Chapter 1: 2277 Adams Air Force Base
I woke to the sound of sirens blaring. My head, throbbing, footsteps pounding.
Around me my comrades rushed forth, climbing into their massive, monstrous suits, taking hold of their weapons, prepared to kill all enemies that might confront them. They marched, uniformly, almost gallantly, down to the battle being waged below.
The sound of a muffled explosion, and the subsequent shockwave it produced nearly caused me to roll from my bed, and strike the floor. Surely, I would have been trampled beneath the unfeeling, unceasing metal footfalls.
Perhaps, looking back, as my hands instinctively reached out to grab hold of the bed posts for my salvation, it would've been better to let myself fall. To succumb to sweet, eternal sleep, rather than deal with the hell outside.
"Attention, attention! This is Major Johnathan Anderson! All men, prepare your battle stations! Soldiers, to the ground, airmen, to the vertibirds! This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill!"
My fears had been confirmed. Somehow, we had been discovered.
I leapt to my feet, no more than a mere second before an officer, a man I recognized as Captain Jordan Chase, barged his way into the barracks. Immediately, I scrambled to climb inside my suit, to take hold of my rifle.
"Private!" the officer screamed, storming furiously towards me, "do you think you're special, that you get to straggle behind the rest of the soldiers?"
"No sir," I replied, as my suit closed in around me, like a cold, metal cocoon.
"Get your ass in line, private, and get to your fucking battle station," Captain Chase snarled, "these cultists are tearing our boys apart, private. Every fucking second you waste, the savages get one step closer to eradicating the last of the United States' government, once and for all!"
"Yes sir, Captain Chase," I said
It was fortunate that a helmet covered my face, or the captain would've seen my lips tremble, and my eyes water.
As quickly as he had entered, Captain Chase barged his way out, to begin barking orders again.
I proceeded to strap my plasma pistol and grenades to my belt. I'd never before used either of these weapons, and hoped I wouldn't today.
Lastly, I took hold my rifle. I cradled it close, as the massive fingers of the armor threaded their way into the workings of the weapon.
I breathed in, breathed out. Took one last long look at the barracks that had been my home, ever since I'd enlisted in the army. I fought back thoughts that maybe, just maybe, I could still run away. Run from this, from the war, from the army. Run, and for the first time in my life, be truly free.
"Cultists are everywhere!" I heard Captain Chase shout, as he ran down the corridor, "prepare Squad Sigma! Stand ready at the entrance!"
Not wishing to confront the captain a second time, I began to run for the stairs, down to the bulkhead. From there, I could make my way outside, to the frontlines.
The gunfire, the explosions, the screams grew all the louder as I approached the door. For a brief moment, I rested my hand on the handle, and hung my head. But I knew that I had to go out to the battlefield.
I just didn't want to die.
The door swung open, and my feet began to thud down the rampway.
All around me, soldiers were taking cover, tentatively peaking their heads over the small walls to fire at the oncoming cultist horde.
"Soldier!" a fellow soldier stood up, waving his hand.
As quickly as the man had risen, his head and hand were shredded apart, spraying chunks of bone, blood and brain matter to the cement behind him. The lifeless body fell back, even as more bullets ripped their way through the chest and shoulders of the corpse.
"Oh god," I couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't think.
"Soldier, get your ass into cover!" a hellfire troop shouted over the din of the chaos ensuing.
"I ran for the cover where the headless soldier hand once waved only seconds ago. I looked around, to see another soldier beside me.
"These cultists, they're insane," the man gasped, "they're shredding through our lines, like they're unstoppable. I-I-I don't know what to do,"
The soldier's head dropped into his hands, as he began wailing.
I raised my rifle and faced the onslaught coming towards us.
Dozens of cultists, in their bulky, unrefined suits of armor, armed with assault and laser rifles, continued pressing towards us. They seemed invincible, even as the occasional blast of plasma would drop members of their ranks.
A spray of laser fire narrowly missed my face, instead pounding away at a chunk of metal behind me.
Immediately, I ducked, to see the constant blast strike, like a blade, severing a man clean in half, bloodlessly, as the laser continued its unfeeling, unthinking sweep.
"Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!" the soldier next to me cried, pounding his fist repeatedly against the cement.
I took a few wild shots from my plasma rifle, before ducking down again. I knew I hadn't hit a target, but I had directed more fire my direction.
The hellfire troop who had yelled at me earlier rose to his feet, and began a charge forward, letting loose balls of fire from his incinerator.
"Burn, you anti-American sons of bitches!" he screamed and laughed.
I peeked up, to see two of the cultists, rolling on the ground, being cooked alive. I knew they were screaming, even if I couldn't hear them, even as the hellfire troops rushed forward.
But a cultist in white, pristine power armor raised his rifle, and shot the soldier twice in the head, stopping the hellfire troop in his tracks. My eyes widened with fear and horror.
"It's the Lone Wanderer! Kill that fucker, and we'll end the whole motherfucking war!" I heard someone scream from above me.
I looked up to see the commander, and president of the United States, Major Anderson, yelling from atop the mobile base. And behind him, two vertibirds rose.
"God bless the United States Air Force," I heard someone say.
The vertibirds began spraying machinegun fire down upon the cultists, shredding through the power armor as easily as though it were punching holes in tin cans. The soldiers around me cheered, even as more of our men were gunned down.
"You see, we're saved, for sure," I said, placing a hand tentatively on my companion's arm.
No sooner had the words left my mouth, then I heard a thundering crack, and saw a brilliant flash of lightning. As though God himself had averted his wrath upon us, the lightning struck the first of the vertibirds dead on, and the thing exploded, sending shrapnel raining down upon us.
I ducked, placing my hands over my head. I knew this battle was surely lost, and I began to scream and cry, like a child.
Another flash of lightning appeared, coming from a weapon held by the man in the white armor, striking the wing of the second vertibird, sending it spiraling out of control. The cultists had stolen our one salvation.
I heard moaning, and turned, in horror, to the soldier on my right. A jagged piece of shrapnel had impaled him, and now protruded from his stomach.
"Pull it out, please," the man wheezed, begging.
"I can't, I'm sorry, I can't" I replied weakly, as I swallowed the vomit that rose in my throat.
"Please help," the man pleaded, pawing pathetically at the chunk of metal.
I took hold of the shrapnel, turned my head, and pulled, with all of my strength, until I tumbled back, the bloodied edge of the metal smearing the visor of my helmet. Frantically, I tossed the thing aside, and flattened myself against the cover.
"Oh, oh god, please."
My head turned in horror, as I saw the soldier clutching at his abdomen, his intestines spilling out between his fingers, like great wet snakes. Blood and bile leaked from the poor soldier.
"God, please. Mom, mama, mama, please, let me go home," The soldier wept, clearly in an agony that I could never compare to.
I pulled a stimpak from my satchel, ignoring the plinking of bullets and lasers striking our cover, my fingers shaking. I had no idea what to do. My eyes squeezed shit as I began to cry at the futility of it all, pressing myself even more tightly against the cover.
I saw the body of an officer, with shards of metal protruding from his torso at many angles, fall from the top of the platform, and splat only three feet from me. I let out a squeal of terror.
"Save me, save me, save me, mama," the soldier's voice grew weaker.
Knowing not what to do, I stabbed the stimpak into the man's stomach, into his entrails, and depressed the plunger.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I heard someone scream, before a well-placed shot from a laser rifle blew off half of his face, sending his tumbling over his cover to the ground.
"L-look, I-I-I'm sorry. I can't" I said, tears still blinding me.
Frantically, I lobbed both my grenades, hoping I could take out at least one of these cultists, punish them for what they had done. I closed my eyes, covered my ears.
But the explosion never came.
I poked my head up from cover, letting loose several shots from my rifle, to see that a cultist had leapt atop the grenades, arms and legs spread wide. But the blast never came. And the confused cultist climbed to his feet, inspecting the grenades, before pulling the pins, and hurling them back.
Of course, the pins. How could I have been so stupid, to forget something like this.
My grenade landed at my feet, now live, and ready to explode. So I ran.
Back up the ramp, screaming all the way. Back through the hatch, safely inside the massive, monolithic mobile platform. And I hid.
Only a few seconds had passed, before the door was kicked open, and the man in the white power armor entered. His gaze lingered upon the robot workshop, before moving to the weapons storage, and stairwell.
I pressed myself into as small of a space as I could, praying that if a God were still out there, still alive, that he would protect me.
Suddenly, soldiers emblazoned with the red stripes of Squad Sigma barged their way down the stairwell. The lead man locked eyes with the cultist's.
"Fucking hell, it's the Lone Wanderer!" the lead squad mate shouted, before two bullets burrowed their way into his helmet, spraying his comrades with blood.
The Lone Wanderer rolled to the side, unleashing a spray from his assault rifle, killing two more of the most elite soldiers left in the United States Army.
A pulse grenade flew from the Lone Wanderer's hand, landing at the bottom of the stairwell, before exploding. Electricity crackled through the air.
The Lone Wanderer charged forward, firing up and into the stairwell. Behind him, a squad member emerged, holding a ripper chainsaw.
The Lone Wanderer barely had time to spin and blocked the attack, which cleaved his rifle in half. The squad mate swung yet again, but the Lone Wanderer, no longer off balance, caught the attack with one hand. With the other, a knife was drawn, and plunged into the squad mate's throat.
I knew that all of Squad Sigma was dead.
But I also knew I had a chance to kill the military leader of the Brotherhood of Steel. A chance to kill the Lone Wanderer.
I rose from where I said been crouching, and drew my pistol, for my rifle had been dropped at some point on the battlefield, although I couldn't remember when. My hands trembled, my aim was unsteady, but I fired.
The plasma blast didn't even come close to hitting it's target. But it did cause the Lone Wanderer to whip around, pistol drawn and ready.
I felt hot tears run down my face, as I began bawling. The pistol slipped out of my hands. I knew that this was where I would die.
"Please, please don't kill me, please," I sobbed.
But the Lone Wanderer did something unexpected. Rather than shoot me, he lowered his weapon, and removed his helmet.
What I expected of the man who epitomized the Brotherhood of Steel, the man responsible for the destruction of the government of the United States, the deaths of President Eden, Colonel Autumn and so many other good men and women, I did not know. But what I saw was the last thing I would expect.
The man before me was not a man at all, but a child, no older than I. He had a scruffy, patchy beard and long, shoulder length dark hair and bright, youthful eyes. Scars of acne marked around his lips, and not a single wrinkle appeared on his face.
"Does my appearance not meet your expectations?" the Lone Wanderer smiled sadly, "were you expecting a scarred mercenary? A hateful paladin? Something not even human at all?"
I was speechless.
"I heard somewhere that the purpose of mankind is to kill. And after all my days in the Wasteland, I cannot find fault in this statement. But I know, our purpose can change. We may be a species designed to crave conflict, but we can change, we can redeem ourselves. This is something my father, James, once believed, and something I must believe as well. For my brothers, sisters, for my wife, Sarah," the Lone Wanderer shook his head.
"What about you? What about me?" I forced the words out.
"Whoever it is you are, you are never beyond redemption. This is while I spared Colonel Autumn. And this is why I'm sparing you now. Because I can see, you're a child, just like me. And of all things, war is certainly no place for children," the Lone Wanderer sighed, "but I suppose, after all, that's the thing about war. War never changes."
With that, the Lone Wanderer put his snowy helmet back on, and made his way up the stairs.
"He's right, you know. You should get out of here," I heard someone say behind me.
I turned, "Doctor Whitley."
"Yes, Scott, I'm still alive," Dr. Whitley looked down, "I recognized your voice. And now, I must ask that you do me a for, with the opportunity you have been presented."
"Yes sir. I'd do anything, after what you did for me," I replied.
"I have an eyebot, with information contained in it. Dangerous information, that could change the world. I want you to take it, and go west, to the NCR. They can help you."
"The NCR?" I asked, the name sounding vaguely familiar.
"Yes, the New California Republic. You have a long, difficult journey ahead of you. But it is absolutely vital that the information contained is not taken by the Brotherhood of Steel, or any other group of people you come across. And I realize how momentous of a task this must sound. But I need this, I can't abandon my post, now that I am commander. As such, you can consider any debt owed to me, completely forgiven."
"Yes, sir," I stammered out.
"And as commander, I hereby issue you an honorable discharge, and relieve you of your post, Private Scott Delaney."
The eyebot beeped and whirred, and it buzzed towards me.
"What are you waiting for? You must go!" Dr. Whitley ordered.
I reached the entrance, before turning back to the doctor, "Dr. Whitley, thank you. For everything."
"Scott, promise me this. Promise me you'll never let the wasteland change you. Promise me you'll never kill," Dr. Whitley outstretched a hand.
"I promise, sir," I nodded.
"Thank you. I'm glad I took you in," Dr. Whitley covered his face, "God be with you, my boy. I hope we meet again."
That was the last time I ever saw him.
