopefully it wouldn’t delay him too much – staying in the Glowing Sea was not particularly conducive to one’s health, even if one was in power armour and loaded with rad drugs. His pip-boy kept playing its song as he prepared to enter his armour.
Valley Forge, Custer’s ranks,
San Juan Hill and Patton’s tanks,
And the Army went rolling along,
Minute men from the start,
Always fighting from the heart,
And the Army keeps-
He turned off the radio function as a messenger came in, wearing a Minutemen uniform that was too big on him. Barely more than a boy, he blushed and looked embarrassed as he began to deliver his message.
“Mister General,” he said. “Everything’s fine at the Castle. Colonel Davis has settled down, he and his people don’t mind wearing the uniform now. The wounded are recovering and the dead’ve been buried. We're resuming patrols in the local area.”
“Good,” he replied.
“Any word from Sanctuary?”
“Things are looking good. We’re getting more people heading in from the North, outside the Boston area, so we’re setting up more farms and looking to trade with the US people at Lexington. Oh, and give Preston a message.”
“What is it?”
“That I’m going somewhere incredibly dangerous, the most dangerous place in the Commonwealth. If I don’t come back from there by the end of the month, he’s to assume overall command of the Minutemen as acting General until I return or proof of my demise is recovered. Am I clear?”
“Good luck, Mister General.”
“Good luck for you too.”
He got on the motorbike and headed to Lexington. He ought to return it, not to mention he’d received news earlier today that his dog had made a full recovery and was waiting for him there. It was a fairly short ride from the Red Rocket station to the town, even with the roads snowed over, and he arrived at base quickly. His power armour had been already moved for him, and he got into it with a practiced motion.
Then he returned the bike and received his dog, Ace – who the hell came up with a name like Dogmeat anyway? - again. He’d ... changed a fair amount. They’d given him two red-glowing cybernetic eyes and replaced his legs with metal versions. A metallic dome protected his cranium instead of bone, and his teeth had been put out and replaced with cybernetic versions intended to be much more efficient at ripping flesh from bone. But he still licked his armoured hand and when he threw a twig, it followed its trained instincts and eagerly presented what it’d caught. Underneath the modifications, his dog was still the same. He put up the cyberhound his dog had become and put it on the vertibird.
Staff Sergeant Danse was there, also in armour, and the two men sat by each other as the doors closed and the v-bird took off. Foreboding filled the air.
“What do you think there is in the Glowing Sea?” Nate said.
“Ferals and super mutants, giant insects, deathclaws,” Danse replied. “I don’t think anything human could survive in there – not for long anyway, not for months as you think Virgil has.”
“You think he’s gone?”
“Even if he had a hazmat suit or power armour, he wouldn’t be able to find food, and he can’t have taken supplies for months with him.”
“Even so, he’s our only lead.”
“That’s true, Sir. But still, I’m concerned. What if those memories had been implanted in Kellogg as a decoy? A lure to send you to your death?”
“Look, Danse, it’s our only ghost of a chance. My only chance to see my son again. I’ll took anything that looks like that.”
“I understand, Sir.”
It was fifteen or twenty minutes before they arrived at the edge of the Glowing Sea. Before them was a lifeless expanse of barren scrubland – only the hardiest plants had survived the centuries of fallout, the bitter legacy of Chinese cobalt bombs and melted-down fission plants. Gamma-green lightning flashed in front of them, illuminating a sky shrouded by constant radioactive dust storms, the trees that would have held the earth together killed by fireball and radiation, leaving the wind to bring erosion over centuries. It would take decades to clear out this wasteland, to make it liveable again – if that was even possible. Once they had taken out their supplies the two soldiers trudged into the heart of the wasteland, Ace following behind them.
