Chapter One

"General Garvey, another petitioner for you, sir!" Preston's secretary, Bill Farmer, said as he poked his head in. He was at Sanctuary, with Vault 88 still being a secret to all but the men stationed there, and even then, they were on a communications lockdown, and although some were annoyed by it, they all obeyed. "Another man claiming to be Colonel Thiel, sir."

Preston groaned. Since Nate had pulled his vanishing act in the immediate aftermath of the raid on the Institute eight months prior, no more than five imposters had tried to take advantage of his name. Each of them was brought before Preston, where they were heavily dressed down and then locked in a cell for anything between a day and a week. He wasn't looking forward to yet another one.

"Send him in, Bill," Preston ordered, before organising his desk briefly. The door opened and two guards dragged a scraggly man in, wearing tattered clothes, covered in paint and oil. He looked more a raider than a Minuteman, which made Preston frown. "Where was he found?"

"Out by the gates, sir," the first guard stated, "he announced himself as Colonel Thiel. Captain Williams ordered him brought to you."

Preston withheld another sigh, before looking at the man.

"Well? What's your excuse?" He asked him. The man grinned.

"January Twenty-third, twenty-two-eighty-eight," he said to Preston, whose spine stiffened immediately. "I made you soup."

Preston froze, and examined the man once more. His hair and beard were streaked with grey, and flecked with red paint. He had broad lines of the same paint splayed across his face, almost like war-paint, and his hair was smeared with grease, being held back by a bandanna, but it was the eyes that gave it all away. He must have had coloured contacts in, but there was no mistaking those eyes, nor the way they pierced into his mind.

"Nate?"

"Well it's about damned time," his friend laughed, "I was worried no one was going to recognise me, and I even announced myself. Paranoid lot, aren't you?"

"Nate, what the actual shit!"

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Preston, after giving Nate one of the hardest punches he had ever thrown, had sent him to clean up, making him shower and shave, before reporting back to him. While he did that, Preston sent messages to Danse, MacCready, Nick Valentine, and all the others who needed to know. It would take them a few days to all arrive, and hopefully Preston would have the full story by then. Hopefully.

An hour later, Nate reappeared, his hair sheared so that it was perhaps an inch and a half long, and his beard was gone, leaving him clean-shaven once more, revealing the long scar that ran down his face. The tattered rags had been replaced with his uniform and a trench-coat to keep the cold weather at bay. A crowd had assembled outside the headquarters, and Captain Thomas Williams had been forced to create a cordon to let Nate through, which was promptly closed off before anyone could try and sneak in.

"Alright, where the hell were you?" Preston demanded. Nate was rubbing his jaw, which had a bruise forming already. Preston was almost proud of it.

"That's a… longer story than you can imagine," Nate admitted, "I didn't plan to spend so much time away, but I sort of started a revolution in a raider city to the west, and I felt compelled to see it through."

Preston blinked once. And then twice.

"I beg your pardon?" He asked.

"Right, let me start from the beginning," Nate said. "To the west, far west, almost in New York, is an old amusement park, Nuka-World. It was occupied by raiders when I arrived. They tried to put a slave collar on me, and as you can imagine, I didn't appreciate that very much, so I killed them all. Or, at least I thought I did. There were more of them waiting, and I was ambushed. They nearly killed me, but one of them decided I was too good of a fighter to just be executed, so they decided to watch me fight for entertainment.

"Stupidly, they dumped me in one of the parks with only a shiv, expecting me to die out quickly. Clearly, I didn't," Nate motioned to himself, "but I let them think that. It was a western themed park, so there were plenty of blank firing guns, and once I got the materials to build bullets, I was set. Only, there were… I don't know how else to describe them but carnivorous worms. I cleared them out of the park, and set up shop in the ride that went beneath the park."

"I waited a week or so to let them believe I was dead, and then I snuck into the main camp in the middle of the night one night. They were so drunk and stoned that none of them realised I wasn't part of their camp. That was when I found the traders, most of the original settler who were taken prisoner when the raiders captured Nuka-World." Nate's face darkened as he frowned. "They were all collared, primed to explode if they did anything wrong. Or if whoever controlled the buttons got annoyed with them one day. Now, I'm pretty smart, but defusing bomb collars? Not my forte. It took me close to a month to track down the raider who had wired up the collars. Then it took another few days of, ehm, persuasion, to convince him to show me how to disarm the collars. There was a catch, however. If too many of the collars were disarmed in short succession, the rest would detonate. I had to be careful, liberate the prisoners on the fringes of the amusement park, make sure that no one would notice them vanishing beyond the ordinary."

"And this led to a revolution… how, exactly?" Williams asked, leaning against the wall with crossed arms.

"I was content just freeing them at first, at least until I could teach them how to do it themselves, but I uh, got roped into going a bit further than that," Nate said sheepishly, "so I started teaching them how to fight. How to strip a gun, clean it, and reassemble it. How to press ammunition, stuff like that. Then I was convinced to teach them guerrilla warfare. I showed them where to strike, when to strike, and how to strike. That somehow led to me becoming the leader of this small revolution of escaped slaves and prisoners, which eventually led to the death of the raiders at Nuka-World, and those who had been imprisoned and enslaved taking over."

Williams was scrutinising Nate closely, and Preston was wondering why until the captain of his honour company started laughing loudly.

"You were seduced?" He asked in amazement. "She must be amazing!"

Nate's face fell. "She was. The raider's overboss killed her. That's why I decided to stay and fight in the end. Her name was Mira. She wanted to be free. She wanted her people to be free. Mira didn't get to live to see it, so I stayed and fought for that freedom. It was far less than she deserved, but it was all I could give her."

"Ah, I'm sorry," Williams mumbled.

"You couldn't know," Nate assured him.

"Sorry to interrupt, but what happened?" Preston asked, "afterwards, I mean. I'm sure you didn't just leave them afterwards."

"No, I didn't," Nate agreed, "I stayed behind for an extra month, helping them establish a proper system for ruling. They acceded to all of my decisions, but I left behind a council to rule. It's a mostly democratic process, but they're heavily invested in making sure that the raiders never take over again, so it's pretty military orientated, even with the new trade coming in."

"How do they feel about the Minutemen?" That was Bill Farmer. Preston wanted to remind him that he didn't have the authority to speak in these meetings, but Nate beat him to it.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" He asked, looking Bill up and down. "You're not wearing a uniform, which means you're not military—which makes you a secretary—and that means you shouldn't be speaking." But then he paused and looked at Bill again. "I remember you. You were my aide for a few weeks before the Institute raid. Huh. You've done well for yourself, kid."

"It's a good question," Williams said, shifting the focus from an increasingly nervous Bill to himself. "How do they feel about us?"

"Not very highly," Nate admitted, "they're angry that we didn't know about them. And that we never tried to rescue them. I don't blame them, to be honest. Our scouts have been that far west before, so I have no idea why we never knew about them."

"That's a good point," Preston acceded, "that's a very large oversight to be made. I'll look into it, but Nate, you need to know now, there's going to be an inquiry into your absence. Several of the other senior officers are demanding we try you for deserting, and they're supported by some of the newer officers—especially those from the larger cities."

Nate chuckled, leaning back in his seat.

"Let me guess, the faction is led by one Major Charles Farmer?" Nate asked, and Bill jerked upright, and opened his mouth, but a look from Thomas stopped him.

"Yes," Preston replied slowly, "how did you know that?"

"Ah, he's been gunning for my position since he became a captain," Nate shrugged, "why do you think he weaselled his nephew into being first my aide, and now your secretary? He wants information to use against me."

"I would never—" Bill began, but Nate cut him off.

"Kid, I'd stop now if I were you," he told him, "if you think I didn't know you were shipping off information to your uncle, you're very wrong. I chose what information you received. Made my job easier. I'd be surprised if you weren't doing the same thing."

Preston watched Bill, and to his disappointment, the boy squirmed under his scrutiny. He let out a sigh.

"Thomas, have Bill escorted to his room, and make sure he stays there. Two guards out front, one by the window. If he has a radio in his room, confiscate it." Preston ordered, before looking at Bill. "You've betrayed my trust, and all the oaths you swore when I made you my secretary. I'll deal with you later."

Thomas led Bill out and Nate let out a huff when they were alone.

"Where does Ronnie stand?" He asked.

"She's firmly in your camp," Preston told him, "as is Danse. MacCready is very vocal in defending you, and so is Major Savoldi, which means that you've got a fair chunk of the respected veterans. That's good for you."

"And what about you?" Nate knew better than to ignore the sway that Preston had.

"You know I've got your back in this," he assured him, "but I have to be impartial in this. I can't be seen as favouring you, especially not with six new senior officers, men who didn't participate in the Battle for the Institute. They don't know what we learned, what we already knew. They just know that you vanished after the battle."

"I guess we'll just have to see how it goes, then," Nate said with a wry grin. "Play it by ear, so to speak."

"We'll see," Preston agreed.

MMXVIII

I am a terrible person. Let me say it now. I deleted my other stories, except for Resurgence, because frankly, I can't be bothered to keep writing them. I've been struggling to have the motivation to write this sequel as well. I've had a lot of shit happen to me in those six months, including almost dying underground, having a dog die, and getting ready for college. It's been six months, and I just finished writing the first chapter. I am sorry for that. I'll try to do better. This story is rated M for reasons.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and feel free to leave me a review or send me a PM.

Cheers, SovietBabushka (who is not dead!)