Bruce Williams, slowly opened his eyes and looked around his house in Megaton, even though he had a room at the Citadel and in the newly renamed Williams Tower he still preferred his little house in Megaton, especially now that the bomb in the center of the city wasn't going to blow any time soon. He rolled over and put his arm around his new bride; Sarah Lyons rolled over to face him and smiled. After the destruction of the enclave three years ago they had gotten to know each other better and a year ago they went the next step and began to date. Soon after Bruce had both asked her and her father for her hand in marriage and both had happily said yes. Yesterday had been their marriage day. They had been married three times, once by her father in the official Brotherhood's Steel Binding Ceremony, then by Father Clifford in Rivet City, and finally by Confessor Cromwell in Megaton.
Bruce was about to say something when his Pip-Boy began to beep signaling that someone wanted to talk to him. He sighed and put the message through. "Sorry to bother you Bruce but the council members have called for a meeting, its about what Riley and her people found and you need to grab Colin on your way too." Derek Pacion said "Oh and bring the Sentinel too we need all the members."
"Ok, we'll be over as soon as possible, I just woke up." Bruce said standing up "Good bye." He turned off his Pip-Boy. The Steel Wasteland Council had been the brain child of Bruce, Sarah and Elder Lyons. They had realized that while the settlements in the wasteland could defend themselves the wasteland as a whole was very dangerous. Bruce came up with the idea to attempt to unite the different settlements, to make them stronger and it would stimulate trade and travel. After some thought they had come up with the Capital Council. The Council would be made up of one representative from each settlement plus a Brotherhood representative a Regulator representative and a Head Councilman to keep order during meetings. Soon Bruce realized that the Brotherhood and Regulators were not enough to keep the peace and protect the Council controlled land. They decided to create the Army of the Steel Wasteland Council and add another seat on the council.
"Goddamn Council, I thought it'd be a good idea, but now it's just plain annoying." Sarah grumbled as she slowly got out of bed and stretched. She worked her way through her morning calisthenics not caring what her lack of clothing was doing to Bruce.
"Tell me about it, I haven't had a day off in weeks" Bruce agreed not able to take his eyes off his new wife. When she finished he turned around and began to get dressed. His first thought was his power armor but decided against along with his combat armor. He eventually decided to go with his leather armor, his sheriff's duster and hat. He turned back around to see Sarah in her power armor looking him up and down. "Yes, can I help you?" he said.
"No I was just thinking you might want to put something nicer on is all" Sarah said
"She says wearing her power armor." Bruce shot back
"I'm allowed to, I'm the Brotherhood's rep in the council." She said smiling
"I'm not even on the council." Bruce said.
"All the more reason for you to dress nicely." She said poking him in the chest.
"Bah, I'm wearing this and I'm not changing; besides we've already wasted enough time. I'll go get Colin and you get a vertibird. We'll meet you at the gate. The sooner we get there the sooner this is over." He said walking towards the door. Sarah rolled her eyes and began to put a call into the Citadel.
Bruce stepped out of his house and into the now busy city of Megaton. With the defeat of the Enclave and the disarming of the bomb the city had grown significantly over the past three years. So much so that most of the original megaton was not large enough to hold all the people so most residents live outside the city in the rebuilt Springvale. Bruce began to make his way over to Moriarty's saloon on the other side of Megaton.
After weaving his way through countless people and going up and down the walk ways Bruce mad it to the saloon. Even though it was 10:30 in the morning the saloon was busy, but the saloon was always busy. When Bruce walked in the first thing he heard was Gob yelling at him from the bar, "Hey Bruce what can I do for you?"
Walking over to the bar Bruce called back "Hey Gob, where's Colin, we need him for an emergency council meeting."
"Moriarty is not gonna like that, he's in the back room doing I don't know what." Gob said sliding a beer down the counter to someone.
"Thanks Gob, hopefully it won't be a long one." Bruce said walking away from the bar and towards the back room. His knock on the door was immediately followed by a 'what?' from Colin. "Hey Colin it's me."
There were the sounds of a person getting up, falling and getting back up again before the door was wrenched open and there stood Colin with a big red bump on his forehead. "What is it kid, I'm busy."
"Too bad, Council is calling an emergency meeting so we need to go."
"What now I'm busy, I also run a business you know." Colin said getting angry.
"Hey first off you are on the council I'm not and second I don't like it either, but the sooner we get there the sooner we can get back. Now come on I got a vertibird waiting for us." Bruce said turning around.
"Alright, alright, fine I'll come." Colin grumbled following Bruce.
They walked out of the saloon in time to see their vertibird fly over the city. They quickly made it through the town making detours around the construction sites in the city. Ten minutes after leaving the saloon they walked out of the gate and headed toward the newly refurbished town of Springvale. They were able to make out the dust stirred up by the vertibird over near the newly repurposed landing pad. They quickly made their way over to an unhappy looking Sarah Lyons and the vertibird.
"Well you two sure did take your sweet time didn't you?" Sarah said walking over to meet them.
"It took Colin a little while to get ready to go and with all the new construction we had to take detours." Bruce stated.
"You know what, I don't care just get in the goddam bird and let's go." Sarah said turning around and stepping onto the bird. The men quickly followed her onto the vertibird with saying anything.
As soon as they were strapped in in their seats the vertibird lifted off form the landing pad and began to fly in the direction of Rivet City. Bruce looked down as they passed over the newly repopulated town of Grayditch and remembered the day Brian Wilks came running up to him begging him to help save his home. Soon after they passed directly over the Citadel and Bruce caught sight of the hundred or so initiates running laps around the yard and could imagine Gunny's voice berating them to work harder. Off to his right he saw the purifier surrounded by the base of operations for the joint Brotherhood, Rivet city operation.
As the vertibird landed on the flight deck Derek walked out to greet them flanked by two Rivet City security members. When the vertibird touched down all three stepped off and hurried over to meet Derek. "You need to hurry everyone else is already here." Derek said shaking hands with all of them. They hurried along through the ship until they reached the council room.
The council room itself wasn't all that impressive. It was a large room with most of the light at the center and at the center was a ring of ten desks, seven desks for the six city representatives and the head councilman and one each for the Brotherhood, the Army, and the Regulator representatives. In the center of the ring was a raised platform. The platform was used by non-council members to deliver information and speak. Ringed around the council seats was a ring of thirty chairs used by spectators and visitors. All but two of the desks were occupied and soon Sarah and Colin took their seats. Bruce took a seat in the visitor ring behind Sarah.
Hannibal Hamlin, the head Councilman stood up to begin the meeting. "Now that everyone is here I propose we start this emergency meeting. The reason for calling this meeting is the return of Riley and her rangers from their scouting trip to the north. Her information was presented to Army Representative Smith, Regulator Representative Farber and Elder Lyons of the Brotherhood of Steel. After reviewing the information all three agreed that an emergency council meeting is necessary. Elder Lyons declined the invitation to come speak before the council. He stated he has complete faith in his elected reprehensive. Riley will now give her complete report to the council" Hannibal sat back down.
Since to elimination of the Enclave they Brotherhood and then the Council began to take back the DC ruins and the surrounding areas from the supermutants, Riley and her rangers had originally been hired as mercenaries to aid in this effort. When the ruins had been reclaimed Bruce approached Riley with an offer. Her rangers could be integrated into the Council Army as scouts and special operations, she would still be paid the same but she would have Council backing and support. Riley had accepted the offer a year ago and had since been sent on recon and scout missions outside of the capital wasteland to locate new settlements and decide whether peace could be made.
Riley rose from her seat and stepped into the center of the council ring and stepped up onto the platform. Riley was wearing her ranger combat armor and her hair tucked up into a ponytail. "The Rangers and I went northeast towards Baltimore as the Council had instructed. We left from Canterbury Commons seven days ago. We followed the road as best we could. We passed very few people on the road the first day. The first night we camped in an abandoned gas station the next day we walked for about four hours before we came across a small settlement called Scottsvale. The town had about fifty people total; they traded with us and were interested in where we were coming from. After telling them about the Council they said they were very interested in joining. They also told us about a major city four days northwest of them in an old mall called Brentwood. We spent the second night in the Scottsvale Inn and decided to head for Brentwood. We left Scottsvale and walked for five hours when we came across a group of about ten children hiding in an old building. The children told us that they were running from a place called The Orphanage that was a day's walk east. They said that it was run by an old man that had a bunch of robot helpers, everything from protectrons to robo-brains to sentrybots. They said that he was taking children and performing experiments on them and when they would come back they would be different almost sleepwalking and also they would never speak again.
We followed the kids back to The Orphanage and we saw signs of the Enclave. There were the prefabricated buildings, the Enclave sign was also on the compound, and finally we saw some Enclave troops leaving the compound when we arrived." When Riley mentioned the continued existence of the Enclave the air in the room suddenly changed and everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Riley. "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Council our worst fears are true, the Enclave still exists."
Hannibal stood up "Thank you for your report Captain Riley. I will now open the floor to question and comments". Immediately Baron the Rivet City representative stood up.
"Well I think the next step is quite obvious. Restrict travel toward the orphanage area, beef up our defenses and wait for the Enclave to come to us." As soon as Barron sat down Sarah stood up.
"I think that is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard. It has been three years since we defeated the Enclave. They have had three years to mount an attack against us. The fact that they haven't even revealed their presence in that time shows me that they are not strong enough to oppose us. Also the captains' report included two settlements one that helped our people and wants to join the council and one that sounds like a possible ally and trading partner." Sarah took a deep breath and continued. "Furthermore if we want to expand our borders and open up to new communities then we can't be afraid to fight. No matter which direction we go we will eventually encounter a hostile force. I'd rather it be one that we have fought before and defeated." When Sarah sat down there was some light applause and a nasty look from Barron.
"I agree with Sentinel Lyons on this one," Said General Smith standing up "we have fought the Enclve before and defeated them also I'm sure that everyone will agree that we need to expand our borders if we ever want to grow our civilization. Our troops can win this battle, after reviewing the information that Commander Riley has provided I do believe that we have the man power to defeat the Enclave once and for all."
Barron quickly stood up again "If we do decide to attack the Enclave how long do you think it will take, how are we supposed to keep order here if all of our troops are off fighting?" he calmly asked.
This was Representative Farber's cue to speak "In case you have forgotten Mr. Barron keeping the peace within Council controlled lands is the duty of the regulators. Furthermore I'm sure General Smith and Sentinel Lyons will agree with me when I say it would be unwise to devote all of our troops to this attack." He received nods from both people "Finally this conflict should not take too long to complete, it will take longer to organize the troops than it will to win this battle"
Bruce decided it was time for him to weigh in on the subject, "Mr. Hamlin if I may," Hannibal nodded to him "I support this attack for more than just to see the Enclave completely destroyed. I also think that the settlements that we have discovered would be of great benefit to us, both in trading but also in population we all know how much our armed forces need more soldiers." He took a deep breath and continued "I believe that we need to also make contact with this Brentwood city, I am willing to take a small force to the city and attempt to convince them to join the council."
After he sat down it appeared the no one had anything else to add. "As Head Councilman," Hannibal said standing "I pose a vote, all those in favor of attacking the Enclave raise your hand." Everyone except Barron raised their hand. "The motion passes plans for the attack will begin on the conclusion of this meeting. Now the second matter at hand all of those in favor of making Bruce Williams the official ambassador of the Steel Wasteland Council raise your hand." This time all hands went up. "The vote passes, congratulations Mr. Williams on your new title. You will be expected to leave tomorrow." Bruce nodded his head but wondered what the hell he had gotten himself into. "This meeting is now finished have a nice day all of you."
Bruce stood up and walked out to wait for Sarah. When she did emerge from the council chambers she said "Really, we can't even be married for 24 hours before you get yourself sent off on another mission."
"Sorry about that I thought I would have a few days to get ready. Now I have the rest of today to get ready. Now I need to get a drink from the Muddy Rudder."
"It's 1:00 you don't need to start drinking now." She said sternly.
"It's not for me I need to go talk to a friend." He gave her a quick kiss and headed toward the stairwell.
AUTHORS NOTE
Hey guys I am looking for a beta reader for the rest of this story.
I know this chapter is kinda short but I just wanted to get this out and see whether I should continue it.
Also please, please let me know what you like and what you didn't.