Author's note: well, here goes my first fallout story, and my first SERIOUS story (gasp, what, no FFE4?) and, because it is scifi, I don't gotta explain most shit, but I will anyway. I hope you guys like my new idea:

FALLOUT: Texas

By: Michael Blackburn

In past fallout games, we (to my knowledge) always follow a hapless person coming out of a vault-tec vault, or how everything was permant 1950's music….time to change that;

Enter sgt Frank Hammer of the united states army, he was sent on a defense detail to prevent possible Chinese sabotage, but ended up in a strange situation when the bombs fell…..

Prologue

"An easy assignment"

?/?/2077

North Texas region, somewhere outside Austin…

"no…for the last time hammer, we are not airdropping you into chairman chengs house so you can kill him, you ARE getting guard duty!" the captain screamed as hammer kept ranting about his plans with the Chinese leader's entrails. The captain shook his head and said "look, I believe you could do it, but we are worried that the Chinese spec-ops are going to sabotage a important cryogenic facility sometime soon, and set our chance to improve plasma weapons back by decades! You and a squad of T-51b's are going to guard this place, and THAT IS THAT. Dismissed sergeant!"

Hammer was growling angrily as he walked to ready room; guard duty was what they issued pussies and privates, not hard-ass war vets who had 100+ confirmed kills! He could have been taking part in the invasion of the Chinese mainland, but NOOO….apparently, it's not politically correct to kill the women and children first, so the general sent him back to the place he was trained, as far as possible from the battlefield he thrived on.

As he walked down the hall, a recruit ran up to him and said "what happened sarge? Did they deny your plan again?" he nodded and said "they sure did…and it was a dandy too…..listen rookie, suit up in your T-51 and report to the ready room, we gotta get ready for a baby-sittin' op. AGAIN. The rookie nodded and headed to the armory; hammer had to hand it to the rookie, he was NCO materiel.

He walked into the ready room, and minus the rookie, the entire team was sitting about, "playing" with their weapons; pvt. Jackson was checking out the safeties on his M-60 universally known as "big box", cpl. Jonas was fixing the bowie knife-bayonet combo on his 870 MCS. He walked to the center of the room, where his chair was; in his chair was his MK3A1 jackhammer he affectionately named "the blender" as it had a 12-round drum with FRAG rounds.

He slung blender over his shoulder and holstered his 10-mm pistol; he faced his men and screamed "SQUAD ATTENTION!" he smiled with pleasure as he heard 6 sets of feet snap together at once, and seconds later the rookie ran in, donning his T-51, and holding his gauss rifle; within seconds he was at attention.

Hammer then said in order-voice "our mission is to guard the cryo-factory from red Chinese saboteurs, while we are being transported there, I shall go over defense plans so we can fortify the factory….got it?" the squad yelled "YES SIR!" he smiled and said "grab anything you need from the armory and report to the motor pool in 30 minutes, that is all."

He left the room as his men dispersed.

(30 minutes later…)

The troop truck was speeding down the road, as hammer handed a copy of the factory's floor plan to the rookie, so he could set up a sniper's nest. He looked over to Jonas and saw him screwing around with the radio; personally, he didn't like half the music that was the "norm" up north; the shit was over 50 years old at this point. But, the radio blared out different music, with guitars; the radio announcer said "This is the psychedelic music show at AFVN. I'm Army Specialist Zach Johnson. Our APO here is 96309. If you send a request to that number, what we do is, we open it like this. When it arrives, we read it, pull out that record, and play it on the air, like this one: 'Fortunate Son" by CCR."

He listened as guitar music blared out off the speakers; for the first time in years, he actually found music he liked; he noted the radio station on his wrist mounted "tac-boy" (a militarized version of the civvie "pip-boy") as they neared the cryo-factory. He looked at the rookie and asked "so…do you know what they call this new stuff on the radio?"

The rookie turned and said "the captain calls this quote-en-quote "crap" rock music; it mostly is popular down south, but in a year or 2 it should head up north, and kick that boring crap to another station, but that's just me, sarge." Hammer chuckled and said "kid, you're gonna make one fine army grunt!"

They quieted down as the trucks pulled into the plant's parking lot, and got on foot heading for the front door; hammer had bad vibes; for guard duty, he found it weird that a military research plant had no MP's at the front gate, or how the front gate was wide open, on that note. He gave the hand sign to be quiet as he slowly opened the plant's doors; he walked in, and half-expected the secretary to shit her pants, but no-one was there.

He turned to his men and said "I got a bad feeling about this; lets spilt up in teams of 2, Jackson and Jonas, go to the factory floor, you two guys go upstairs to the top part of the factory, me and the rookie will go through the offices and sneak to the back of the factory, so if you guys run into anything, we can get the jump on em, move out!"

As his men dispersed, he handed a 870 to the rookie and said "I don't think your rifle will be good here; and also, if this is a sabotage by Chinese, keep an eye on our six, I lost a bunch of troopers because a "crimson dragoon" would sneak up behind us and stab em' in the back…lastly, these guys may be using stealth shit, so keep a eye out for patches of air that "shimmer" like it's hot or something, let's go."

As they slowly crept into the office complex, he smelled something in the air; it was the smell of the battlefield. It was the smell of fresh blood. He tensed up, keeping an eye on his corners as he slowly kept moving; he glanced back for a second, and saw the rookie, still as a stone, observing a particular spot in a corner.

Hammer activated squad secure coms and said "what do you see, rookie?" after a few seconds, the rookie replied and said "so…stealth looks like the air is hot, right?"

"Yeah…keep talking to me, rookie…"

"Uh….when I say go, whip around with a suppressed SMG or something and open fire"

"Oh…fuck….what do you see? Spit it out!"

"well, if one stealth looks like a patch of hot air we got like 6 guys behi—AHHHHHGH-KZzz-"

Hammer instantly whipped around with his MK3 and caught a glance of a dragoon pulling his sword out of the rookie's gut, and trying to go invisible again; hammer opened fire, his FRAG rounds blending both visible and invisible red Chinese bastards.

As he dropped the empty drum out of the jackhammer, he saw the rookie, holding his guts in with one hand, pistol in the other yell "DUCK SARGE!"

Hammer hit the ground as rookie pulled the trigger, splattering the brains of a red who was about to drive his sword into his back. He pulled a stim-pack out of his armor, and ran to the rookie's side, the rookie gasping for air, trying to stay calm.

Hammer say relief fill his face as he inserted the stim-pack; the rookie looked at him and said "will I be all-right sarge?" hammer, knowing what would happen said "let's not lie to each other; your guts are hanging out….Jonas got some bio-foam, just stick with me, buddy, you can make it!"

The rookie's face went dead-serious as he said "look…I know I'm not gonna make it….but, tell my fiancé…that….I did my best…" the rookie's eyes closed and his head went limp; hammer set him down, and typed a code in on his armor that disabled it so the red's couldn't capture it.

He got on the radio and said "Jonas…inform command…that Chinese spec-ops have infiltrated the plant…and that we got a man down."

"Rodger, command has been notified, wait…hang on—AMBUSH! GET DOWN JACKSON!"

The radio went silent as hammer yelled "JONAS! RESPOND!" he slammed another drum into his jackhammer as he broke into a dead run for the factory floor. He rounded a corner and saw a Chinese sniper firing into the factory floor with a .308 just in front of him; he pulled his trench knife out and "liberated" him of his throat.

He picked up the rifle and looked through the scope; it just so "happened" that a few Chinese were firing from cover, their backs facing him. In rapid succession, he turned the red Chinese into red mist as he fired sniper rifle with deadly accuracy; if nothing else, this was for the rookie.

He dropped the rifle on the ground as he jumped down to the factory floor, jackhammer blazing; his men had gotten the upper hand now, and the Chinese were heading between the gigantic cryo storage tanks; to him, it looked like another ambush.

Just as he was reaching for his radio, Jackson ran around the corner, and a few seconds later a muffled explosion of an AP mine, along with bloody chunks of armor flew out from the corner; his prediction was horribly right.

He saw the skylight window break as Chinese reinforcements rappel in, overwhelming his men on the catwalks; what had started as a simple assignment was becoming a final stand.

He ran for some cover between some cryo tanks as 5.56 bullets whizzed past him; he was pinned and he couldn't do a god-dammed thing. As he heard the Chinese land on the factory floor, and slowly move to his position, he saw a blinding flash of light, followed by an ear-splitting explosion; he had heard on many years ago, on a test range.

It was a nuke; world war 3 had just began.

He peaked up from cover, and though the factory windows, amidst the ground shaking, and the panicked cries of the Chinese, he saw the nuclear storm rushing to the factory. As the shaking increased, he heard a splitting of metal, and looked up; the cryo tank above him had ruptured. He raised his hands up futilely as the ultra-cold compound covered him, and began to harden; as he began to black out, he saw the blast blow most of the factory open, the Chinese turning into ash.

Then, his world was just black, cold, and what seemed to him,

Very, very dead.

Author's note: ok, before someone says "how come the nuclear blast didn't melt the ice?" well, the cryo shit is like -2500, and it is also writers license, some more than others; I will keep working between FFE3 and this story, but I will wait and see what people think of my prologue before I put another chapter out.

Please review, I need to see what you guys think!